Tag: emarketer

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Mavrck raises $120M to scale its influencer marketing platform

The rise and impact of influencers has been one of the biggest forces in how the modern online social landscape has evolved in recent times. Now, a company that’s tapping into that influencer juggernaut, and specifically how it is playing out in the world of marketing, is announcing a huge round of funding to keep riding that wave.

Mavrck, which has built a platform for brands and media companies to source and engage with influencers for marketing campaigns, has raised $120 million in growth equity from a single backer, Summit Partners. Mavrck will use the capital to continue investing in its platform, and for business development. It is not disclosing valuation.

“We are going to use this investment to double down on our industry leading platform and double our team,” Lyle Stevens, the co-founder and CEO, said in an interview over email. “In doing so, we will become the most intelligent platform in the market with the petabytes of historical data we have… This data will power recommendation engines in the Mavrck platform that help connect enterprise marketers with the right creators, the right way, at the right cost.”

The company today already has some strong traction and momentum.

Stevens said that the company’s “Influencer Index” — as its directory is called — currently lists “millions of contactable macro- and micro- influencers around the globe and across all major social platforms.” Some 500 brands and 5,000 marketers are already using Mavrck to connect with those influencers. And in all, since being founded 2014, Mavrck has connected brands with more than 3 million influencers and creators, reaching more than 240 million consumers, primarily through “native” sponsored content across various media including videos and photos, blogs and podcasts.

Stevens said that the core of Mavrck’s technology is based around patented algorithms and first-party opt-in data, which brands use to find and connect with influencers that speak to the audiences that the marketers are hoping to reach. It has build some 25 different search filters — covering areas like audience demographics, historical performance, fraud risk — to whittle down the wider directory to those that match what they need. It then provides a platform for them to engage with each other to work through projects and eventually pay them. “We also have the technology for our customers to invite or import their existing influencer and consumer relationships to develop their own ambassador network,” he added.

Influencer marketing spend has become a very big business in the wider area of marketing, rising 55% in the last year, with two-thirds of brands now deploying an influencer marketing strategy in some way. It’s now estimated to be a $100 billion industry.

Alongside this, Stevens notes that the creator economy is “expanding rapidly, as more and more people have turned to content creation as a secondary or primary source of income.” He cites figures from eMarketer that estimated that in 2020, 50 million people identified themselves as “creators”. And if you have a child, you might nod a little wearily in recognition at the results of a Harris Poll last year that found some 30% of children said their ambition was to become a “YouTuber” (only 11% said “astronaut”).

“We want to support this new creative class by connecting them to the world’s enterprise consumer brands, allowing them to turn their passion into a possibility to earn a living,” said Stevens.

The role of a company like Mavrck is not just to connect marketers with influencers, but also to take a pulse on where influencer content is making the greatest impact. Although it’s a very fragmented space — blogs, for example, can still power, especially with certain kinds of products and consumers — when it comes to single platforms with the biggest scale, social apps are still at the top of the heap.

Stevens notes that Instagram remains the most popular platform today for influencer content, helped by the social app’s shift in 2016 to displaying content algorithmically instead of chronologically.  But while Instagram still dominates, that is starting to shift. “The Tiktok ‘For You’ Page algorithm appears to be taking market share from Instagram, as we have seen a 400% increase year over year in the number of creators being activated on TikTok by our brand customers,” he said. “If that trend continues, we anticipate TikTok to dominate influencer marketing over the next five years.”

Whichever platform ends up on top, Stevens believes that influencers and influencer marketing are not a flash in the pan, but are here to stay.

“If you think about the last purchase you made, odds are you were influenced or persuaded by what other people say and display online, versus what a brand said to you directly,” he said. “Those other people can be friends, like-minded strangers or creators you choose to follow online. This concept of social proof has become an essential brand building tool for consumer enterprises. In the wake of COVID and the corresponding changes in consumer buying behavior, consumer engagement with creators has increased 70%. As a result, brands are investing more in social proof to not only thrive, but stay relevant and survive.”

That’s enough to influence investors, too.

“At Summit, we have invested across the commerce segment – in both brands and the technologies that support their growth – and we believe strongly in the impact and potential of authentic brand relationships as a means to build value,” said Michael Medici, MD at Summit Partners, in a statement.

“Brands are increasingly seeking to harness the power of the very long tail of content creators to help drive brand awareness and influence purchase activity,” added Sophia Popova, principal at Summit Partners. “Mavrck’s platform is purpose-built to support brands in these efforts. We are delighted to partner with Lyle and the Mavrck team for this next phase of growth.” Both of them have joined the board with this round.

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Avoiding brand risk in podcast advertising

Lisa Utzschneider Contributor
Lisa Utzschneider is the CEO of Integral Ad Science, a global leader in digital media quality.

During the pandemic, more consumers turned to music and podcasts for entertainment from the comfort of their homes, driving exponential growth in audio media.

In fact, eMarketer estimates that U.S. radio and digital audio services will pull in $16.8 billion in ad spending this year. While audio’s speedy uptick in popularity provides advertisers with a much larger audience to reach, it may also introduce new risks for brands when it comes to safety and ad fraud.

With audio advertising on the rise with no signs of slowing down, here’s what brands need to consider when diving into the growing audio pool.

Turning up the volume on measurement

Entering a new space carries uncertainty, and for brands, the most common concern with audio ads is measurement. Some digital platforms, including audio, have been slow to adopt programmatic technology and the tools to track ROI that come with it.

In part, that’s because audio platforms originally focused on growing their total number of paid subscribers, rather than investing in freemium models that are primarily supported by ads. Yet with more consumers opting for free, ad-supported services, it’s time to solve those measurement issues.

When Advertiser Perceptions surveyed U.S. advertisers last year, more than half of those polled bought podcast ads by audience segment or across a podcast network. Yet a much smaller percentage of those advertisers said these methods actually worked best for meeting their key performance indicators. Audibility, rather than viewability, has become a key metric of measurement for advertisers considering additional audio spending.

Research shows that consumers are willing to listen to ads on audio platforms, especially when it comes to podcasts. In fact, podcast ads are viewed as one of the top five most trustworthy formats on the market.

However, another hesitation advertisers have about entering the audio realm is the wide range of content on podcasts, plus issues of brand safety and suitability. While there are many genres of podcasts, the content can and does change from episode to episode.

For example, if a feature-style podcast covers a range of news-driven topics — from consumer privacy on social platforms one week to renewable energy the next — brands need the tools to identify the right fit for their ads alongside that. With the variety of content from episode to episode, brand safety and suitability capabilities that extend to a very granular level are critical across digital audio platforms.

Fine-tuning audio ads

As audio advertising gains momentum quickly, there are best practices we can leverage to navigate the space.

One of the strongest opportunities in audio advertising is the granular level of measurement and the ability to operate at the show level and beyond. With the right tools, advertisers can have incredible control over where their ads run and the listeners they reach. This means advertisers will also be able to enjoy better brand safety and contextual capabilities to isolate a singular show, episode topic and ad pod placement.

The industry can leverage lessons from brand safety and suitability capabilities developed for video ads and translate these to audio-only environments. There is an opportunity to cut to a granular level with audio and bring contextual targeting to audio much faster than the years it took to develop this for video.

It’s clear that audio advertising is here to stay. However, bringing programmatic capabilities to audio will help this medium leapfrog in terms of growth opportunities.

Nearly half of Spotify subscribers are expected to use the platform’s free, ad-supported services by 2022. Advertisers should be demanding greater programmatic capabilities in digital audio. Radio has always been viewed as a great channel for creating awareness at the top end of the funnel, but digital audio platforms have the capacity to drive direct conversions if they adopt greater targeting.

Ultimately, digital audio is expected to top $1 billion in programmatic ad spending this year. As technology advances, audio advertising will continue to rise and present bigger opportunities for brands.

While advertisers may be hesitant to test the waters on audio, it’s opening up new ways for marketers to make their mark across the industry. Even as we return to a new normal in the months ahead, audio is not an opportunity that brands can afford to overlook.

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Despite pandemic, forecasts predict U.S. online holiday sales increase of 20%-30% or more

Strong e-commerce sales are predicted to help lift overall holiday retail spending in the U.S., according to forecasts released today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and eMarketer. Both firms expect to see overall retail sales growth during November and December, though the market may be impacted by slowing brick-and-mortar sales.

Of the two, NRF had the more optimistic forecast. It estimates U.S. holiday sales during November and December will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% year-over-year, for a total between $755.3 billion and $766.7 billion. That’s compared with a 4% increase in 2019 to $729.1 billion, and an average of a 3.5% increase over the past five years.

Image Credits: NRF

Growth will come from online and other non-store sales, which are included in the total, which will increase between 20% and 30% to reach between $202.5 billion and $218.4 billion. That’s up from $168.7 billion last year.

NRF’s takeaway is that consumers are willing to spend — perhaps because of the challenging year that 2020 has been, rather than despite it.

“After all they’ve been through, we think there’s going to be a psychological factor that they owe it to themselves and their families to have a better-than-normal holiday,” noted NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. “There are risks to the economy if the virus continues to spread, but as long as consumers remain confident and upbeat, they will spend for the holiday season,” he added.

The firm also noted Americans may have reduced their spending in other categories, like personal services, travel and entertainment due to the pandemic, which could increase the money they have for retail spending.

eMarketer, on the other hand, paints a less rosy picture when it comes to overall sales.

The firm predicts that total holiday season retail sales will see the lowest growth rate at just 0.9% year-over-year. This growth will come from the e-commerce sector, which will see its highest growth rate — 35.8% — since the firm began tracking retail sales in 2008. Brick-and-mortar sales, on the other hand, will decline 4.7%.

The discrepancy between these two firms’ estimates have to do with how they calculate “retail sales.”

eMarketer’s estimates include auto and gasoline sales, but exclude restaurants, travel, and event sales. NRF’s figures, on the other hand, exclude auto, gasoline and restaurants.

However, both agree on an e-commerce surge. NRF notes online sales were already up 36.7% year-over-year in the third quarter — in part, due to early holiday shopping. This year, some 42% of consumers had started shopping earlier than usual, it recently found. Plus, retail sales were up 10.6% in October 2020 versus October 2019, in aggregate, its forecast noted.

But whether it’s 20% to 30% growth or 35.8%, depending on the firm, it’s clear e-commerce is saving the day here.

NRF also expects seasonal hiring to be in line with recent years, as retailers hire between 475,000 and 575,000 seasonal workers compared with 562,000 in 2019. Some of that hiring may have already taken place in October, due to early shopping, it said.

Though Black Friday may not see the same levels of in-person shopping as in years past, brick-and-mortar retailers have made it easier to shop digitally, then either have items shipped home, picked up in-store, or even curbside. Outside of Amazon, Walmart and Target have particularly benefited from investments in e-commerce, as both retailers easily beat Wall St. expectations in their latest earnings reports, released just ahead of the holiday quarter.

Online, however, Cyber Monday will continue to rule, however, eMarketer says.

Image Credits: eMarketer

Of the five big online shopping days in 2020, eMarketer says Cyber Monday will again beat out Black Friday in terms of overall e-commerce sales, at $12.89 billion compared with Black Friday’s $10.20 billion. But Thanksgiving Day will see the most year-over-year growth in e-commerce sales, at 49.5%, followed by Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Sunday and Cyber Monday.

Image Credits: eMarketer

In a mobile forecast, analytics firm App Annie predicted Americans would spend over 110 million hours in shopping apps on Android devices during the two-week period consisting of Black Friday and Cyber Monday weeks. It noted the pandemic had already accelerated mobile device usage to 4 hours, 20 minutes per day, and Americans spent over 61 million hours shopping during the week of Prime Day.

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Despite pandemic, Amazon Prime Day expected to generate nearly $10B in global sales

A new forecast released today estimates Amazon’s delayed Prime Day sales event will top last year’s by bringing in an estimated nearly $10 billion in worldwide sales when it runs later this month. According to eMarketer, which released its first-ever Prime Day forecast, consumers will continue to spend heavily on e-commerce and seek out deals ahead of the 2020 holiday season, benefitting the major sales event.

The firm says of the total $9.91 billion in Prime Day 2020 global sales, $6.17 billion will be generated by U.S. consumers.

This is ahead of what Prime Day achieved in years past. In 2019, the sales event delivered $6.93 billion in sales, eMarketer says, with $4.32 billion from the U.S.. Total Prime Day sales in 2016, 2017 and 2018, were at $1.5 billion, $2.47 billion, and $4.13 billion, respectively.

These estimates are fairly in line with those from other firms. For example, Internet Retailer had estimated Prime Day 2019 reached $7.16 billion in global sales, up from $4.19 billion in the year prior. Amazon doesn’t detail Prime Day sales volume, specifically, but last year said it had sold over 175 million items during the event.

Image Credits: eMarketer

Forecasting for this year’s Prime Day, of course, has been much more difficult due to the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the e-commerce industry. The health crisis has disrupted supply chains, causing delays, while consumer demand can be unpredictable. Some past boosts in e-commerce spending for major retailers was also closely tied to government stimulus checks.

Due the to pandemic, Amazon this year decided to move its annual sales holiday from mid-July to October for most markets. Meanwhile, the retailer ran Prime Day in India in August — later than it had been held in prior years, but ahead of other countries’ Prime Day events planned for 2020. Following the India event, Amazon reported record seller participation, and said it gained at least 1 million new subscribers for its Prime membership program.

Despite the changes to Prime Day, the analysts at eMarketer believe Prime Day’s predictability will help to continue to drive traffic and sales this year.

“Since Prime Day’s 2015 debut, Amazon has expanded the scale and spectacle of the event in a mostly predictable fashion,” said Andrew Lipsman, eMarketer principal analyst. “The generally incremental changes from year to year gave customers and sellers a better sense of what to expect, with Lightning Deals and heavily discounted Echos and Fire TVs taking center stage. Sellers developed a playbook for their promotions and advertising strategy and could plan their inventory accordingly,” he added.

Though Prime Day doesn’t officially begin until October 13, Amazon has already started to run some early deals for Prime subscribers, including a discounted Echo Show 5 ($45 instead of $90), a discounted Echo Auto ($30 off at $19.99), cheaper Echo Dots, as well as discounts on an Amazon TV-powered Insignia 4K TV, Blink Mini devices, and others.

Prime Day has also typically inspired a range of competitive sales, given that Amazon’s event would drive an increase in online shopping that benefitted other e-commerce retailers. As of March, as many as 37% of digital retailers said their Prime Day plans were up in the air because of coronavirus, but 56% said they still expected Prime Day sales would perform well, eMarketer noted.

So far, Target has planned a massive sale, Target Deal Days, to compete with Prime Day, which promises Black Friday-like discounts on hundreds of thousands of items on the same days that Prime Day runs. Walmart, on the other hand, said it would run its event starting earlier, on Sunday Oct. 11 through Oct. 15.

 

 

 

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Subscription fatigue hasn’t hit yet

U.S. consumers are still embracing subscriptions. More than a third (34%) of Americans say they believe they’ll increase the number of subscription services they use over the next two years, according to a new report from eMarketer. This is following an increase to 3 subscription services on average, up from 2.4 services five years ago.

The report cited data from subscription platform Zuora and The Harris Poll in making these determinations.

The study also debunks the idea that we’ve reached a point of subscription fatigue.

While only a third is planning to increase the number of subscriptions — a figure that’s in line with the worldwide average — the larger majority of U.S. internet users said they planned to use the same number of subscriptions services within two years as they do now.

In other words, they’re not paring down their subscriptions just yet — in fact, only 7 percent said they planned to subscribe to fewer services in the two years ahead.

However, that’s both good news and bad news for the overall subscription industry. On the one hand, it means there’s a healthy base of potential subscribers for new services. But it also means that many people may only adopt a new subscription by dropping another — perhaps to maintain their current budget.

Subscriptions, after all, may still feel like luxuries. No one needs Netflix, Spotify, groceries delivered to their home or curated clothing selections sent by mail, for example. There are non-subscription alternatives that are much more affordable. The question is which luxuries are worth the recurring bill?

The survey, however, did not define subscription services, which could include news and magazine subscriptions, digital streaming services, subscription box services, and more. But it did ask about consumers’ interest in the various categories.

Over half of U.S. consumers (57%) said they were interested in TV and video-on-demand services (like Netflix) and 38 percent were interested in music services.

Related to this, eMarketer forecasts U.S. over-the-top video viewers will top 193 million by 2021, or 57.3 percent of the population. Digital audio listeners will top 211 million by the same time, or 63.1 percent of the population.

The next most popular subscriptions in the survey were grocery delivery like AmazonFresh (32%) and meal delivery like Blue Apron (21%). Software and storage services like iCloud and subscription beauty services like Ipsy followed, each with 17 percent.

Consumers were less interested in subscription news and information and subscription boxes — the latter only saw 10 percent interest, in fact.

The figures should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. The meal kit market is actually struggling. The consulting firm NPD Group estimated that only 4 percent of U.S. consumers have even tried them. So there’s a big disconnect between what consumers say they’re interested in, and what they actually do.

Meanwhile, the supposedly less popular news and information services market is, in some cases, booming. The New York Times, for instance, just this month posted a higher profit and added 223,000 digital subscribers to reach 4.5 million paying customers. And Apple now has “hundreds of people” working on Apple News+, it said this week. 

Of course, consumers will at some point reach a limit on the number of services they’re willing to pay for, but for the time being, the subscription economy appears solid.

 

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Subscription fatigue hasn’t hit yet

U.S. consumers are still embracing subscriptions. More than a third (34%) of Americans say they believe they’ll increase the number of subscription services they use over the next two years, according to a new report from eMarketer. This is following an increase to 3 subscription services on average, up from 2.4 services five years ago.

The report cited data from subscription platform Zuora and The Harris Poll in making these determinations.

The study also debunks the idea that we’ve reached a point of subscription fatigue.

While only a third is planning to increase the number of subscriptions — a figure that’s in line with the worldwide average — the larger majority of U.S. internet users said they planned to use the same number of subscriptions services within two years as they do now.

In other words, they’re not paring down their subscriptions just yet — in fact, only 7 percent said they planned to subscribe to fewer services in the two years ahead.

However, that’s both good news and bad news for the overall subscription industry. On the one hand, it means there’s a healthy base of potential subscribers for new services. But it also means that many people may only adopt a new subscription by dropping another — perhaps to maintain their current budget.

Subscriptions, after all, may still feel like luxuries. No one needs Netflix, Spotify, groceries delivered to their home or curated clothing selections sent by mail, for example. There are non-subscription alternatives that are much more affordable. The question is which luxuries are worth the recurring bill?

The survey, however, did not define subscription services, which could include news and magazine subscriptions, digital streaming services, subscription box services, and more. But it did ask about consumers’ interest in the various categories.

Over half of U.S. consumers (57%) said they were interested in TV and video-on-demand services (like Netflix) and 38 percent were interested in music services.

Related to this, eMarketer forecasts U.S. over-the-top video viewers will top 193 million by 2021, or 57.3 percent of the population. Digital audio listeners will top 211 million by the same time, or 63.1 percent of the population.

The next most popular subscriptions in the survey were grocery delivery like AmazonFresh (32%) and meal delivery like Blue Apron (21%). Software and storage services like iCloud and subscription beauty services like Ipsy followed, each with 17 percent.

Consumers were less interested in subscription news and information and subscription boxes — the latter only saw 10 percent interest, in fact.

The figures should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. The meal kit market is actually struggling. The consulting firm NPD Group estimated that only 4 percent of U.S. consumers have even tried them. So there’s a big disconnect between what consumers say they’re interested in, and what they actually do.

Meanwhile, the supposedly less popular news and information services market is, in some cases, booming. The New York Times, for instance, just this month posted a higher profit and added 223,000 digital subscribers to reach 4.5 million paying customers. And Apple now has “hundreds of people” working on Apple News+, it said this week. 

Of course, consumers will at some point reach a limit on the number of services they’re willing to pay for, but for the time being, the subscription economy appears solid.

 

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eMarketer predicts digital ads will overtake traditional spending in 2019

This is the year when the money spent on digital advertising will finally overtake spending on traditional ads — at least according to the latest forecast from eMarketer.

The research firm is predicting that U.S. digital ad spend will increase 19.1 percent this year, to $129.3 billion, while traditional advertising will fall 19 percent, to $109.5 billion. That means digital will account for 54.2 percent of the total, while traditional will only represent 45.8 percent.

Not surprisingly, most of the digital ad money is going to Google and Facebook . However, eMarketer says Google’s share of the market will actually decline, from 38.2 percent last year to 37.2 percent this year, and Facebook’s share will only grow slightly, from 21.8 percent to 22.1 percent.

emarketer forecast

Apparently, Amazon is the main beneficiary here, with its U.S. ad business set to expand by more than 50 percent, accounting for 8.8 percent of total spend.

“The [Amazon] platform is rich with shoppers’ behavioral data for targeting and provides access to purchase data in real-time,” said eMarketer forecasting director Monica Peart in a statement. “This type of access was once only available through the retail partner, to share at their discretion. But with Amazon’s suite of sponsored ads, marketers have unprecedented access to the ‘shelves’ where consumers are shopping.”

The firm also forecasts that by 2023, digital will account for more than two-thirds of total ad spending.

Digital ad spending grew to $49.5B in the first half of 2018, according to IAB

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Report: Smartphone usage set to overtake time spent watching TV in China

2018 is the year that smartphone usage eclipses time spent watching TV in China and it’s all down to the growth of digital video platforms, according to a new report from eMarketer.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this had already happened in China, which happens to be the world’s largest smartphone market, but eMarketer forecasts that the momentous moment is about to arrive.

According to the report, the average adult in China is set to spend 2 hours and 39 minutes per day on a mobile device this year, up 11.1 percent on 2017. Watching TV, meanwhile, is set to fall by two percent to reach 2 hours 32 minutes daily.

eMarketer said that the growth of digital video services is “a key driver” in this change. The company forecasts that online video time per day will leap 26 percent year-on-year to reach 58 minutes per adult on average. It is further predicting that by 2020 China’s adult population will spend one-third of their time online watching videos.

The signs have been pointing to digital media’s charge in China for some time, with the country’s top firms putting considerable cash behind the leading players.

Alibaba acquired Youku Tudou in a 2015 deal that valued the YouTube-like service at $4.6 billion, while rival Tencent has its own ‘Tencent Video’ service and Baidu — the third part of China’s traditional tech power trio — incubated video service iQiyi before taking it public in a U.S. IPO that raised $1.5 billion earlier this year. All three of these streaming platforms combine user-generated video with produced series, some of which comes from Netflix.

Beyond those three, there are also vertical focused video services which include animation platform Bilibili (which just went public in the U.S.), live-video platforms such as Tencent-backed Kuaishou, and Chushou, which focuses on e-sports and landed investment from Google earlier this year.

Video may be the key driver, but it is far from the only reason that keeps Chinese people glued to their phones. Chat app WeChat is the stickest of all mobile apps in China. It claims to have over 900 million active users who send 38 billion messages and over 205 million phone calls via the app each day.

WeChat also includes offline payments which are another major use for smartphones in China. Alongside WeChat Pay, Alibaba’s Alipay claims over 520 million users who use its service instead of cards or cash when paying for goods.

Ant Financial, Alipay’s parent company, is being tipped to raise $9 billion in new funding at a valuation that could reach as high as $150 billion.

Hat tip @sirsteven