The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) said that global ad fraud dropped from $7.2 billion in 2016 to $6.5 billion in 2017. According to another ad fraud expert, Dr. Augustine Fou, [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]”No matter what you are hearing or reading about digital ad fraud, I can assure you it’s actually worse than you think.”[/inlinetweet] Yet, even with all this ad fraud brands are still planning to waste more money on digital even though TV still rules.
Digital ad spending reached $209 billion worldwide — 41 percent of the market — in 2017, while TV brought in $178 billion — 35 percent of the market — in 2017. That’s according to Magna, the research arm of media buying firm IPG Mediabrands.
According to ZenithOptimedia, mobile ads are expected to account for half of Internet advertising by 2018, marking the first time digital surpasses desktop ads. Magna Global predicts digital ad spending will grow by 17.2% this year, reaching nearly $160 billion. By 2016, an anticipated growth of 13.5% would make digital the largest advertising category by the end of 2017.
Confusion and misinformation has led to the widely reported nonsense about the “death of television.” The critical thing for marketers to understand is consumer behavior, not the fine points of delivery systems or industry definitions. And consumer behavior is very clear – people still love to sit on their asses and watch TV.
Traditional print and TV ads still have plenty of reach. Despite the increasing number of cord cutters, plenty of folks still watch regular old TV — almost five hours a day, in fact. While that number is lower than it was a few years ago, it is still incredibly high. We’re talking over thirty hours a week, and this is just through one medium.
[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]A recent study by MarketingSherpa found that the top five most trusted ad formats are all what we would consider traditional: print, television, direct mail, radio, and out-of-home advertising[/inlinetweet]. The survey also found that traditional ads have a very high engagement level, with over half of respondents saying they tend to watch TV ads from companies they like. Similar numbers were also reported for direct mail and in-store print ads.
[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]The digital side of things didn’t fare as well — only email had engagement levels rivaling the traditional formats[/inlinetweet]. And in another survey from HubSpot,[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] several types of common online ads were called out as being overly intrusive and disliked by respondents, including pre-roll ads (the ones that play before videos), pop-up ads on web pages, and mobile phone ads.[/inlinetweet]
