A brand new year is upon us—a time for reflection and looking forward to brighter days to come. This week, for the last marketing statistics round-up of 2016, we take a look at how marketers are investing in digital video, what consumers are hoping for this New Year, what kind of VR headsets sell the most and why no one has time for your slow-loading mobile site.
Digital, The Star Of Video Ads
Digital advertising is well on its way well to exceed the $59.6 billion spent last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Marketers spent 20 percent more year-over-year on digital advertising in the third quarter to total $17.6 billion, bringing the total to more than $50 billion spent in 2016 so far with one quarter left. Video, in particular, will be a main focus for brands in the coming year—IAB’s Digital Video Ad Spent Study for 2016 in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCooper, found that ad buyers expected to increase spending 63 percent on digital video, 62 percent on mobile video, 41 percent on advanced TV and 30 percent for broadcast, cable and set-top TV.
Loading? Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That
Are you tired of looking something up on your phone only to have it load for what seems like forever? You’re not alone, and consumers aren’t putting up with it. New research by Google has found that 53 percent of mobile website visitors will leave if a web page doesn’t load within three seconds. Google’s report, “The Need for Mobile Speed,” found that mobile sites that loaded within five seconds performed much better than those that took 19 seconds to load. In addition, sites that loaded within five seconds boast 25 percent higher ad viewability, 70 percent longer average sessions and a 35 percent lower bounce rate.
VR Is On The Move
Tractica estimates that more than 88 percent of all consumer-grade VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) sold in 2016 were mobile headsets, and predicts that mobile HMDs will account for three-quarters of annual consumer-grade HMDs shipments in 2021. By that time, the market intelligence firm forecasts that the total market for mobile VR hardware and content will reach $10.9 billion worldwide.
“Mobile VR has a tremendous amount of momentum, but there is much work still to be done,” said principal analyst Mark Beccue in a statement. “VR is an extremely complex technology and there are many obstacles to a frictionless, optimized user experience.”
Toasting For Health And Wealth In 2017
New Year’s resolutions traditionally involve hitting the gym, and a year-end survey by Visa found that not much has changed, with 35 percent who wanted to get healthier and physically fit. However, a nearly identical amount were determined to either get their financial house in order (19.8 percent) or save more money (14.9 percent). People are feeling pretty good about their choices, too, with 84 percent feeling positive that they will achieve their goals in the coming year.
Saving money, as it turns out, starts this weekend with 53.3 percent of those surveyed saying they plan to stay home with family or friends on New Year’s Eve. Of those who will celebrate, Visa reported, more than 35 percent plan to spend less than $50, compared to just 14 percent who say they plan on spending over $100 on celebrations.
Other 2017 resolution priorities included spending time with family & friends (9.7 percent), getting a new job (9.5 percent), traveling more (7.7 percent) and starting or ending a relationship (3 percent).
