According to a survey by WideOrbit, programmatic radio advertising is set to substantially increase in the next 12 months. Ninety percent of the survey’s ad buyer respondents reported an intention to use programmatic platforms, compared to just 30 percent who admitted to using it already. The difference is dramatic, but it should be noted that while WideOrbit reports that over 9,000 professionals were surveyed, fewer than 300 actually responded.


Email marketing retains its rock-solid dependability, according to surveys by the Data & Marketing Association. One-hundred percent of healthcare and hospitality marketers report using email to reach consumers. Retail was the lowest adopter of the format with only 81 percent usage.

According to surveys by email service provider Emma, 58 percent of marketers in the US plan to increase email marketing budgets in 2017, a higher response than in any other channel.

Forecasts by the Radicati Group predict that email marketing messages will grow by 4.4 percent annually, meaning that by 2021 319.6 billion marketing emails will be sent out per day.


The August edition of The CMO Survey is now available, reporting on marketing-industry trends for the second half of this year. Most notable of its findings was a projected 6.4 percent increase in hiring and a 5.1 percent increase in outsourcing by marketing departments, the highest figures in the past two years.

Spending on data analytics is also predicted to increase, from 5.5 percent to 18.1 percent of marketing budgets in the next three years.

“More firms are using quantitative tools to demonstrate the long-term impact of marketing investments,” said The CMO Survey director Christine Moorman. “The number remains low, but it has increased more than seven points since we first asked about it four years ago.”


According to a report by the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of U.S. adults now get at least some news from social media. That same stat is higher among minorities at 74 percent.


Facebook has more American millennial users than there exist in the United States, according to a report by Brian Wiesser at Pivotal Research. The social network claims there are 41 million 18-24 year-olds, while census data reports just 31 million. The discrepancy may result from the fact that Facebook’s data relies on self-reporting for its age data.


Ethnic diversity among podcast fans has increased by 20 percent over the last seven years, according to a report by Nielsen. According to their information, “ethnic” listeners represented 30 percent of the market in 2010, rising to 36 percent in 2016.

The report also revealed that 51 percent of homes that buy bottled water also listen to podcasts, and continued to draw conclusions that self-acknowledged “avid” podcast fans spend nominally more than the less enthusiastic group.


A new study by Viant has revealed that Hispanic millennials are much more active on social media around brands than their non-Hispanic counterparts. According to their information, 50 percent of Hispanic respondents reported using a brand’s hashtag or discussing brands online, compared to only 17 percent of non-Hispanics. Furthermore, 58 percent of Hispanic millennial women follow beauty brands on social media, a marked increase above the 14 percent reported by the general population.


As hand-me-down smartphones become more common, American teenagers are becoming increasingly reliant on them, per a new eMarketer report. Seventy-nine percent of 12-to-17-year-olds will become regular smartphone users this year, finally surpassing the general population’s penetration of 77 percent.

A survey of 253 teens ages 13-to-17 reports that 38 percent of high-school aged teens claim they would not be able to go a full day without their phones, a number that skews slightly higher for women, at 43 percent.


An Influenster survey conducted recently reports that women overwhelmingly approve of branded content, with 87 percent claiming to enjoy it. Other notable findings are that over 90 percent responded that they mostly interact with branded content on mobile devices and that brands and social-media influencers increase purchase decisions more than celebrities do.


Flexibility and affordability are at the top of consumers’ minds this summer, according to surveys by Google. Of those surveyed in April, 16 percent reported they won’t plan their activities until they’ve already arrived. Furthermore, Google reported that inexpensive travel options have broken into the top search trends for family and couples vacations.

Searches for family vacations, luxury travel and couples/honeymoon travel grew three times faster year-over-year than in ecotourism or adventure travel categories.


Airbnb has seen massive growth in China, reporting a 495 percent increase in bookings in Hangzhou and a 388 percent increase in Chongqing.

Family travel on the home-stay app continues to rise, with eight million family bookings between May 1 and August 31. According to their report, the most common destinations are the United States, France, Italy and Spain.


Amazon is making waves in Japan: the island nation is the online retailer’s second-largest and quickest-growing market as of last year. At a Digiday conference in Fukuoka, 55 percent of the brands surveyed reported devoting part of their advertising budgets to Amazon’s platform, but only 23 percent claimed to spend more than a quarter of their budget on it.


Leanplum has released its latest mobile marketing research, which reports that promotional push notifications result in 960 percent higher user purchases as compared to those who did not receive a message, and increase in-app expenditures by 16 percent.

The most effective times to send push notifications are Saturdays and late afternoons, resulting in 220 percent and 270 percent more purchases, respectively.


Subscription services are enjoying unprecedented popularity with millennials, according to surveys by Fluent. As compared to baby boomers, the tech-native generation is 24 percent, 35 percent and 28 percent more likely to be subscribed to meal kit, shave club and beauty subscription boxes, respectively.

The subscription box category is growing rapidly, with Amazon and Walmart both attempting to enter the fray earlier this year.


Even with the relatively low penetration of voice-activated devices in the US market, a survey by Magid Advisors reports that almost half of those surveyed are interested in owning one.

Furthermore, despite Amazon’s best efforts to break into the market, its Echo still lags behind Apple’s Siri in both awareness and usage—by five percent and 12 percent, respectively.