8 Surprising Digital Marketing Stats From the Past Week

The past several days have brought a bevy of digital marketing stats that should interest industry players. Below are 8 stats that caught our eye: 1. Wait, what... 85 percent? On April 17, The New York Times published a story about digital media companies struggling to grow traffic and revenue. But a particular paragraph jumped off the page: "In the first quarter of 2016, 85 cents of every new dollar spent in online advertising will go to Google or Facebook, said Brian Nowak, a Morgan Stanley analyst." Whoa, 85 percent? Nowak's number appeared to be high, so we asked David Silverman, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S., if the figure jibes with what he's seen in his company's research. He said that number seemed inflated for Facebook and Google alone. "We believe the top 10 companies account for 75 percent," Silverman said. And he doesn't think eight of those companies have lost huge marketshare for new ad dollars in a matter of months. So every publisher not named Facebook and Google can now breathe a little easier. 2. Snapchat overtakes a rival Instagram has been the most important social network to teens for two years, according to Piper Jaffray, which surveyed 6,500 folks age 14 to 19. But that's no longer the case. The researcher said 28 percent of teens selected Snapchat as the most important service, edging Instagram's 27 percent. 3. Instagram users are No. 1 in mobile GlobalWebIndex surveyed 131,437 consumers 16 to 64 years old, attempting to learn from them whether or not high-frequency users of social networks think of themselves as "mobile-first." In other words, do they use their smartphone/tablet or their desktop/laptop more often to access their virtual friends? Not terribly shocking, GlobalWebIndex found that Instagrammers are the most mobile-minded, with 42 percent of them saying their mobile device is the most important way to digitally log on. Instagram and Google+ were the only two platforms where faithful users chose mobile over desktop for the most important way of going online. That's right—users of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube leaned on their desktops more than other devices. Snapchat was not in the survey. 4. Good news for Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Outsell surveyed 1,500 business-to-consumer marketers and found that spending on social ads will grow 18 percent in 2016. 5. Chatbots sell vinyl records An online vinyl seller, called The Edit, has sold $1 million worth of records since it debuted eight months ago. David Cotter, CEO of ReplyYes and a former Amazon.com general manager, attributes much of the site's success to his chatbot technology, which leans on an algorithm that recommends records based on purchase behavior and other interest-level signals. Yet, there's also a human element. Check out how it all works here. 6. True sales On Tuesday, YouTube and Oracle Data Cloud revealed a partnership to offer consumer packaged-goods marketers in the U.S. data on how their ads affect in-store purchases. According to Google's early tests, 78 percent of TrueView—the skippable YouTube ads—indicated an increase in offline sales. Sixty-one percent of those ads generated a "statistically significant" increase in sales. 7. Young desktop listeners Seventy-two percent of Spotify users are millennials, who were born between 1982 and 2004. What's more surprising, according to the digital music service, they under-index on mobile—as they use smartphones/tablets to listen to tunes just 62 percent compared to 67 percent for everyone else. 8. Consolidating marketplace IBM, Dentsu and Rakuten were among the big companies that swallowed up smaller digital players in the last few months. Results International today revealed that the first quarter included 108 deals in the marketing and ad tech space, amounting to $2.4 billion. The mergers and acquisitions consultancy said it was the third-highest quarter since it began tracking the area two years ago. Bonus stat: Digital chatter predicts political victory Conversocial and Synthesio have teamed up to analyze digital trends for the New York primary, mining posts across the web about all of the candidates. In the days leading up to the Tuesday vote in the Empire State, the analytics companies found that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton—who ultimately won the night for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively—led online conversations about the election. Trump garnered 68 percent of the GOP buzz while Clinton got 55 percent when it came to her party.

Performance Marketing

8 Surprising Digital Marketing Stats From the Past Week

Snapchat continues to rise

Christopher Heine

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Christopher Heine