13 Noteworthy Digital Media and Marketing Stats From This Week

It's been a busy, busy, busy week in online media and marketing stats, and we've put together 13 figures that were definitely worth sharing: 1. Facebook, the media buyer Kantar Media analyzed the $117.9 million spent on marketing in the U.S. last year by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Pinterest. Facebook by far outspent its competitors in 2016, running campaigns to the tune of $80.7 million, which represents a 260 percent year-over-year increase. Facebook was particularly TV-happy last year, while LinkedIn made its largest annual investment to date ($2.2 million) on television. LinkedIn's big ad buy, per Kantar Media, was for the Oscars, which accounted for 80 percent of its TV budget. 2. Twitter views soar Video views have grown by 220 times on Twitter in the last 12 months, according to the social media network. 3. Anything but a has-been, bro Hasbro has undergone a "digital transformation," which is a fancy way of saying the company went from lagging behind on tech to being on the forefront of innovation. It has helped the Pawtucket, R.I.-based toys and games giant lift revenue by $1 billion, incrementally, since 2012, while hitting $5 billion in 2016 for the first time in its 93-year history. Better targeting has been critical, as Criteo’s system improved Hasbro’s return on ad spend by as much as 1,100 percent while delivering 63 million impressions. 4. Losing advertisers left and right Facebook, Twitter and its competitors won't likely advertise on Breitbart, which had just 26 advertisers in May, ad tracker MediaRadar found, according to DigiDay. That's 90 percent less than the 242 advertisers the controversial web publisher had in March. 5. Pinning investors down Pinterest revealed Tuesday that it raised $150 million from existing investors, valuing the company at $12.3 billion. 6. B-to-b rising By 2021, business-to-business ecommerce will reach $1.2 trillion in the U.S., or 13 percent of the space, Forrester Research said. 7. The wall A new study from Criteo and Kantar Millward Brown found 53 percent of marketers believe the walls between trade and brand marketing need to come down. 8. Digital tunes Apple Music now has 27 million paying subscribers, according to Recode. That figure is up from 20 million subscribers in December, and it had 13 million about a year ago. 9. Cash for more bots Little-known bot maker Automat raised $8.3 million this week, said VentureBeat. The Montreal-based tech company has created a bot for Kalani Hilliker that offered fashion advice as well as a gifts-minded one on Kik for L’Oréal. 10. Beltway drama produces tweet buzz Former FBI director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday spurred 3.6 million tweets between 7 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. ET, per Social Pro Daily. 11. More header bidding This week, Google opened up its header bidding program, letting more than 100 publishers choose from among seven third-party exchanges that will allow for simultaneous competition for ad auctions against campaigns sold through DoubleClick. 12. Linked for success Create & Cultivate teamed up with marketing research agency Buzz MG to survey more than 400 millennial females about their jobs, finances and social habits, and found that 51 percent believed that LinkedIn had been the most beneficial social platform for their careers. Check out their full infographic here. 13. Amazon may be unstoppable Kantar Millward Brown's annual BrandZ top 100 study showed that Amazon is the tech company that's gaining the most ground. The ecommerce giant cracked BrandZ's top 5 for most valuable brands worldwide for the first time, coming in at No. 4 and jumping ahead of Facebook (5th), AT&T (6th) and Visa (7th). Amazon’s value, per the study, increased 41 percent since last year, when it ranked seventh on BrandZ’s list. Google, Apple and Microsoft remain the globe's most valuable brands (in that order), according Kantar Millward Brown's study. Its rankings combine raw financial value in terms of revenue dollars with "brand contribution," which entails a percentage that's based, according to the WPP-owned company, on the "proportion of financial value generated by the brand's ability to increase purchase volume and charge premium." Here's the full top 100 list: