U.S. digital video ad spend is expected to hit $63 billion in 2024, a 16% increase from the previous year, according to projections from IAB’s “2024 Digital Ad Spend & Strategy Report.” For the first time, digital video — which includes CTV, social video and online video — will claim a higher share of budgets than linear TV. Why we care. CTV and other digital video channels have long promised better addressability and measurement than traditional linear TV. However, the number of cable subscribers remained sizable enough for digital video to remain in a supporting role for ad budgets. Tha ..read more

U.S. internet advertising reached a record $225 billion in 2023, a 7.3-percent increase year-over-year, according to the latest IAB report on U.S. ad revenue, conducted by PwC. Digital ads boomed in the fourth quarter when the growth rate spiked to 12.3% — in 2022 the growth rate for the quarter was 4.4%. Top channels included CTV, retail media and audio, which all saw double-digit growth in 2023. “Despite inflation fears, interest rates at record highs, and continuing global unrest, the U.S. digital advertising industry continued its growth trajectory in 2023,” said IAB CEO David Cohen, in a ..read more

Today, B2B social media hub LinkedIn introduced LinkedIn CTV ads, allowing marketers to include ads on CTV platforms in their B2B campaigns. Advertisers can add CTV to their LinkedIn campaigns through a network of partners that includes Paramount, Roku and Samsung Ads.  In addition to LinkedIn’s self-service Campaign Manager, the company also has a managed offering, LinkedIn Premiere via its partnership with NBCUniversal. Why we care. CTV is a growing channel for many marketers, including B2B businesses. As part of the rationale for introducing CTV, LinkedIn cited a study from Demandbase ..read more

Attention marketers: America’s Black population is more diverse, more reachable and more demanding than ever before, according to a new survey. The report, “The Global Black Audience,” from Nielsen, calls this group Black Americans and not African Americans because it includes a growing number of immigrants and their children. While the majority are African American, about 4.6 million, approximately 10% of the group are foreign-born. The U.S. Census projects that this will increase to just under 10 million by 2060. At that point, 16% of the U.S. Black population will be foreign-born, up from j ..read more

As the Kansas City Chiefs mounted a late-game charge to become repeat champions (three titles in five years!), Super Bowl LVIII proved to be a victory for fans, brands and the city of Las Vegas. Digital channels provided more options for audiences to engage with the Big Game, including an inventive stream on Nickelodeon called by SpongeBob SquarePants and friends. Brands leveraged the record-breaking viewership (123.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen) to launch campaigns and game-day promotions. Celebrities took the opportunity to grow their personal brands. Here are some of the results f ..read more

This Sunday, family and friends will gather around the smart TV while checking their social media feeds and ordering food on their phones. It’s the latest edition of a tried-and-true American holiday — Super Bowl LVIII. While the game on the big screen will bring new glory to either the Kansas City Chiefs or the San Francisco 49ers, the fan experience — and all those commercials — will bring nostalgia and interactive delight to digital consumers. The game is only the start. Brands will use their big media ad spends as the basis for campaigns in the months ahead. And businesses that didn’t shel ..read more

Hard to believe, maybe, but we’re hurtling towards the four-year anniversary of COVID lockdown. The specific date will vary, of course, according to your location and what you count as the beginning of lockdown, but for me, in New York City, it all started around the time the museums, libraries, restaurants and bars closed. That was around mid-March 2020. I dig up this old history — old by marketing technology standards anyway — because of my reaction to a presentation released last month by Winterberry Group, the management consultancy. “Outlook for Advertising, Marketing and Data 2024: A Mar ..read more

Omnichannel SSP OpenX is launching a Cookieless Deal Library that will allow advertisers to test and activate campaigns across a wide range of alternatives to third-party cookies. For activation it will be agnostic as to DSP choice. Advertisers will not only be able to test these multiple solutions but also test them against each other and develop new success benchmarks. This comes, of course, against the background of Google actually starting to allow Chrome users to disable cookies. Why we care. The dirt finally hits the road. We have been covering possible alternatives to third-party cookie ..read more

In recent years, many retailers have built out retail media networks (RMNs) to attract advertisers and improve customer experience with favorite brands and products. Access to the wealth of first-party data that many retailers have is hard for advertisers to pass up. But RMNs need to mature.  This maturation took some big steps last year and will continue in 2024 as advertisers will test and integrate RMNs into their media strategy. Here are the directions that RMNs will take in the coming year. Standardization as RMN matures Last year, IAB rolled out RMN guidelines for public comment to ..read more

In the year ahead, marketers will be looking to expand the channels and ordering methods that customers can use to shop online. Many of these channels have been around for years (see shoppable ads, below), but they will be tied together and more engaging thanks to AI innovations marketers will adopt in greater numbers. Making every order option available for retail shoppers As is the case with customer experience, 2024 will find marketers leveraging AI to create a more robust ecommerce presence. The data will be connected, enabling brands to offer more ways for shoppers to discover and purchas ..read more