eMarketer forecasts online ad spending in Canada will reach CA$3.08 billion ($3.11 billion) in 2012, an increase of 16.3% over 2011. Robust growth will continue through the forecast period, with spending topping out at CA$4.51 billion ($4.55 billion) in 2016.

Online ad growth will far outpace that of total media, which will maintain single digit increases through 2016. As a result, online’s share of total ad spending will be 23% in 2012 and near 30% by 2016.

Search has and will maintain the largest share of online ad spending from 2010 to 2016. In fact, eMarketer forecasts search’s compound annual growth (CAGR) of 11.2% will outpace that of classified (8.6%) and display (9.9%) during the forecast period. However, online video spending growth, which is starting from a smaller base, will leave search in the dust thanks to a CAGR of 34.3%.

eMarketer benchmarks its online ad spending projections against the IAB Canada, for which the last full year measured was 2010. We include classifieds and directories, display (including banner, direct response/lead generation, rich media and sponsorships), email (embedded ads only), search and video ads. Mobile is excluded from online ad spending estimates for Canada.

Source: eMarketer, le 25 avril 2012

Selling groceries online has never quite lived up to the potential that was once predicted. Most consumers, as it turns out, have been slow to give up the in-store shopping experience.

“What is changing—and rapidly—is how likely grocery shoppers are to use a variety of digital tools to research and plan purchases, whether or not those purchases ultimately are made online,” said Krista Garcia, eMarketer analyst and author of the new report, “US Digital Grocery Shopping: Meeting Demand at Home, In-Aisle and On the Go.” “These tools are affecting how brick-and-mortar retailers sell groceries, and how supermarkets and customers interact.”

While many consumers are doing pre-purchase research ahead of going to the grocery store, a much smaller percentage are actually buying groceries online. April 2011 data from AlixPartners found that just 2% of total grocery spending was attributed to the online channel. But while the user base may be small, it’s active. Only twenty-four percent of internet users surveyed by Allrecipes.com in March 2012 had ever bought groceries online, but among those who had done so in the past year, 43% shopped online weekly and 12% monthly.

While online sales make up only a tiny fraction of total grocery sales, a significant subset of grocery shoppers are using online and mobile tools as part of the shopping process. Grocery shoppers are familiar with and rely on a range of technologies to help them research products, find the best value and plan meals. An Empathica survey covering technologies, in-store and out, found that more than half of consumers valued an “easy-to-use” website, and nearly as many said they were interested in offers sent to email or mobile phones.

“Over time, digital innovations will play a significant role in the success or failure of offline grocery stores,” said Garcia. “Meanwhile, a number of retailers have begun to get more imaginative in their approaches to marketing and selling.”

Source: eMarketer, le 8 mai 2012

Companies have long emphasized the role of content for providing customers and prospects with useful information and meaningful insight, and the rise of digital distribution and production channels over past years has certainly propelled content marketing to new heights and investments.

According to a March 2012 report from ContentWise and the Custom Content Council, North American marketers spent $40.2 billion to produce and distribute content marketing last year, up slightly from $40.1 billion in 2010.

Keeping with tradition, print garnered the majority of budgets (58.7%) in 2011. Investment in electronic content formats, such as websites and email, were down slightly, yet spending on other forms of content marketing—which includes events and video—rose 44.4%.

Companies’ interest in content marketing is a growing trend. Not surprisingly, Custom Content Council and ContentWise found 52% of North American companies used video for content marketing in 2011, a number that has increased sharply since 2009, when it accounted for only 37% of North American marketers’ content investment. Websites and emails remained the most common digital content marketing formats, used by 82% and 71% of companies, respectively, in 2011.

Since 2009, web and email have quickly closed in on print usage. That year, 91% of North American companies used print, compared to 77% that used websites and 66% that used email. The cost-efficiency of producing and distributing digital content—coupled with the ever-increasing amount of time the US population spends consuming digital media—are two factors driving greater adoption of electronic content marketing formats.

A good portion (35%) of North American companies planned to invest more in website content this year, with an even larger percentage (54%) expecting to do so with video. Email appears to remain a tried-and-true content marketing tactic, and most marketers are already comfortable with their level of investment: just 15% plan to do more with email. The vast majority plan to keep email investment as is.

One area of opportunity for website updates and growth is mobile. As US consumers continue to adopt smartphones and tablets at a rapid rate, mobile website traffic is bound to increase. For example, the portion of paid search clicks coming from mobile devices in the US rose from 5.3% in January 2011 to 12.3% by December of the same year, according to Marin Software. As customers and prospects search for information on mobile devices, content marketers will inevitably have to adapt their content assets to meet the needs and viewing requirements of this growing audience.

Source: eMarketer, le 23 avril 2012

With video advertising the fastest-growing online ad format, brands need to pay close attention to their video ad campaigns. Ad server VINDICO found that marketers may be placing too much emphasis on clickthrough rates (CTR) to measure campaign performance. The study, which examined video ads served in the US in 2011, found that ad completion rate was a much more useful metric of ad effectiveness than CTR. And high CTRs for video ads are being misinterpreted as a sign of success, since many users are clicking on ads in an attempt to make them go away.

VINDICO’s study compared ads featured in long-form video content, which it defined as having a narrative arc and lasting at least 10 minutes, with those placed in short-form video, described as being 10 minutes or shorter. The company found that ads in short-form content had a CTR of 1.31%, compared with 0.83% for long-form content.

However, ads served in long-form video had a higher completion rate, 88%, compared with 76% for ads placed in short-form content. That’s because viewers who have committed to watching a long-form program are more willing to sit through ads, especially mid-roll ads.

Video ad completion translated to deeper interaction by customers with brand pages, according to VINDICO. Users who had watched a video ad to completion and then went to the advertiser’s brand site were more likely to go beyond a brand’s landing page to product and checkout pages, compared to customers who arrived at a landing page by clicking on an initial ad.

The research also found that video ads were evolving to take advantage of mobile users and the web’s interactivity. In 2010, 98% of online video ads had simply been repurposed from television campaigns. But in 2011, that figure dipped to 90%. Of the nontelevision-derived ads, in 2011, 2% were optimized to be viewed on a mobile device, while 8% took advantage of the web by including some kind of interactivity either within the ad, or by surrounding the ad video with static or interactive branded content. Marketers can expect ad functionality to change and improve as video ad technology, and the way it is applied, continues to develop.

Source: eMarketer, le 20 avril 2012

A battery of disruptions have roiled the US recording industry and shrunk it in half in just over a decade. The industry’s past experiments with digital media seemed promising at first but have not generated enough revenue to stem losses from sagging sales of compact discs. Against this backdrop, can a new generation of cloud-based streaming models revive the industry?

“The short answer is maybe,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Cloud-Based Music Streaming: Emerging Opportunities for Brands.” “Key trends are pointing in the right direction, including positive technology adoption forecasts, a profusion of social sharing activity connected to music, video channels that are generating revenue and expanded marketing opportunities around music content.”

In a sign of how important online streaming and subscription music services have become to the recording industry, trade publication Billboard recently updated its weekly Hot 100 song chart to include data from Spotify, Slacker, Rhapsody, Cricket/Muve, Rdio and MOG. The revamped methodology went live in March 2012, after several months of testing that showed a rising curve for audio streams, from 320.5 million in the first week of 2012 to 494 million during the week of March 4, 2012. By comparison, digital track sales during that period decreased from 46.4 million to 27.1 million, according to Nielsen.

Another indicator of the popularity of cloud-based streaming was a 50.5% increase in online music listening hours in 2011. According to a February 2012 report from AccuStream Research, US consumers spent 1.3 billion hours listening to music through internet radio and other streaming services in 2011, up from 865 million hours in 2010.

The media spend associated with US internet radio and on-demand streaming services amounted to $293.7 million in 2011, according to AccuStream Research. This compares with $171.7 million spent on subscriptions to those services. AccuStream forecast that the total market would grow by 78% in 2012.

Ad monetization is expected to grow at a healthy clip on the mobile side as well. eMarketer expects US mobile music advertising revenues to hit $591.5 million in 2015, more than doubling 2012’s total of $264.5 million. According to eMarketer estimates, the advertising component of mobile revenue is much higher with music than with gaming or video, largely because of the popularity of Pandora and Spotify on mobile devices.

Source: eMarketer, le 12 avril 2012

According to local advertising research firm BIA/Kelsey, US companies will spend an expected $136.2 billion on local advertising—including traditional, online and mobile—this year. That number is expected to climb steadily toward $151.3 billion by the end of 201

BIA/Kelsey defines local advertising as any form of advertising that provides companies with access to a local audience. Though total US local ad spending is expected to grow slowly but steadily over the next four years, digital ad spending will enjoy double-digital growth each year, while traditional investment remains relatively flat.

According to BIA/Kelsey CEO Tom Buono, much of this local digital ad spending growth will be driven by social, mobile and video advertising. Online ad spending will continue to inch ahead, closing the gap with traditional US local ad spending. By 2016, the firm projects, local digital ad spending will account for $38.5 billion, or more than 25% of total local ad spending, up from 16% in 2012.

BIA/Kelsey’s latest estimates are slightly lower than their November 2011 estimates—both on the traditional and digital end. November estimates had digital reaching $26.4 billion in 2012; the current estimate showed $24 billion.

“From 2010 to 2011, we saw a 2.4% decline in local ad spending,” said Buono at the ILM-East conference in Boston on March 26, 2012. “We were projecting a decline originally, but it’s a lot more severe than we expected because of the economy. Therefore, in our projections moving forward, we’re less bullish than we were.”

Source: eMarketer, le 29 mars 2012