There are only four more days until Christmas. And before we know it, we’ll be ringing in the New Year. After the hangover subsides and your family travels home, it will be time to get down to business. In an attempt to give you the leg up on your competition, we’re giving you a sneak peek into what the digital advertising landscape will look like in 2016.
Social advertising will get a bigger boost.
According to Fast Company, companies increased their social media advertising budgets in 2015 to nearly $24 billion (a 33.5% increase from 2014) — and what’s even more impressive than that is the fact that just a few years ago that number was $0. In 2016, you should expect to see these spending trends continue. By 2017, social media ads may account for a full 16% of all digital ad spend globally.
Video ads will start dominating.
Video ads are certainly not new. However, 2016 will be the year that video ads really take off because Google is finally getting on board with in-SERP video advertising. Users have become accustomed to seeing video ads online, and as that trend continues, expect to see more video ads popping up in unpredicted places on the web.
Instagram will catch up to Facebook and Twitter in the social ad space.
Instagram reached 400 million monthly users this fall, outdoing Twitter by almost 100 million. Earlier this year, the platform finally opened its API to all advertisers, along with a slew of new features including carousel ads, targeting options and buy buttons. Contently expects a lot of advertisers to join the bandwagon in 2016.
Digital ads will top TV ads in 2017
As eMarketer previously reported, viewers are spending more time watching digital video than ever before. Meanwhile, time spent watching TV continues to decrease. As a result, marketers are shifting their TV ad dollars to digital platforms. By 2017, eMarketer predicts that digital ads will top TV ads.
The biggest factor propelling the shift is that consumers are using connected devices like Apple TV and Roku and video streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu more than ever before. As a result, major networks can’t stop ratings from declining, and marketers are looking elsewhere to get eyes on their ads.
Adblockers will take over mobile apps
Until relatively recently, adblocking wasn’t a big deal for social advertising since most adblockers only work on desktop browsers and they couldn’t block in-feed ads on Facebook or Twitter apps. But all of that is about to change. Companies are coming out with adblocker-enabled browsers and mobile adblocker apps for consumers.
