Home Ad Exchange News Ad Spend’s Slow Spell; The Engagement Advantage

Ad Spend’s Slow Spell; The Engagement Advantage

SHARE:
Comic: The Forecast

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

In The Slow Lane

Dentsu is the latest company to revise its global ad spend forecast downward since its previous report in December. Why? The shaky economy, Adweek reports.

Digital dollars, which currently make up close to 60% of all ad spend, will decelerate to single-digit growth.

Although ad spend will grow worldwide by 3.3% to reach $727.9 billion in 2023 – and continue to grow by 4.7% in 2024 and 3.8% in 2025 – that growth is deceptive.

“Media price inflation is the true driver of this increase and hides the more lackluster reality: 2023 will be a flat year for ad spend,” Peter Huijboom, Dentsu’s CEO of international media, said in the report.

There are a few bright spots, though. Retail media, CTV, programmatic buying and search remain on the rise, with Dentsu predicting strong performance. Out-of-home, cinema and audio will see YOY growth as well.

Linear TV and print are not so lucky, which is not surprising. Both are expected to keep slumping.

One factor Dentsu’s forecast didn’t take into account, however, is the influence of generative AI on the ad industry and, by extension, on ad spend. Huijboom stated that future forecasts will track the impact of AI technology.

Show Me The Money

YouTubers are profiting more than other online creators.

Roughly half of YouTuber content creators make $500 per month for their videos, according to a survey of more than 1,000 creators by influencer marketing platform Aspire. Only 40% of Instagram creators and 36% of TikTok creators make that much, Ad Age reports.

Creators on YouTube also snag higher-paying brand sponsorships. Six-percent of YouTubers make $10,000 per month from brand deals, compared with 3% of Instagram influencers and 2% of TikTokers.

The reason? Higher engagement. Engagement rates on YouTube are 50%, compared with only 17% for TikTok.

YouTubers profit more than creators on other social platforms because they have the engagement numbers to justify charging brands higher rates.

Yet advertisers are drawn to TikTok and Instagram because they’re newer. This year, more brands have plans to increase their investments in Instagram (87%) than on YouTube (45%).

Wisdom (?) Of The Crowd

Twitter is outsourcing AI image detection to its users. What could go wrong?

On Wednesday, Twitter launched a pilot of Community Notes for images within tweets. Community Notes is a feature that Twitter says helps people collaborate to identify misleading tweets and then append contextual (and hopefully clarifying) information.

As generative AI technology gets better, it’s becoming more difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t.

Crowdsourcing is Twitter’s response to an increase in deceitful AI-generated content on its platform, Gizmodo reports.

Sometimes this content is relatively benign and humorous. Remember the Balenciaga Pope? But then there are more sinister fake viral images, like the one posted last week of a supposed bomb attack on the Pentagon, which is far less amusing.

Until recently, detecting and flagging fabricated content would have been the responsibility of Twitter’s trust and safety team, 15% of which CEO Elon Musk recently laid off. He also slashed Twitter’s ethical AI team, which went from 17 people to just one member.

When Gizmodo reached out to Twitter for more detailed information about the new Community Notes pilot, it received a poop emoji in response.

But Wait, There’s More!

Twitter is turning to mobile ad marketplace Inmobi to sell some ads programmatically. [Digiday] 

More on how Google is expanding into data clean rooms via PAIR. [Ad Age]

Why ad platforms will be the chief beneficiaries of generative AI for creative production. [Mobile Dev Memo]

You’re Hired!

Digital customer experience company Hero Digital nabs Chris Kostakis as CTO. [release]

Must Read

Apple Has Far-Reaching Plans To Block Hundreds Of Programmatic Data Companies From iOS

Apple’s WebKit crackdown appears to extend well beyond The Trade Desk, putting hundreds of ad tech, data and identity vendors on a mysterious, dynamically updated block list.

Josh Reed, Zoom's VP of brand and content, speaking at AdExchanger's Programmatic IO event in New York City (September 28, 2006)

Zoom’s Marketing Challenge Is That It’s Too Well Known For Its Own Good

Zoom has 99% unaided brand awareness, which sounds great on paper. But there’s a catch: Most people still think it’s just a video-call app.

Why Agencies Think They Shouldn’t Own Agentic AI Tools Or The Data Used To Build Them

Agencies are differentiating their tech stacks by building custom agentic AI tools for their clients. And they’re rethinking owning those AI tools – particularly since licensing them creates new revenue streams.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Programmatic IO: Insurers Are Building Ad Tech’s AI Accountability Layer

Agencies and marketers discussed the future of AI governance at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO NYC this week. The main takeaway? Expect insurers to play an increasingly important role in managing AI compliance.

Apple’s Latest Operating System Blocks The Trade Desk From Serving Ads On Safari

The Trade Desk is unable to serve ads to the Safari browser for Apple device owners that have downloaded iOS 27. Apple has been investigating the issue since last week.

Who Will Stand Up For The Open Web?

The open web is done, stick a fork in it. Banner blindness is near universal, search traffic has run dry and publishers are struggling for oxygen. But what if that’s … not true?