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

• Advertising still looking for ingredient to replace cookies- cookies were used for 78% or more of US programmatic ad buys across industries as of Q3 2023, according to a November 2023 report from 33Across. Find out more via this eMarketer report.
• Ad Blocking: adoption of ad blocking around the world continues to grow, reaching an estimated 912 million users in the second quarter of this year, according to a report from eyeo. This represents a 7% increase since Q4 2022, and marks the highest level recorded yet. Ad blocking on mobile devices exceeds that on desktops, per the report. There were an estimated 496 million monthly active users of mobile ad blocking tools at the end of Q2, up from 414 million during Q4 2022. The latest figure still trails highs set during 2020 and 2021, when the number of monthly active users exceeded 525 million, before dropping to under 400 million at the beginning of 2022.
• Financial analysts in the US and UK who cover publicly listed companies in their markets are more likely to view advertising and promotion spending as investments than as operating costs, according to research from IPA and Brand Finance. Some 37% share of financial analysts surveyed said that when thinking about advertising spend they define the nature of that spend as an investment, compared to 24% share who view it as an operating cost. (The rest view it as a bit of both.) There’s more uncertainty with regards to promotions spending, though analysts still are slightly more likely to view this as an investment (28%) than a cost (23%).
• Three-quarters of B2B decision-makers around the world currently use influencer marketing, and among those, more than 9 in 10 (93%) are planning to expand their use of influencers, according to recent research from Ogilvy. Another new piece of research, this time from Ascend2 in partnership with TopRank Marketing, indicates that influencer marketing is now a part of the marketing mix for 85% of B2B mid-market and enterprise brands surveyed in the US. Indeed, B2B marketers are moving along in their maturity, per the latest report: while 15% are beginning their influencer journey, roughly half (48%) have reached a moderate stage, and almost one-quarter (23%) can lay claim to expert status.