Recommendations for 2021, Increased CTV Ad Spend, & More | Weekly Marketing News

4 Min Read

There has been a lot to cover this week in marketing news – with everything from 2021 marketing recommendations to increased ad spend on Connected TV making headlines. To make it easier for you to keep on top of the most important stories, here are some of the topics that caught our attention.

In digital marketing news, this year has seen a lot of surprises and unexpected challenges, with the pandemic forcing many brands to finally digitalize in order to continue finding and serving customers. As we approach the end of 2020, many news sources are tracking those changes, and making recommendations for how marketers can adjust their plans to fit the upcoming year. In a piece featured in Business 2 Community, they recommend that brands continue to focus on empathy in their content marketing strategies, but look into incorporating new channels and formats in order to appeal to a wider audience. Martech Cube has similar recommendations regarding integrating new platforms into campaign strategy, suggesting that brands can no longer afford to stand still as younger generations and companies continue innovating away from older technology. And if we’ve learned anything after 2020, it’s that adapting quickly and creatively to new challenges is the only way to ensure a year of marketing success.

In Connected TV news, as the number of CTV viewers continues to rise, advertisers are starting to take notice. According to eMarketer, this is translating into an increase in ad spend, and the total OTT/CTV ad spend reaching $8.1 billion in 2020 alone – with an expected rise to $18.3 billion by 2024. A new report released by Pixalate this week found similar findings of increased ad spend in CTV. Connected TV programmatic ad spend increased 70% in 2020, with a 119% increase in Q3 as compared to the same time period in 2019. With viewers spending more time in front of their CTV devices during the pandemic than ever before, it’s not surprising that this would translate into increased interest on the part of advertisers.

Here are the rest of the articles that were making waves this week in the world of marketing.

DIGITAL

Nine Tactics to Nurture Your Digital Marketing Customers – Now is the time to build a relationship throughout the new customer’s journey with your company, engaging them with relevant information at each stage.

Using the scientific method to test digital marketing strategies – Using internal and external data pulled through online conversations and technology such as artificial intelligence can help fuel the “question and research” phase of a company’s scientific approach to marketing strategies.

What is next in Digital Marketing?: A 2021 Perspective – With platforms like Tiktok and Instagram Reel revolutionizing the meaning of short video content and capturing the attention of generation Z, this year’s trends will spark a dramatic shift in marketing technology and customer behavior around the globe. 

Image: How Has Digital Marketing Changed in 2020? – 2020 is close to an end, and before the end of the year, it’s important to reflect on what has forever changed in marketing. So what is new when it comes to digital marketing and the way we approach our audiences?

4 Digital Marketing Lessons To Scale Your Brand in 2021 – Leading entrepreneur Kody White and success coach Bismarck Ebiweh share five digital marketing lessons to help you scale up your brand in 2021. 

CONNECTED TV & STREAMING

State of Connected TV/OTT: Ad Supply Trends Report (Q3 2020) – Pixalate examines how the programmatic CTV / OTT advertising marketplace changed from Q1 2020 to Q3 2020 during the global pandemic.

AT&T’s Xandr Invest Platform Adds A+E Networks and Crown Media – Following months of departures and shakeups, AT&T-owned Xandr is now focused on bolstering its video offerings to capture the growing pool of ad dollars flowing into advanced TV.

Scrappy DTC Brands See TV as an Opportunity to Reach New Audiences in the Pandemic – While many brands have been focused on cutting costs during the pandemic, a new generation of direct-to-consumer brands saw an opportunity to reach a captive audience via their televisions.

MOBILE

70% of Mobile Marketers Say COVID-19 Strengthened Their Business – Liftoff, the leader in mobile app marketing and retargeting, released its annual Mobile App Trends Report. With COVID–19 restrictions prompting more at-home time, Liftoff’s report sees app downloads reach all-time highs, propelling positive outcomes for mobile marketers.

Why grocery giant Kroger made the leap into mobile game advertising – A customer shift to mobile and concerns around a contentious election helped push the chain into a market with a surprisingly strong audience match. 

Working With Mobile Marketing And SEO – It is not shocking to find that a significant percentage of overall searches are now made on smartphones or other mobile devices. Thus, the value of mobile marketing and SEO cannot be overlooked. 

Snapchat expands ad toolkit for app marketers – Snap this week started offering software tools to help developers marketing their apps on photo-messaging platform Snapchat, as the social media company expands service for direct response advertising. 

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.

Sign Up for the Connected TV Report

Subscribe to the report Apple, Amazon, NBC and more use to get their CTV news.