As industry trends toward content marketing continue to advance and as native, shareable platforms multiply, social media ad spend climbs to keep up. In fact, Zenith Optimedia forecasts that global ad spend on social media will comprise 20% of digital marketing dollars by 2019, achieving $50 billion in total.[1]
This movement toward advertising in ambient formats—meeting users seamlessly in editorial environments and with content that provides value—spans both consumer and B2B advertising developments. As the McKinseys and Googles of the world strive to model evermore-complex-paths-to-purchase, native formats—whether sponsored editorial, social, or content recommendation ads—dominate strategies that capture consumer and trade researchers.
Users on social, and social mobile and video, are rapidly expanding to boot.[2] In 2015, Google identified a 91% growth from 2012 in B2B researchers using smartphones throughout the path to purchase; additionally, Google identified that 70% of B2B buyers and researchers watch videos throughout their purchase journey.[3] What does this mean for trade marketers? Social is a must for scale, mobile and video are crucial branders and engagers, and customers on social platforms will need even more useful, shareable, and adaptable content. Norton aims to test these trends with extensive native campaigns for clients in 2017.
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[1] Adela Suliman and Susan Fenton, “Social media ads to hit $50 billion by 2019 – Zenith,” Reuters, December 4, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-advertising-forecast-idUSKBN13U001.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Kelsey Snyder and Pashmeena Hilal, “The Changing Face of B2B Marketing,” Google, March 2015, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/the-changing-face-b2b-marketing.html.