Download on Digital: Marketing news for February 2020

What’s the latest digital marketing news for February? Amazon’s ad revenue soared during 2019’s holiday quarter, reports forecasted social contributions as a key selling point for brands in 2020, and LinkedIn showed continued user growth. Last but certainly not least, in the wake of World War 3 memes, environmental disasters, and the death of an icon, the world got exactly what it needed — another video app.

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Amazon’s ad revenue continued to skyrocket into 2020
The e-commerce giant boasted some impressive numbers heading into the new year, with Q4 ad revenue growing by 41%. Amazon has quietly become the third-largest digital advertising platform in North America, projecting to have a 15.9% market share by 2021. While that may not seem like much, Amazon’s ad revenue has grown 117% over the last year compared to 17% growth for Google. Sure, that’s likely to plateau for a relatively new ad platform, but this is Amazon. As it continues to grow, marketers — especially those in product marketing — should give Amazon ads a real shot.

Consumers want advertising with a positive social impact
In the Advertising Association’s recent Ap8 report, it was noted that audiences still view advertising as an evil practice, despite noted increased efforts and spending to promote positive messages. With this, consumers have called for advertisements to do a better job of highlighting key social topics including mental health, the environment, healthy lifestyles, and animal welfare. An example of a company doing things right? The AA identified Dove as a brand that was continuously cited by consumers as having a positive social impact. Furthermore, 53% of adults say they think more highly of for-profit companies who promote positive social change. Companies should consider their social agenda as a key differentiator on the same tier as price and customer experience.

LinkedIn continued to show major growth
Once again, LinkedIn reported record levels of engagement through Q4 of 2019, with an increase of ~15 million total members. While they noted an uptick in engagement, it’s been tied to an increase of users using LinkedIn more like Facebook, sharing personal statuses and statements unrelated to their career. If user behaviour starts blurring the lines between LinkedIn and Facebook, it will be interesting to see if their ad targeting follows suit.

Byte was downloaded 1.3 million times in its opening week
While the reincarnation of Vine burst on the scene with over 1 million downloads, it still has a lot of ground to cover if it wants to compete with TikTok and its 500 million users, not to mention Snapchat, Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, Youtube, and all the other video apps and platforms out there. Despite the numbers looking good, Byte is off to a rocky start. It’s been reported to already be overrun with bots and fame chasers spamming comment sections to gain followers. If we’re lucky, Byte, TikTok, and a few of these other platforms will cannibalize each other so us marketers can focus our efforts on who’s left standing.

Regardless of what happens to Byte, it’s clear we’ve reached peak video. What isn’t clear is what companies should be doing about it. Should you be on Byte making 6-second loops of your team doing the floss? Probably not. Should you have video on your radar for that next campaign or content series? Definitely.

Get in touch with Stryve to find out how you can get started with video ads and new content types.