Marketers’ frustrations, loyalty, social video ad spend: 5 killer stats to start your week

We arm marketers with all the numbers they need to tackle the week ahead.

1. Social video ad spend will grow 44% by 2021

Social video ad spend in the US is predicted to grow 44% to reach $14.89bn in 2021, accounting for 10.4% of total video ad spending.

Overall video ad spending will also increase 62.1% between 2019 and 2023.

In regard to the platforms themselves, Twitter’s US video ad revenue will pass $1bn in 2021, while Snapchat’s US video ad business is estimated to grow 19.9% year on year in 2021, reaching $727.4m.

YouTube is still the most common platform used to watch video content (90%), followed by Facebook (60%), Instagram (35%) and Twitter (21%).

Millennials and Gen Z spend 54% of video time per day on social apps, accounting for 25% of that share.

Source: eMarketer

2. Consumers concerned about authentic influencer marketing

Some 61% of consumers rank authenticity as the most important attribute associated with an influencer, yet lack of authenticity is also their number one concern (44%), while 46% believe content needs to be more authentic and engaging for them to trust and buy into influencer-led campaigns.

More than half (54%) of respondents suggest the use of #ad and #spon reduces credibility.

There’s also a greater appeal for mid-tier influencers (61%), largely due to the relatable content they produce. Another 43% say mid-tier influencers are better at engaging them in conversation than other types of influencers.

However, just 28% of respondents say influencer content has persuaded them to click-through and buy a product immediately. Despite the fact 61% of millennials claiming they have been influenced by a social media content creator.

Source: Influencer Intelligence

READ MORE: What consumers think about influencer marketing

3. Marketers struggling to use customer experience successfully

Marketers are struggling to translate their conceptual understanding of customer experience (CX) into operational reality. Just 10% of brands surveyed think they are “very advanced” in aligning strategy and technology around CX, up just two percentage points since 2015.

The proportion of brands describing themselves as “quite advanced” has dropped from 42% to 38% over four years, while those that label themselves “immature” has risen three percentage points to 8%.

Yet there are major commercial benefits to prioritising customer experience. More than a third (37%) of those that labelled themselves very advanced exceeded the top business goal by a significant margin, versus just 18% among those are ‘quite advanced’ and 10% of those that are ‘not very advanced’.

A key area holding marketers back is a fragmented and inconsistent approach to marketing tech. Amid those that call themselves CX leaders, 32% claim to have a high integrated technology stack, 33% a somewhat integrated stack and 26% a fragmented approach. Amid other firms, must 7% say they are highly integrated while 49% describe their approach as fragmented.

Source: Adobe and Econsultancy 

4. Marketers and consumers at odds over the best loyalty tactics

Marketers and consumers are split when it comes to which benefits generate greater loyalty. Some 77% of consumers say they like being given points to use but only 54% of marketers believe this type of reward is the most effective.

Consumers are more enthusiastic about a range of benefits including priority access to sales (57% compared to 40% of marketers); exclusive member discounts (67% compared to 38% of marketers), and free gifts (71% compared to 33% of marketers).

Additionally, there was a 46 percentage point gap between customers who wanted easier visualisation of their points balance and marketers who thought this was effective. There is also a 43 percentage point gap for offering location-based rewards, a 35 percentage point gap in the desire for personalised product emails and a 30-point difference for gamification.

Source: DMA

5. Proportion of retailers using third-party marketplaces declines

Only 36% of leading e-retailers are making use of multi-channel options such as Amazon and eBay, down from 39% in November 2017. And only 28% of the UK’s top 250 retailers are taking full advantage of the benefits offered by Google Shopping, a 3% decline year on year.

Another 18% of top e-retailers fail to optimise onsite search with functions such as autocomplete, well-targeted product suggestions or relevant recommendations. While 37% of leading sites include live-chat functions, despite the importance placed on such services by online shoppers. This figure has dropped from 39% last year.

Meanwhile 17% of the leading UK e-retailers lose the opportunity to achieve sales from a shopper’s network of friends and contacts by failing to put sharing buttons on their sites. For instance, in 2017 87% of retailers offered social share buttons but this dropped to 83% in 2018.

Source: Visualsoft

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