Adobe Digital Insight (ADI) recently released their 2017 Digital Advertising Report, which details a number of key trends and data points on the effectiveness of advertising and the state of the advertising industry.
The report is based on over 1.7 trillion visits to 16,000+ websites from January 2014 to January 2017, online video data from 11 billion plays of TV Everywhere (TVE) data, and 16 billion video ad impressions. Adobe has distilled this data into key trends that they're seeing around the state of digital advertising, including:
- The cost of digital advertising compared to traditional channels
- The continued growth of digital channels
- Rising customer expectations around personalization
Below are a few of the key stats and findings from the report.
Digital Advertising Costs Surge with Fierce Competition for Traffic Acquisition
ADI's research found that the cost of digital advertising is rising 5x faster than inflation in the United States, and 71% faster than TV.
At the same time, total visits to U.S. websites declined 0.4% over the past three years, and advertisers are spending more than ever on search - ADI found that spend on search has increased 42% over the past 2 years while search traffic has only grown 11%.
Consumers are also spending less time on websites, with ADI finding that time spent on websites is down 22 seconds (-6%) year over year (YoY).
As some of the easy arbitrage in digital advertising decreases, experimentation and finding new channels will be more important than ever.
Great Opportunity Exists for More Personalization and Relevancy
One of ADI's major findings was the disconnect between consumer desires and advertisers' ability to deliver personalized, relevant ads.
58% of brands indicated that they believe they're doing better at serving valuable ads, yet only 38% of consumers agreed.
Even as a desire for heightened security and privacy continues, consumers are still demanding more personalized experiences from brands. ADI's research found that 1/3 of all age groups prefer personalization, with over 50% of consumers under 50 preferring ads personalized to their interests and preferences.
In fact, 30% of consumers under the age of 50 say that personalization is not nearly good enough.
ADI cited fragmented technologies, platforms, and agencies as some of the reasons behind this lack of progress. Below is an overview of those indicators, including the fact that 44% of advertisers work with three or more different analytics platforms.
ADI has done a great job distilling their research into key takeaways for the industry. If you'd like to read the full report, it's embedded below, and can also be found on Slideshare.