Our 2014 Predictions: July 21, 2014
A FEW WEEKS AGO, the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report reported that the United States of America spent $11.6 billion on internet advertising in Q1 alone. This record-setting all-time high comes as a whopping 19% increase compared to just 2013 – which at the time, was also a record-setting all-time high. In fact, globally, it is estimated that $121 billion dollars (out of $537 billion) will be spent on online advertisement. That’s 23% of every marketing dollar going to online.
Compare that to 2013 (20.6%) and 2005 (5.6%) and you can see, the shift to digital advertising is getting big.
More specifically, the online advertising realm seems to be dominated by digital video.
According to another study done by the IAB (you can download the study here), almost 66% of the executives interviewed said that they anticipate more spending on online video advertising next year. It’s something they see as being as “important as TV programming within the next three to five years.”
So what does the road to that position look like? No one knows for sure, but here are three predictions we have going forward.
1. New, More Specific Technology
A little while ago, the craze was in real-time bidding [RTB] where companies bid on specific impressions (spots where ads are shown). RTB is a form of programmatic advertising which essentially means that marketers pre-set a list of criteria they want. When these are matched, their ad will automatically be shown. For example, an ad will only show if the viewer is male, 20-30, and likes sports.
This allows brands to set highly specific targeting. Which as it stands, is coming out as the forefront strength on online advertising. As companies continue to find better algorithms and ways to manipulate the wealth of information online, there will increasingly be better ways to ‘find’ the people you want.
Considering that in every other form of advertising, you can only generalize who sees your ad (such as placing sports adverts in sports magazines), programmatic ads have the potential to put an end to the old saying by John Wanamaker that “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
2. Expansion into the Canadian Market
As with everything, things start small before expanding. Video advertising is still largest in the United States but we predict that companies will soon start entering other markets (such as Canada and nations in Europe). AOL has already recently purchased Adap.tv which will help them understand the Canadian market better.
3. Mobile
In complete part due to the growing use of smartphones, tablets, larger screens, faster data networks, and growing technology, mobile advertising is poised to become big if it hasn’t already. With research going in now about when the best time it is to publish ads on mobiles (the answer is late in the evening after work and dinner and people assumingly lie down on the couch beside the fire and catch up on some surfing) and when it’s best to publish blogs and such (in the morning), there will no doubt be more resources being placed into mobile advertising to capture this audience.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
