Digital Ad Growth, Sports Streaming, & More | Weekly Marketing News

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Last week saw plenty of news updates in the world of digital, Connected TV, and mobile marketing. Here’s what’s been making headlines.

In digital marketing news, a new report from IAB reveals that internet advertising had a huge rebound in Q4 of 2020 – growing 29% year-over-year to $45.6 billion. Overall, the 2020 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report found that online advertising in 2020 grew 12% year-over-year to $140 billion. This was due to a number of factors, including increased content consumption, the rise of ecommerce due to the pandemic, and advertisers releasing their budgets after initially pulling them back earlier in the year. The report also attributes this rise to online advertising’s use of performance-based, cost-per-action buying models, which made it easier for marketers to justify their continued spending. 

And in Connected TV news, many streaming services are looking to add sports to their line up of content. According to Adweek, NFL has been making deals with broadcasters like NBC, ESPN, and CBS to offer enhanced streaming rights to their platforms. And with Paramount+ and NBCUniversal streaming live coverage of soccer matches, they are seeing subscriptions spike after airing each game. These networks are especially interested in adding sports to their streaming services because of the built-in audiences that come with these packages. Adweek also interviewed Jeffrey Gerttula, the EVP and GM of CBS Sports Digital, who stated “There was an audience that was more willing to spend, was bigger, and that was more valuable than anticipated. We quickly saw that, and that just sort of sharpened and increased our appetite for the sport.” For now, streaming and linear sports are working together to bring live coverage to sports-enthusiasts, but as audiences continue to move their dollars over to Connected TV services it’s looking like networks are following.

These topics and more made waves in the marketing world last week. Here are the top headlines that caught our eye.

DIGITAL

The Performance Marketers Guide to Memorial Day 2021 – While we can’t predict the future, as performance marketers we know that looking at the past is a telling indicator of future success. And if last year’s data is anything to go by, all signs are pointing up for Memorial Day. 

7 Lessons From Leading SEO at a Digital Marketing Agency – Leading SEO at a digital marketing agency or even growing an agency of your own is fraught with potential pitfalls. Here are a few lessons to help you out. 

Local Search 101: What You Need to Know – Local SEO has evolved in recent years, going from being a small component of an overall website SEO strategy to being its own specialization, with very different techniques and practices. 

Digital Ads Grew In Q4 In Pandemic Rebound – Internet advertising made a huge rebound in Q4, growing 29% YoY to $45.6 billion, according to the 2020 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. 

Ecommerce Brands Look to New Sustainability Measures as More People Shop Online – With ecommerce set to expand, various parties are seeking to make the system that supports it sustainable in different ways.

CONNECTED TV & STREAMING

Streamers Eye Sports Rights to Stand Out With Subscribers – While live sports are still a mainstay of linear television, streamers are looking at sports rights as a way to stand out in a crowded market by offering super-fans programming in one place. 

Did Facebook Just Take a Step Toward Connected TV? – The transition from linear television to streaming has unleashed a boom in streaming-based digital ads, which offer better targeting than linear TV ads and give both the media publisher and advertiser much more data about who is watching.

Smart TVs Now in 70% Of US TV Homes – Seventy percent of U.S. TV households report having at least one smart TV, and smart TVs account for 52% of all TV sets in households, on average – up from 45% in 2020.

IAB Sets Final 2021 NewFronts Schedule – With just under a month until the NewFronts presentations, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has released its final schedule for the event. 

MOBILE

App Store Optimization – three unique Benefits of Apple Search Ads – App Store Optimization, from a holistic approach, requires three key components: organic metadata optimization; creative and conversion optimization; and successfully driving installs via paid user acquisition campaigns. 

Twitter, Nielsen Expand Integration of Cross-Media Solutions Across Video Ad Platform – Twitter and Nielsen detailed an expanded integration Thursday, bringing the latter’s audience measurement and outcomes cross-media solutions into the former’s video ad platform. 

App Marketers Must Harness The Power Of 5G Or They Will Lose Out – This year mobile phones look set to get a whole lot faster due to the takeup of 5G. In the context of such accelerated projected growth, app marketers need to give serious consideration to how they will utilize the possibilities of 5G – and they need to do this now. 

Less Is More, as Twitter Begins Cleaning Up Its Ad Product Suite – Twitter unveiled a cleaned-up advertising product suite Wednesday, consolidating 22 individual ad product names into five categories and outlining which features apply to those categories. 

WE’LL KEEP YOU UP-TO-DATE

That’s it for the roundup this week, next week we’ll be back with another list of what’s making news in marketing.

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