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digital publishing industries

New Study Estimates How Many Billions Google & Meta Owe Publishers

The response time of a Google search result is less than a tenth of a second. For some reason, that’s the first measurement I thought of when I read the recent study of what Google and Facebook might owe U.S. publishers for their content. Using that near-instantaneous micro-metric of a search response, the total tab for the two tech giants comes out to somewhere between $37.73 and $44.07 every tenth of a second. Or, as the study’s more-rounded estimate puts it, between $11.9 billion and $13.9 billion a year.

The Power Of Partnership: How The CEO–CMO Relationship Can Drive Outsize Growth

Amid a challenging macroeconomic environment and rapid change, CEOs are searching for the next engine for growth. The answer may be right in front of them: a redefined and reinvigorated relationship with their CMO.

Big Bucks Martech: Spend Is Expected To Hit Almost $700B This Year

Martech now accounts for 30% of all marketing budgets, and the total spend on martech and sales tech is estimated at $669.3 billion this year, a 31.5% over the $508.9 billion posted in 2022, according to State of Martech and Marketing, 2023/24, a global study by LXA, sponsored by Tealium. Moreover, 83% of CMOs expect increases this year. Still, budgets are getting squeezed and CMOs face numerous obstacles to fully achieving marketing efficiency.

The 2023 B2B Influencer Marketing Report: Elevate & Ignite

The question is no longer, “Does influencer marketing work for B2B?” We already know the answer. The question is, “How can we get the best results from B2B influencer marketing?” Or even better: “What are the most successful B2B brands doing that the rest of us are missing?” For this year’s third annual B2B Influencer Marketing Report, we surveyed over 400 B2B marketers to find out. Our respondents shared their successes, frustrations, accomplishments and best practices.

Branding Exercises: What Publishers Can Do To Improve Trust 

Content is king, as they say, but recent research by Toolkits and National Research Group has found a hierarchy even on that tier. 36% of consumers surveyed said they trust brand-published content more than content from traditional media sources and organizations. That includes newspapers, magazines, TV, and news sites.

 

Ad Duopoly Looks Over Its Shoulder As Amazon Ad Revenues Jump 26%

Amazon’s ad business is now one of the company’s fastest-growing sectors. Ad revenues enjoyed a 26% increase in Q3, totaling more than $12 billion — double Amazon’s 13% overall revenue growth. Amazon’s ad business has grown impressively over the last several years after a 57.6% boost from the coronavirus pandemic, per our forecast. We expect worldwide ad revenues to grow 18.9% to $44.88 billion this year and to reach $67.59 billion by 2025.

 

Study: Blogs Appear Most Often In Top Google Positions

Blog posts are the most common content type found in the top 5 Google positions, a new study has found. Multiple CTR studies show most organic clicks go to the top 5 positions on Google Search (around 69% to 74%). So prioritizing the types of content Google rewards with more visibility is only logical.

 

Report: US E-Retail Media Market Will Double To $85 Billion By 2026

Havas Market is out with a new report about retail media that examines the five most advanced western markets including the U.S., UK, France, Germany and Spain. … Havas cites Statista, IAB and SRI data indicating that e-retail media ad spend is growing at a rate of 15% to 38% across all markets. “This represents a growth rate 3 to 4 times larger than other digital media investments,” which also are still growing significantly. 

Risky Business: Should Publishers Preemptively Offer More Consent Choices?
Two out of three digital publishers in the United States don’t offer their consumers consent choices, according to a new report from Compliant and Peer39. And though, as Ray Schultz writes, U.S. publishers don’t have to contend with the same regulations as EU publishers, this absence of choices is “dangerous considering that the states are passing ever-tougher laws — for example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).”

Data Disruptor Dilemma: Brands Face Increasing Challenges To Quality
Businesses are being rocked by changes in technology and other shifts. And 88% think their discomfort is going to intensify over the next year, according to Mastering Tomorrow’s Markets: The Data Quality Revolution, a study by Experian. The biggest market disruptors are technology advancement in AI (33%), increased operational costs (32%), [and] depleting skills (29%).

Emerging Technology Trends
“One of the most astounding things about these technologies is that they are pushing the frontiers of economic growth. If we put generative AI together with the basket of automation technologies, we’re looking at a potential of $4.4 trillion of GDP growth globally. That is larger than the size of the United Kingdom.”

Announcing The Growth Report 2023: Special AI Edition
What once was material right out of Sci-Fi is now a part of daily life. From personalized product recommendations to ChatGPT, people are more curious about artificial intelligence than perhaps ever before. Despite some of the pessimistic rhetoric surrounding AI, like the innovation before it (the printing press, the computer, the internet, the cell phone anyone?), new technology brings new opportunities and 2023 is the year that AI exploration has begun to take root.

Agency Uncertainty: Is The Current Media Agency Model Working?

Most marketers feel their current media agency model either needs to improve or is unfit for the future, according to a new study by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and MediaSense. The report, entitled “The Future of Media Agency Models,” found that just 11% of the 70 multinational brands surveyed believe their current model fits their future needs, with 45% saying they are looking for more flexibility and 37% looking for simplification through fewer and better integrated partners.

State of the Digital Marketing Agency in 2023: Our 10 Biggest Takeaways

Our data shows that the hybrid billing model has grown in popularity over the last few years. In our 2020 report, flat fee and hybrid billing models were about equally common, but this year, almost half of all agencies we surveyed are using a hybrid billing model. “There are lots of options for how agencies can price their services. We’ve seen hybrid billing models grow in popularity because they provide the flexibility for agencies to price their services in a way that benefits both their clients and their own bottom line.” said Erin Rose, Sr. Director of Partner Development for LocaliQ.

Google Search: A Gross Margin Framework For Generative AI Modeling

Global search revenue estimates from New Street Research forecast that the market will reach $316 billion by 2030, suggesting a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% from 2023 until the end of the decade. … The research firm published in a note on Thursday, estimating that search growth will be driven by continued momentum in mobile, growing at a CAGR of 8.6% from 2023-2030, and representing about 92% of total search revenue by the end of the decade. Desktop will see a decline of 6.1%. Global search revenue today is nearly 80% mobile.

Marketers More Optimistic Even As Budgets Fall
Marketers are feeling much more optimistic this quarter, according to the CMO Survey from Deloitte. Nearly half (49%) reported feeling “more optimistic” about the U.S. economy, up from 30.1% in the spring survey. The Marketer Optimism Score, which measures marketer sentiment on a scale of 0 to 100, went from 58.3 in the spring to 66.5 currently. By sector, B2C Services companies report the highest rate of optimism, with 72% reporting feeling more optimistic. It was followed by B2B product marketers at 67.1%, B2B services at 66% and B2C products at 64.5%.

More Than Three-Quarters Of Newsrooms Using AI In ‘News Value Chain’

Earlier this summer, when Google gave The New York Times a sneak preview of its news-story-generating AI product, the presentation went over like a lead balloon.

Perhaps that reaction had more to do with the reported tone-deafness of Google’s “unsettling” pitch than it did the receptiveness of newsrooms to AI technologies, however, as more than 75% of news organizations are using AI in “at least one of the areas across the news value chain of news gathering, production, and distribution,” according to a new survey.

 

Gen AI Powers Content Marketing Advantage For Early Adopters

Great content generates powerful business results — and marketing leaders know it. Across B2C and B2B industries, 8 in 10 surveyed leaders say that content marketing is very or extremely important to their company’s overall digital marketing strategy — and 9 in 10 say that importance grew between 2022–2023.

 

More Than 2 In 5 U.S. Marketers Most Commonly Transact On First-Party Data

43% of US marketers and agencies use proprietary identifiers like first-party data when transacting with media sellers, per Advertiser Perceptions. A quarter of US marketers and agencies are still using third-party cookies, even though Google says it will deprecate them in 2024.

 

Flush With Emails: A Third Of Consumers Say They’re Overwhelmed

A recent study by Sequel Response is being publicized because it shows that a majority of companies have increased their email marketing budgets in the past 12 months — more than any other channel. That’s a great vote of confidence in email. But these accounts overlook the next set of charts in the study. Consumers themselves were asked how overwhelmed they are by the amount of advertising they receive. Guess which channel fared the worst? 

New Study Links Subscription Rates To Cost Of Living

More than a fifth (21%) of Americans pay for their online news, compared to an average of 17% worldwide. That’s according to new research from Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford, which analyzed sample groups from 20 countries worldwide and found that, for most, “payment for online news is leveling off with high levels of cancellation strongly linked to the cost-of-living crisis.”

 

U.S. Ad Revenue At Musk’s X Declined Each Month Since Takeover

Monthly U.S. ad revenue at social media platform X has declined at least 55% year-over-year each month since billionaire Elon Musk bought the company formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, according to third-party data provided to Reuters.

 

Amid Budget Cuts, Email Prevails As Preferred Brand Communications According To New Study

New research from Exclaimer, the leading email signature management software, reveals that 68% of marketers have experienced a reduction in their budgets by at least 5% for the second half of 2023.

 

Which AI Tools Are Most Useful To Local SEO And Marketing Professionals?

92% of local marketing and SEO professionals worldwide experimented most with ChatGPT in their work in July 2023, according to an August survey by SurveyMonkey.

Getting With The Program: Programmatic Advertising In A Cookieless World

At some point, the necessity of having a cookie alternative will hit advertisers of all industries. If the latest numbers from 33Across are any indication, the impact of that hit may surprise and even broadside most.

In looking at the programmatic transactions on its exchange, 33Across found that most still use cookies during the process. And while most industries are incorporating alternatives somewhat — for instance, retailers have increased their non-cookie inventory investments by 77% — only insurance has a sizable start in embracing the cookieless future, with only half of its buys coming from cookies.

 

Deals Drive US Adults To Sign Up For Subscription Services

43% of US adults say discounts are the main reason they sign up for subscription services, per May data from SurveyMonkey. The most popular category of subscriptions among all consumers is digital media, followed by delivery services, gaming, and food and groceries, according to SurveyMonkey.

 

New Wave DM: Direct Mail Now Seen As Part Of Omnichannel Strategy

It’s time to look in on email’s sister medium — the one fondly known as junk mail and snail mail: direct mail. It has a lustrous heritage, having been sent in one form or another since colonial times. But now it is being seen as a performance-marketing channel in the modern sense, according to Delivering Performance: Direct Mail In The United States 2023, a study by Winterberry Group, presented by the U.S. Postal Service.

Instagram Forecast To Hit $71bn Revenue By 2024

Instagram is set to recover faster than other social media rivals following Apple’s ATT and a wider weakening of the digital ad market to reach $71bn by 2024, as consumers and brands look to the image-sharing site’s social commerce future.

Subscriptions See Boost When Audiences Are Involved With Engaged Journalism (New Study)

It’s not just lip service to say that successful publishers listen to their audiences. That input can obviously lead to a better overall product, but, as recent research has also found, it can help boost subscriptions as well.

That’s the latest from two researchers investigating “engaged journalism as a strategy for affecting news organizations’ revenue streams and improving news audience evaluations.” 

 

The 2024 State of CRM Report

The ability to track individual customer interactions and analyze that data is a game-changer, especially in an age where customers crave a personalized experience. This sort of data-driven approach to business relationships is still relatively new, though. In just the last few years alone, CRM has evolved far beyond being just a tool for contact management. 

The Price Of Privacy: Shoppers Are Willing To Trade Data For AI Deals

Consumers may be concerned about artificial intelligence (AI) and their personal privacy. But they are not quite as concerned when bargains [are] on the table. For instance, 87% of consumers will trade personal data for savings, according to U.S. Consumer Perceptions of AI in Retail and Ecommerce, a study by UserTesting, conducted by OnePoll. Moreover, 73% of consumers believe AI enhances their shopper experience, and an equal number say it saves them time. This is true despite the finding that 72% of consumers are concerned about privacy when interacting with AI. 

When It Comes To Where Ads Show Up, Marketers And Consumers Have Different Preferences
Marketers and the people they want to reach aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye when it comes to where ads show up, according to Kantar’s latest Media Reactions report. The study is based on research conducted among about 16,000 consumers and 900 senior marketers around the world. This year, it revealed a “significant contrast” between the ad channels and platforms preferred by marketers and those favored by consumers, according to Kantar.

Media Organizations Create Principles For Governing AI

Bryce Hall, a McKinsey associate partner, recently shared an analogy he heard from a business leader about generative AI: “We’ve just opened Jurassic Park, but we haven’t yet installed the electric fences.”

Earlier this month, 26 global media organizations essentially announced that they weren’t waiting for electricians and contractors, and were instead establishing their own principles that they “believe should govern the development, deployment, and regulation of Artificial Intelligence systems and applications.”

Emphasizing that they embrace the opportunities AI technologies will present to both businesses and society, the organizations are calling for responsible development as they “also pose risks for the sustainability of the creative industries, the public’s trust in knowledge, journalism, and science, and the health of our democracies.”

Sale Ads Are The Best Drivers Of Awareness, Purchase For Digital Shoppers
Ads for products on sale are the most effective form of retail media advertising, with 51% of US digital shoppers saying they pay attention to them and 44% of digital shoppers saying they purchase from them, per Integral Ad Science.

Influencer Grows In Influence, Set To Top $34B In Marketing Spend
The global influencer marketing economy, which expanded 21.5% last year, is on track to grow another 16.9% this year, topping $34 billion in spending. The U.S., which accounts for more than three-quarters of the worldwide influencer marketing marketplace, is expected to expand its share — rising 17.6% this year to more than $26 billion, according to an annual update to PQ Media’s “Global Influencer Marketing Forecast” report.

Marketers’ Brand Safety Tactics May Not Be Enough
Brand safety is a hot topic in the marketing industry. In fact, over 80% of marketing professionals believe it’s a major concern, according to recently published findings by the Journal of Advertising Research. However, with new innovations like the metaverse raising fresh concerns for marketers and more mature platforms like X, formerly Twitter, falling into controversy, brand safety has become an even more debated topic. Plus, according to the Journal of Advertising Research’s findings, consumers are just as aware, even reporting that consuming ads near content considered even mildly negative could turn them off a brand.

Advertiser Associations Set New Diverse Media Investment Guidelines

Last week, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) released new guidelines intended to “help those marketers who are interested in supporting diverse suppliers but are still sitting on the sidelines and not sure where to begin.”

The report, entitled “Guidelines For Getting Started When Investing With Diverse Media Companies,” offered 11 guidelines to directly address what the report calls “a gap between interest and investment — between intent and action” where large companies aren’t investing in diverse suppliers “in any meaningful way.”

 

When Writing For Busy Readers, Less Is More

The average person receives dozens or even hundreds of messages — emails, text messages, and so on — each day, and the average professional spends nearly one-third of their workweek reading and responding to emails. Those numbers don’t even account for all the other communications that professionals receive outside the workplace. For busy readers, handling this torrent of information and messages is like living in an endless game of Whac-A-Mole. Highly relevant updates about health and school can inadvertently get overlooked or whacked with the delete button. And yet there is a distressingly widespread misconception among writers that more is better.

 

Peacock’s Trick To Keep Subscribers Coming Back? Emails — Billions Of Them

Addicted to checking your email? Streaming services — yes, streaming services — might be betting on it. The annual churn rate across streamers in the US in the 12 months ending in June averaged 47%, according to Parks Associates, and consumers report taking longer than ever to find shows to watch, meaning streamers are pressed to find ways to keep viewers from canceling their subscriptions. And there’s a relatively simple channel that some media companies are tapping into as part of their efforts to try to keep viewers plugged in week after week: The humble email inbox. … More broadly, every single premium subscription streamer saw churn rates in June 2023 increase compared to the year prior — with the exception of Peacock, which saw churn rates decline 2%, according to data from Antenna.

 

AI Aggravation: Job Loss, Privacy Are Among Marketers’ Concerns

AI will help brands boost productivity. But it may also lead to job loss and other problems, judging by AI In Marketing and Communications, a study from The Conference Board in collaboration with Ragan Communications. Of the companies polled, 82% say AI will improve productivity, perhaps a lot. But 40% fear it will reduce the number of jobs, and some say it will reduce them a great deal.