In our State of Digital Advertising report, we surveyed over 500 global B2C advertising professionals across the retail, automotive, travel, and finance sectors. The companies ranged from $40 million to over $1 billion in annual sales with an average annual digital advertising spend of more than $2.4 million.
Our survey results uncovered several key themes preoccupying advertisers this year:
Social takes the lead
Nine out of 10 respondents are investing in paid social media in 2018, beating the next most popular channel (YouTube/Google Display) by over 10 percentage points. Marketers now see the need to position social as a key channel in their online customer acquisition strategy.
Search and social are the fastest growing channels
The vast majority of advertisers expect to increase spend in 2018, led by social (70%) and followed by search (65%).
Bridging search and social is the top challenge for advertisers
With the rise of Facebook, linking together search and social advertising is the most cited challenge for both search and social advertisers.
Closing the knowledge gap remains a challenge
The survey found that many advertisers don’t feel they have the expertise required to deliver successful social campaigns, particularly when it comes to attributing ROI. Nevertheless, investment in paid social remains strong as advertisers recognize the importance of evolving their social capabilities to meet changing consumer expectations and media habits.
Here comes Amazon
The majority (85%) of respondents believe Amazon and its digital advertising options will impact their business in 2018. Conversely, only 1 in 5 advertisers viewed the eCommerce giant and its digital advertising options as a competitor they’re unlikely to advertise on.
Video is increasingly important but creates a new set of challenges
Brands can no longer repurpose existing video content in a world of vertical video. Thirty-four percent of advertisers said that creating quality content is their top challenge with respect to video.
The view the full results of the survey and the main digital opportunities in 2018, download the report.
