Ad spending does not appear to be intimidated by anything, not even a possible recession. According to marketing analyst Emarketer, globally, ad spending, primarily driven by digital, will continue to rise in spite of the predictions of a global economic slowdown.
However, compared to 2018, total media and digital ad spending growth rates will be weaker. It won’t be due to tightened budgets. Rather, it will be due to a market transformation, says Emarketer in its Digital Ad Spending 2019 report.
“The advertising market is underperforming the economy, but we don’t think that’s because advertisers have stopped investing,” Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting at Zenith, says in the Emarketer report. “Instead, we think they’re investing in other areas like advertising technology, data and e-commerce.”
Worldwide digital ad spending is predicted to rise by 17.6 percent to $333.25 billion this year. It will be the first time half of the global ad market will consist of digital.
Digital is already the leading ad medium in countries such as the UK, China, Norway, and Canada. The United States, with digital advertising making up 54.2 percent of total ad spend, and the Netherlands, at 52.6 percent, will join that list in 2019. Additionally, half of Russia’s total ad investments will go digital. In contrast, countries in Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia that are less developed will remain behind in digital ad spend.
Google will continue leading in global digital ad sales in 2019, making up 31.1 percent of worldwide ad spending, or $103.73 billion. Facebook will follow at $67.37 billion, then China-based Alibaba at $29.20 billion. Next comes Amazon at $14.03 billion.
Although more advertisers are gravitating toward digital advertising, traditional channels still hold. According to Emarketer, globally, advertisers are coming up with strategies that use both traditional and digital advertising. This reflects a larger trend of convergence within the total marketing and advertising landscape.
“Brands are continuing to break down the traditional marketing silos and think about customer experience first and foremost,” Sara Whiteleather, vice president of media at US-based AMP Agency, told Emarketer. “That applies to traditional vs. digital and paid vs. owned. They’re thinking holistically about how to reach consumers across all the different touchpoints in the full marketing ecosystem.”
Brad Simms, president and CEO of global business agency Gale Partners, shares the same sentiment.
“There’s a real opportunity in 2019 for brands to tell sequential stories across different media platforms in a progressive fashion,” Simms said in the Emarketer report. “They’re starting to think about how to build interesting narratives about their brand, instead of just hammering people with the same message over and over again.”
However, marketers won’t fully accomplish an intersection of advertising channels in 2019, reports Emarketer. In a September 2018 Salesforce survey, 28 percent of marketers worldwide said ad channels such as websites, mobile apps, and video were isolated at their organization.
On the other hand, Salesforce also found that the average percentage of marketers who coordinate advertising messages across multiple channels increased from 28 percent in 2017 to 32 percent in 2018. According to Emarketer, this indicates that marketers are aiming for cross-channel engagement and will eventually achieve it.
“Reaching that goal will become even more important—and more difficult—as the number of marketing channels grows and the need to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) rises,” says Emarketer. “In 2019, however, marketers will be better equipped than ever to rise to the challenge. Armed with data that will help them more fully understand the customer journey, they can better target their audiences and personalize messages cohesively across the marketing landscape.”
By Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, best Facebook advertising agency
