Businesses that remain steadfast to their ways and fail to adapt to industry trends will fall behind their competitors who diversify their media strategies and give Digital Advertising the weight it deserves. I say this because the world we live in today is filled with businesses of all different shapes and sizes. Some are new businesses trying to build brand recognition, while others are established organizations that have been around for generations. But no matter the industry, size, or age of a business, each one’s success is largely based on their approach to advertising.
The advertising industry is changing, fast. And it always has been. Digital Advertising broke into the marketing scene surrounded by questions and doubt. In the years that followed, businesses soon began to see the advantages that Digital Advertising offered, and as media strategies began to move money away from traditional media and toward tactics like Programmatic, SEM, and Mobile Advertising, the industry began to shift.
Next year will mark an important moment in the shift from traditional media to Digital Advertising as it’s projected that total spend on Digital Advertising will surpasses TV for the first time in history. In my blog today, I’ll go over the projection in a recent study that outline this change and talk about what this industry shift means for businesses looking to make an impact in 2017.
Future Advertising Projections
According to eMarketer’s newest quarterly ad spending forecast, next year will see spending on Digital Advertising equal $77.37 billion or 38.4% of total ad spending throughout all media sources. Compared to TV’s projected 35.8% spending, 2017 will be the first time Digital Advertising will surpass TV as the leading source of advertising.
This will be a big moment for the advertising industry as a whole, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to the exponential growth of digital trends over the pay few years. Mobile Advertising for example has exploded as more and more people not only own smartphones, but also use them as a way to stay connected to their personal and business lives. The eMarketer article explains:
“Not surprisingly, mobile continues to drive growth within overall digital ad spending. Mobile ad spending in the US will grow 38.0% this year to equal $43.60 billion. That means mobile represents 63.4% of total digital ad spending in the US this year.”
TV and other traditional advertising will continue to play a major role in future media strategies because of upcoming events like the Presidential Race and the summer Olympics. Prime commercial time during these events will be valuable and expensive for businesses looking to promote their businesses.
Living in a Digital Advertising World
I mentioned earlier that today’s businesses come in all different shapes and sizes, however, they all have to deal with advertising in some way or another. How these businesses approach advertising and what they choose to spend the majority of their money on will impact the success of their advertising campaign. These projected trends only highlight the shift that has been going on for years and businesses who fail to give Digital Advertising the attention it deserves will lose a valuable connection with their customers.
The average customer in the world today learns about and respond to advertisements in a different way than they did years ago before Digital Advertising. They expect an easy sales process and are turned away from making a purchase by anything that requires too much work on their end.
The online tactics that Digital Advertising offer are able to cater to these customers. With Programmatic Advertising, we can target ideal customers and deliver then relevant ads when they are most likely to engage the ad. Through Social Media Advertising, we can place ads where customers spend most of their time, making it easy for them to learn more about your brand. Taking advantage of Mobile Advertising means connecting with customers no matter if their at home, at a restaurant, or walking past your business.
While these are just a few examples of tactics that have greatly influenced the projected 2017 shift to Digital Advertising, others like SEM, SEO, and Remarketing have all played a part in today’s successful businesses and will become even more valuable as this trend continues to move toward a Digital Advertising dependency.
Preparing for 2017
eMarketer’s projections tell us that Digital Advertising will be the go to media source for marketing in the future, but what’s important to understand is that a successful media strategy is unique to the business it’s working for. This can mean promoting a business on multiple media sources using both online and traditional advertising.
Like I’ve said throughout this article, all businesses are different and because of this, each media strategy will allocate more money to the media source or tactic that works best for that particular business. Knowing where to spend your money and which tactics will work best for your business comes from testing and analyzing data. This process of testing and reporting creates a living media strategy that can evolve as advertising trends continue to change over time.
If you’d like to learn more about Digital Advertising or which tactics you should be offering your clients, click here to schedule a free consultation with one of our marketing experts. You can also download our free Mobile Advertising Whitepaper by clicking below.
