According to Adobe Digital Insights U.S. share of traffic from display has decreased by -32% and globally, monthly active desktop ad-blockers is up 4x since 2013 to 220M. So then why are so many brands planning increases in digital spending?
Consumers are basically telling marketers to “leave us alone” but marketers have an obsession with numbers. Rather than think that approach marketing as a science to eliminate any risk of poor performing metrics. The results are that more and more consumers are using ad blockers and now they are starting to use ad blockers on mobile devices as well.
As Type A Group recently said about video ads online: How can it be that Facebook overstated its video viewing time by 80% for 2 years and not a single one of these geniuses figured it out? As Nielsen’s Chief Operating Officer said, “There’s so much BS in the marketplace,” (if you believed the ROI numbers of major online publishers) “the U.S. GDP would double every six months.” Of course, Nielsen isn’t a disinterested party. Third party measurement might fall to them. I am hoping that the days of Facebook, Google and other online oligarchies hiding their real numbers from us are quickly coming to an end.
Among the many issues I have with online advertising one of the biggest is this – nobody knows what’s true. Web publishers and online ad sales people have such a horrible record of reliability, web metrics (or as I like to call them, metricks) and data are so famous for being either fake or inaccurate, that it’s impossible to know who and what to believe.
[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Despite all the TV-is-dead nonsense, every major media player seems to want a piece of the video pie TV still represents about 80% of all video viewing in the U.S..[/inlinetweet] In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] time spent watching television now exceeds all other leisure activities — including socializing, sports, exercising, reading, relaxing, and web surfing — combined![/inlinetweet]
About 80% of viewing is done live. About 9% is time-shifted (DVR). Only about 5% of video viewing is done on a web device. Only about 4% of TV viewing is Netflix, YouTube, and all the other new age viewing options.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a digital marketer, but I have seen too many brands loose share when they shifted dollars away from TV to digital. Unless you’re ready to have highly customizable online ads the move to digital away from TV doesn’t make sense. Think.
