Let’s see what this week’s numbers say about online advertising, shall we?

• A recent report by GWI on the US Millennial population finds that while search engines remain the most popular way for Millennials to search for things online, their use has stagnated while others have climbed. 42% said they had searched for something using social media in the prior month. The use of video sites has also increased: YouTube for search 36% with another notable rise for those using e-commerce websites 31%,  for search. Note worthy: a growing number have used image search tools (17%) and voice search (15%) in the previous month to search for things online.
• A new study by Socialinsider has shown short video formats such as Reels and TikTok are becoming important for marketers this year.  More than 352,000 Instagram Reels from 5,500 profiles were examined from June 2021 to June 2022. The study shows Instagram Reels’ average engagement rate is 1.95%. This benchmark rate does vary considerably by an account’s number of followers. The highest average engagement rate for Instagram Reels were for accounts with 0-5,000 followers (3.79%) and 5-10,000 followers (3.72%).
• According to Bluecore’s 2022 Retail Ecommerce Benchmark Report , welcome emails have become popular among marketers, who cite them as being effective for engagement. More than 35 billion campaigns and shopper data from global e-commerce brands were analyzed. Among the first purchase and conversion campaigns examined, Welcome emails had easily the highest average open rate, of 46.7%. These were followed by Low Inventory (37.3%), Back in Stock (38%), Abandoned Cart (37.3%), and Abandoned Product (37.2%) emails.