Articles by: "Research Team—DCN"

Mobile Marketing on the Rise

April 28, 2015 Research Team—DCN

The IAB Mobile Center has released the third edition of its Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising research. Based on the responses of 200 top-level brand marketing executives, the new figures show that two in five (41%) marketers agreed that mobile programmatic advertising would help them reach their target audiences. However, only 27% of marketers in total are actually buying inventory in this way, with 18% using private exchanges and 17% using open exchanges (some use both). The 2015 survey also asked about sources of mobile ad budgets. While a large share of mobile ad spend represents new ad dollars, about one-third came from substitution, in which funds from other media were shifted to mobile advertising. Print, PC, and TV budgets are all affected by the shift of dollars to mobile.

Key findings from Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising:

Marketers expect that their spending on mobile advertising will increase over the next two years: 14% anticipate it will rise by more than 50% while 57% expect it to rise by less than 50%.
About one-third of mobile advertising spend is substitution from other channels, with print media hit hardest (58%), followed by PC digital and TV.
Marketers in our 2014 survey show a high level of satisfaction with the results of their mobile marketing activities. The majority is either satisfied (50%) or fairly satisfied (37%) while a further 8% completely satisfied.
Marketers show a strong interest in mobile programmatic, as 41% agree that it will help them reach target audiences. However, relatively few are actually buying mobile inventory programmatically today: 18% via private exchanges and 17% via open exchanges.
Marketer uneasiness over potential data privacy issues is pronounced: 37% of respondents in 2014 cited privacy as a very important issue compared to 22% in 2013.
In the current survey 29% of respondents said multiscreen advertising is very important to their
digital advertising strategy, compared to 21% in the 2013 survey. A further 48% of brands in the current survey view multiscreen as important, compared to 46% in 2013.

New to this edition of the study, marketers were asked about another development of interest: advertising opportunities with new-generation connected devices. Connected TVs generated the most enthusiasm (73%), followed closely behind by connected cars (69%), and wearables (66%).

Industry-Research

A Look at the State of Programmatic Buying and Selling

April 21, 2015 Research Team—DCN

PulsePoint recently released its Global Programmatic Platform Intelligence Report. The global data in the report examines trends and changes in inventory, ad spend and contextual categories on mobile and desktop in 2014.

Key findings include:

Programmatic Continues to Move Mobile: Mobile programmatic inventory and ad spend increased significantly in 2014 and will continue to grow exponentially in the next three years.
Contextual Targeting Will Move RTB Beyond the Cookie and Up the Funnel: Contextual targeting is a fundamental building block of advertising and will be more critical than ever. Why? Because together, contextual and programmatic data technology will enable smarter audience targeting where 1st and 3rd party cookie data is less prevalent.
North American Market Share Will Shift To Europe & Asia: As Europe and Asia ramp up programmatic buying, they have the benefit of learning from early challenges and innovations made in the US, including targeting options beyond the cookie. Both markets are in a prime position to benefit from programmatic and will continue to capture more of the market share in 2015.

eMarketer examines PulsePoint’s research in its post Programmatic Sellers vs. Buyers: Who’s More Hooked On Mobile?

Industry-Research | Video

Streaming and Multiscreen Viewing Continue to Rise

April 20, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Today’s consumers own a variety of streaming video-capable screens and they are using these devices more than they did a year ago according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report “The Changing TV Experience: Attitudes and Usage Across Multiple Screens,” an in-depth study that explores new ground in the ongoing dramatic shift in consumers’ television viewing habits. The IAB found that US adults surveyed say they spend nearly 5 hrs a day on their computer, slightly more than they spend watching TV. The next most used devices are smartphone (3.6 hrs) and connected TV (2.4 hrs).

The research also found that, particularly among connected TV owners, streaming is on the rise:

Three quarters of connected TV/device owners and roughly half of computer, tablet or smartphone owners report streaming online video at least once a month.
One-third of connected TV owners stream video to their TV daily. One in four computer owners and one in five smartphone or tablet owners stream video daily.

The IAB finds that now, “multiscreening is the new normal.” Highlights from the IAB’s findings on multiscreen viewing include:

78% of US adults who watch TV use another device while watching TV and the smartphone is the predominant second screen: Two in three smartphone owners multiscreen while watching TV; over half of all computer or tablet owners multiscreen
84% of smartphone multiscreeners do so daily, as do 79% of computer multiscreeners and 65% on tablets.
The rise in multitasking is driven by smartphone and tablet owners: Multiscreening activity has increased for 40% of smartphone multiscreeners, 39% who do so on tablets and 28% on computers.

To view the full “The Changing TV Experience: Attitudes and Usage Across Multiple Screens” report, visit www.iab.net/changingtv.

Industry-Research | Video

OTT Video Consumption Increasing Overall Video Consumption

April 13, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Access and entertainment research from Parks Associates finds 57% of consumers in U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT (over-the-top) video service, such as Netflix or Hulu Plus. In its new report, TV Everywhere and the New World of OTT, the research firm reports the average U.S. broadband household spends $9 per month on Internet video, up from $7 in 2012.

Data highlights from Parks Associates include:

There will be nearly 50 million streaming media players sold globally by 2017.
S. broadband households watch an average of 3.4 hours of Internet video per week.
S. broadband households spend more than $6 per month on average on subscription OTT video services.
Among U.S. broadband households with a pay-TV subscription, 15% are very interested in at least one OTT service, compared to 9% of households without a pay-TV subscription.
7% of U.S. broadband households are likely to subscribe to an OTT video service from HBO.
Over 50% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT video service.
More than 75% of streaming media player owners have an OTT subscription.
Homes with children spend on average 90% more on OTT services and digital video than homes with no children.

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Industry-Research

How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability

April 10, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Knight Foundation has just released the third installment in a series of reports, which it launched in 2011, that track the progress of nonprofit news sites as they strive for sustainability. The report “Gaining Ground: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability” analyzes trends among 20 local, state and regional nonprofit news organizations. It also incorporates insights from interviews with leaders of a few additional nonprofit news organizations that have a predominantly national scope. Many, though not all, of the organizations included in the study have been funded by Knight Foundation. The report is based on data collected from a cohort of 20 nonproﬁt news organizations about their mission, Web traffic, revenue and expenditures. Researcher Kate Marshall Dole led the data collection efforts and report development. Community Wealth Partners, a social sector consultancy and evaluation firm, performed the data analysis.

Key findings include:

The revenue for nonprofit news organizations increased by an average of 7% between 2011 and 2013. In 2012, revenue grew by an average of 3%; however median revenue was only 7% suggesting year-over-year revenue for half the sites was either flat or declining.
The organizations generated 23% of revenue through earned income in 2013 compared with 18% in 2011. Nonprofits remain very reliant on foundation funding, and few appear to be rapidly approaching a sustainable business model.
The most growth in earned income has occurred through sponsorships and in-person events. Though advertising is the earned income source utilized by the most nonprofit news organizations, advertising revenue was flat from 2011 to 2013.
Spending remains highly concentrated in editorial expenses, though as organizations grow in size they appear to invest more in marketing and technology.
Sites grew Web traffic by an average of 75% from 2011 to 2013, and the share of mobile traffic and referral traffic from social media grew considerably. A few sites are piloting more sophisticated efforts for tracking impact beyond basic website analytics.

Industry-Research

Data-Driven Marketers Diversify Across Channels

April 8, 2015 Research Team—DCN

The Modern marketer is a multichannel strategist, relying most heavily on email, direct mail, and social media according to the DMA’s 2015 Response Rate Report. DMA’s research found that 65% of respondents use two or more media types in their marketing campaigns, with 44% reporting they use three or more. Of the seven key channels examined (Mobile, Email, Online Display, Paid Search, Telephone, and Direct Mail), Email ranked at the top, with 8% of respondents reporting they used the channel in their marketing campaigns.

Mobile represented the smallest sample in this survey, which the DMA interprets as indicating that it is not yet being fully utilized by marketers. However, mobile shows the greatest promise for growth over the next 12 months — with 73% of respondents indicating plans to increase their usage. The report also finds that the mobile channel is rarely used on its own; 98% of mobile users employ at least three types of media in their campaigns— and 65% use at least five.

The report is available at the DMA Bookstore for $299 for DMA members and $499 for non-members.

Industry-Research

Pew Offers Insights into Smartphone Users and Usage

April 6, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are now smartphone owners. And for many, these devices are a key entry point to the online world according to Pew Internet and Life’s latest research on US Smartphone Use. The report offers “A Portrait of Smartphone Ownership” and an examination of “Usage and Attitudes Toward Smartphones,” along with an innovative approach to analyzing smartphone usage called “A Week in the Life.”

Among the many insights uncovered:

Four-in-ten smartphone owners ages 65 and older use their phone at least occasionally to keep up with breaking news, half use it to share information about local happenings, and one-third use it to stay abreast of events and activities in their community.
68% of smartphone owners use their phone at least occasionally to follow along with breaking news events, with 33% saying that they do this “frequently.”
62% of smartphone owners have used their phone in the last year to look up information about a health condition.
30% of smartphone owners use their phone to take a class or get educational content.
75% of younger smartphone owners indicated using their phone to watch videos at least once over the study period, compared with 31% of those 50 and older (a difference of 44 percentage points).
64% of younger adults used their phones at one time or another to listen to music or podcasts — a 43-point difference compared with the 21% of older users who did so.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising

April 1, 2015 Research Team—DCN

More than three-quarters (76%) of brand marketers consider programmatic buying in mobile advertising to be an important development, but despite this enthusiasm, relatively low numbers of marketers are currently purchasing ads programmatically, according to a new study commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and conducted by Ovum.

The report also spotlights another development of interest to brand marketers: advertising opportunities with new-generation connected devices. Connected TVs generated the most enthusiasm (73%), followed closely behind by connected cars (69%), and wearables (66%), mobile marketers that rate themselves as fairly or very experienced at mobile seeing even greater potential for these new platforms (80% connected TVs vs. 78% connected cars vs. 75% wearables).

Key findings of Marketer perceptions of mobile advertising (Third Edition) include:

Marketers expect that their spending on mobile advertising will increase over the next two years: 14% anticipate it will rise by more than 50% while 57% expect it to rise by less than 50%.
About one-third of mobile advertising spend is substitution from other channels, with print media hit hardest (58%), followed by PC digital and TV.
Marketers in our 2014 survey show a high level of satisfaction with the results
of their mobile marketing activities. The majority is either satisfied (50%) or fairly satisfied (37%) while a further 8% completely satisfied.
Marketers show a strong interest in mobile programmatic, as 41% agree that it will help them reach target audiences. However, relatively few are actually buying mobile inventory programmatically today: 18% via private exchanges and 17% via open exchanges.
Marketer uneasiness over potential data privacy issues is pronounced. 37% of respondents in 2014 cited privacy as a very important issue compared to 22% in 2013.

Advertising | Industry-Research

comScore Looks at Shifts in Digital Consumer Behavior

March 30, 2015 Research Team—DCN

comScore has released its 2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus. The report provides a year in review of the major shifts in digital consumer behavior that occurred in various online sectors, including mobile, social media, video, advertising, search and e-commerce. Furthermore, it examines what insights can be gathered from these trends and what that means looking forward to the year ahead.

From the report:

While most of the growth in digital media consumption over the past four years has occurred on smartphones (up 394 percent) and tablets (up 1,721 percent), these mobile platforms are not eating into aggregate time spent on desktop, which has still grown 37 percent over this time period. The digital media pie continues to get bigger and Americans engage with screens during more occasions throughout the day than ever before.
Across every age demographic, there is a substantially higher percentage of multi-platform and mobile-only internet users than the previous year. More than 3/4ths of all digital consumers (age 18+) are now using both desktop and mobile platforms to access the internet, up from 68 percent a year ago. Mobile-only internet usage is also becoming more prevalent, driven largely by the 21 percent of Millennials who are no longer using desktop computers to go online. Meanwhile, the 55-years-and-older consumer segment is actually the fastest growing faction of mobile users, increasing its combined multi-platform and mobile-only share of audience from 60 percent to 74 percent in the past year.
Because people prefer different devices depending on the online activity or task, the desktop vs. mobile skews by content category can vary widely. Categories such as Photos and Maps are more often than not used on the go, lending themselves to heavy mobile usage, while the Portals and Business/Finance categories comparatively index much higher on desktop devices. Although Portals function as an accessible hub of information on desktop, the mobile environment is markedly different where apps have taken on the role as the gateway to the web.

Key topics covered in the 2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report include:

The implications of an increasingly multi-platform digital population
The fastest growing digital media properties and mobile apps
The continuing disruption of mobile in all facets of digital
How the major social network audiences stack up against each other
Digital advertising’s transition to transacting on viewable impressions
The continuing growth of online video and emergence of mobile and over-the-top video
How total web searches are distributed among desktop, smartphone and tablet devices
The unrelenting growth of digital commerce and emergence of mobile commerce

Advertising | Industry-Research

Mobile Ad Spend to Overtake Desktop by End of 2015

March 27, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Mobile advertising will soon capture the majority of digital ad spend, according to a new report from Marin Software, provider of a cross-channel performance advertising cloud. Driven by rapid consumer adoption of mobile devices, and a corresponding surge in mobile ad clicks and conversions, the report finds advertisers will spend more on mobile than desktop ads by the end of 2015.

The benchmark report, “Mobile Advertising Around the Globe: 2015 Annual Report,” includes statistics and trends uncovered through an examination of the Marin Global Online Advertising Index.

Findings from Marin Software’s Global Mobile Advertising Report include:

Mobile device adoption amongst consumers continues to grow relative to desktop. Consumers spend more time and attention on mobile devices than desktop now,1 and advertisers have been shifting spend away from desktop towards smartphones and tablets to reach consumer attention. Due to this digital advertising paradigm shift, mobile advertising budget is predicted to exceed desktop advertising budget by end of 2015.
Consumers are more likely to use mobile devices for product research than desktop. Smartphones and tablets are used by consumers for research and represent the top of the funnel, while desktops are where they go to convert.
With 40% of all online adults starting an activity on one device and ending on another, it’s important to retarget ads seen on mobile to desktop or tablet in order to ensure maximum view-time by engaged consumers. Use a third party tracker to track users across device and channel to fully optimize advertising spend through retargeting ads.
However consumers are still much more likely to convert on desktop. Desktops are still the primary conversion-driving device; however research has shown that many consumers use mobile devices as upper-funnel research, and convert in-store or on desktop. Mobile conversion attribution for these cross-device and offline conversions must be tracked and recorded to properly create the link between mobile clicks and conversions.

Industry-Research

Digital Drives Magazine Audience Growth

March 25, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Magazine media audiences were up 12.6% for the month of February 2015 versus the previous February, according to the latest Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report published by MPA—The Association of Magazine Media.

The report, which uses data from leading third‐party providers, reveals a gross audience for magazine brands of 1.7 billion in February 2015 versus 1.5 billion in February 2014. The February performance continues to benefit from increased video and mobile web consumption, up 18.7% and 78.0%, respectively, over the same time period in 2014.

This month, web (desktop/laptop) was up 6.9%, with nearly half of all websites in the report showing double-digit to triple-digit growth in unique visitors versus the same period last year. This growth is notable after six consecutive months of flat year-over-year web audience numbers, a trend which reflected, in large part, the migration of online media consumers to mobile devices.

According to an analysis by MediaPost, the list of magazines with the biggest gross audiences was led by ESPN The Magazine, with a gross audience of 92.8 million in February 2015, due to its combination of Web (25.4 million), mobile (40.3 million), and video (11.8 million) audiences. In second place was People at 85 million. With a strong performance across digital channels, it also boasted a print audience of 44 million.

Better Homes and Gardens came in at third place with a gross audience of 49.1 million. Forbes was in fourth place with a gross audience of 45.7 million, followed by Time at 44.8 million and AARPat 44.4 million.

The complete report, which currently covers approximately 145 magazine media brands from over 30 companies, can be found at www.magazine.org.

Industry-Research

Online Radio Consumption and Podcasting go Mainstream

March 19, 2015 Research Team—DCN

The Infinite Dial 2015 is the 23rd in a series of studies on consumer adoption of digital media dating back to 1998. It uses a random probability telephone sample representative of all Americans ages 12 and older to explore a wide range of digital behaviors from smartphone adoption to social media usage and content consumption trends.

This new national survey from Edison Research and Triton Digital found that online audio “is now a fully mainstream activity for people under 55.” The research also concludes that podcasting “is increasingly mainstream and carving out a segment of highly attractive advertising targets.”

Among the many other findings:

The Internet is the second most used medium turned to first in the event of a major news story; (40%). Television still ranks first at 50%, though that number has declined significantly since 2010 when it was 62%.
The Internet is the most essential medium to those polled (54%), followed by television at 30%, Radio at 9% and Newspapers at 4%.
People now turn to the Internet to learn about new music (44%) over radio (32%).
Podcasting is on the rise, as monthly audio podcast consumption grew from approximately 39 million monthly users in 2014 to approximately 46 million in 2015.
Podcast listeners average six podcasts per week.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of all users and nine-in-ten 12 to 24 year-olds have used YouTube to watch music videos or listen to music.
Mobile devices are the devices of choice used to listen to Online Radio (73%) and Podcasts (55%).

Download The Infinite Dial 2015 here.