Let’s see what this week’s numbers say about online advertising, shall we?
- About 2 in 3 marketers believe that finding a job in marketing today is either significantly more challenging (25%) or more challenging (43%) than it was 5 years ago, according to a report from the Content Marketing Institute. In fact, one-third of the more than 700 marketers surveyed say that their company laid off marketing employees over the past year, and 1 in 9 (11%) personally experienced a layoff. Among those who feel that it’s become more challenging to find a job, the top reasons cited are financial/economic pressure on companies (75%), more competition for jobs (69%) and marketers not being valued inside organizations (55%), the latter of which may be a reflection of difficulties demonstrating the impact of marketing. Amid this environment, marketers are looking to hone various skills, depending in some cases on their age. For Gen Zers, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers, working with new technologies is the key skill that the largest portion are interested in developing to advance in content marketing. However, for Millennials, the most-cited key capability is leadership and management, which makes sense given the point in their careers in which they find themselves. SEO is also a top skill that marketers across generations want to sharpen, as is data analytics/data science. Audience development and segmentation appears to be more important to younger than older generations, as do writing and editing skills. By contrast, Baby Boomers are placing an above-average emphasis on building their skills in audio/video (filming, editing, production) and in user/customer experience. Notably, there’s a consensus among marketers that generalized knowledge is no longer enough: about three-quarters of respondents agreed to some extent with the statement that “Marketers need to master specialized/niche skills to relevant in their careers.”
- YouTube continues to be the most widely used social media platform in the US, and its various entertainment platforms (such as YouTube TV and YouTube Music) are considered invaluable by their users. Marketers are also expressing a high degree of confidence in YouTube, with almost two-thirds (65%) surveyed for a report by Influencer Marketing Hub planning to increase their budgets for the platform. Indeed, most marketers using the platform find it to be effective, according to the study, with almost half considering it “very effective.” Likewise, a majority indicate that YouTube ads’ performance has increased this year. The largest share (50.7%) of respondents noted that they measure the success of their YouTube marketing campaigns through engagement rates, with fewer looking at conversion rates (16.3%), brand awareness (13%) and ROI (5.1%) as their key KPI. As for their primary YouTube marketing goal, most (51.6% share) marketers say that it’s top-of-funnel (brand awareness), though more than one-quarter (26.5%) count bottom-of-funnel (conversions) as their main objective. The remaining fifth (21.9%) take a balanced approach. That skew towards the top-of-funnel is also evident when looking specifically at YouTube Shorts. The report indicates that about three-quarters of marketers use YouTube Shorts in their marketing campaigns, a reflection of the ongoing popularity of short-form video content. Among those using YouTube Shorts, the most-cited goal is to increase brand visibility (45.6%), ahead of targeting a specific demographic (23.3%), concise format promotion (16.7%) and driving traffic to longer content (14.4%).
- Digital commerce M&A transactions rose slightly during the first half of this year from the second half of 2023, but remain depressed compared to both H1 2023 and H1 2022, according to a Hampleton study. The number of deals stood at more than 1,000 during the first two quarters of the year, but that was down from the ~1,200 range during the year-earlier period. The past year (Q3 2023 through Q2 2024) has seen deal volume more in line with the pre-pandemic period than the immediate post-pandemic (H2 2020 through to the peak in H1 2022). Valuations have been on the decline in past quarters, too. The 10.0x median 30-month trailing EV/EBITDA for H1 2024 is down from 10.1x in H2 2023, 10.3x in H1 2023, and 10.8x in H2 2022. Meanwhile, median revenue multiples (EV/R) are down to 2.0x from 2.4x in H2 2023 and 2.7x in both H1 2023 and H2 2022. There have been 7 companies that have acquired at least 5 digital commerce targets since 2021. The most prolific, each with 6 acquisitions, have been Havas, Frasers Group, and Thoma Bravo. The “digital commerce” market covered in the report contains 5 sub-sectors, and they have had varied contributions to deal flow during the past 2-and-a-half years. Since 2022, it’s been the Internet Services & Portals sub-sector leading the way, at one-third (33% share) of deal count. Close behind, Digital Commerce Software has been responsible for 30% of the deals, trailed by Agencies & Services Providers (17%), Online Retail (11%) and Media, Social & Gaming (9%). Geographically, during that time frame, North America has been the headquarters for the largest share of targets, at about half (48%). Europe has been home to a third (33%), and the rest of the world to the remaining fifth (19%). Among the acquired companies in Europe, more than three-quarters (78%) were acquired by companies also headquartered in Europe.
- The content wars are truly being won by streaming services over traditional TV. Not only are viewers much more likely to default to an online source over an MVPD as the first thing they turn on when they want to watch TV, but they’re now more likely to default to a big-5 streaming service than to live TV, according to the latest report on the topic from Hub Entertainment Research. The results show that TV viewers are more than twice as likely to turn to an online source as an MVPD set-top box when they want to watch something, with online sources continuing to widen the gap with MVPDs as the TV-viewing default, per the report. Among the TV viewers ages 16-74 surveyed, 66% said that online sources are their default for watching TV, up from 60% last year and 53% the year prior. That’s about 2.5 times the proportion (26%) who said that the first thing they turn on when they want to watch is a source on an MVPD set-top box (live, DVR, or video-on-demand). Furthermore, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services have for the first time overtaken live TV as viewers’ default sources. Some 52% of viewers turn on an SVOD service first when they want to watch TV, including 46% who default to a “big 5” service. By comparison, only 38% turn on live TV first (from MVPD, vMVPD, or OTA/antenna). Netflix continues to be the most popular streaming platform, and it has become itself as central to viewers’ experiences as traditional TV. For the first time, viewers are as likely to turn on Netflix (26% share) as they are to turn on an MVPD (live TV/DVR/VOD – 26%) when they want to watch something on TV. This doesn’t look like a trend that’s going to ease up anytime soon. When viewers were asked which provider they would drop if they had to drop one, live TV led the list, ahead of all the individual streaming services listed.
