Despite industry concerns over ad blocking and viewability, 2015 saw strong growth in ad spending on social properties and a major shift toward video. Topics in this webinar include: eMarketer’s latest forecasts for social media marketing and social network ad revenues; Why TV ad dollars will start to flow more steadily toward social in 2016; How livestreaming will be pushed into the mainstream; The importance of influencer marketing and how marketers will address issues of ad blocking and viewability

1. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Made possible by
Social Marketing Trends for 2016
Debra Aho Williamson
Principal Analyst
December 3, 2015

2. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
#1 eMarketer report
in 2015
(based on client
downloads + views)
How do executives predict the future?

3. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Agenda
 Eight Predictions for 2016
– Video
– Ad Blocking
– Influencer Marketing
– Viewability
– Cross-Platform Targeting
– Buy Buttons
– Live Streaming
– Messaging Apps
 2015 Recap: Social marketing usage and spending

4. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
2015 Recap:
Social Marketing Usage
and Spending

5. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
88% of US marketers use social networks for
marketing
 Facebook and
Twitter
dominate, but
Instagram is
coming on
quickly

6. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
US product and services companies are
increasing social marketing budgets
10.7%
Current
14.0%
Next 12 Months
Social Media % of
Marketing Budget
Source: Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Aug. 2015

7. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Social
networks will
take in 18% of
all US digital
ad spending in
2015 …
… and 1 in 5
digital ad
dollars in
2016

8. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Just a few of the many major changes in the
social media landscape this year:
Instagram
opens up
to ads
Facebook gets
8 billion video
views per day
Buy buttons
emerge

9. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What’s in store for 2016?

10. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #1:
TV Ad Dollars Will Start to
Flow Toward Social

11. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Four factors fueling this prediction:
#1: Social video’s
importance to advertisers
 Stat: 60% of the social content
Arby’s creates is video, up from
25% in January
#2: Facebook
 8 billion video views per day
(was 4 billion in April 2015)
Source: Arby’s, Oct. 2015 Source: Facebook, Nov. 2015

12. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
#3: Dollars
moving from
TV to digital,
social

13. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
#4: Facebook adds Target Rating Point (TRP)
buying
 Common currency to plan and
buy across TV and social
 Tools like this are helping
advertisers feel comfortable
increasing social video budgets
Image: Digitalart / Freedigitalphotos.net

14. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
 It’s time to measure TV effectiveness relative to social
– Compare TV results to social results, as well as the two together.
 Don’t segregate social teams from video teams
– It also may not make sense to separate TV buyers from digital and
social buyers.
 Social attribution will only get better, as TV lags
– Facebook and Twitter have tools to measure how ads drive offline
purchases. TV can’t compare.

15. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #2:
Social Properties Will
Need to Respond to Ad
Blocking

16. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Social properties say they’re not affected, but in
fact, they’re concerned
Source: Facebook Form 10-Q, Nov. 2015

17. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Most blockers
can’t block ads
in apps.
However, the ad
blockers are
getting smarter

18. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Ad blocking is
related to the
larger issue of
internet user
privacy

19. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
More relevance, less blocking: If consumers “are downloading
apps to remove ads from the experience that you’re producing, that’s a
pretty strong signal that the ads aren’t relevant.” —Matt Idema, Facebook
Go for utility over noise: “I think people are kind of tired of ads that
are just trying to grab their attention away from everything they are
doing.” —Ben Silbermann, Pinterest, in an Advertising Week 2015 presentation
Ad blocking makes earned media even more important: “The
opportunity for marketers in social is to live native. Provide editorial
content that’s timely and relevant into people’s feeds.” —Marshall Manson,
Ogilvy PR UK

20. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #3:
Influencer Marketing Will
Go Mainstream

21. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Only 14% of social media professionals
worldwide don’t plan to use influencer marketing
Source: Altimeter Group, July 2015

22. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
It’s a way to get around ad avoidance
“We really increased our influencer
program in 2015, and going into 2016 we are
likely to increase it even more. I think you’ll see
more brands doing that as consumers
become adept at automatically blocking out ads
and as platforms continue to increase the number
of ads they deliver.” —Nick Bianchi, AT&T

23. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Influencers are important to the youth audience
US internet users who would be more interested in a brand if it
partnered with internet celebrities
Source: Trendera, Oct. 2015

24. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
Allocate budget for influencer marketing: The number of
influencer networks is burgeoning, and some, such as the Vine talent
agency Niche, now owned by Twitter, are being acquired by the major
social platforms.
Aim for authenticity: “If people are using influencers, or if they’re
promoting content that’s not heavily produced and looks like raw content,
people are more likely to pay attention to it and more likely to engage
with it.” —Amir Zonozi, Zoomph
Choose partners carefully: While anyone can be an influencer,
there is a limited supply of people who have the audience size and
creative chops to work with major brands.

25. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #4:
The Viewability Debate
Will Drag On

26. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Facebook and Twitter differ on definitions
Sources: Facebook, Twitter

27. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Mobile viewability standards have yet to come
out
(But even with standards, there’s not likely to be consensus)
Image: Chaiwat/Freedigitalphotos.net

28. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Until there’s agreement, it will come down to
dollars
“We’re introducing a
new buying option
that allows advertisers
to purchase 100%
in-view impressions
on Facebook.”
This “gives advertisers
the option to purchase
ad impressions where
the entire ad—from top
to bottom—has passed
through a person’s
screen in News Feed.”

29. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
Advertisers have the upper hand: “As long as marketers continue
to put pressure on the publishers to have metrics that make sense to
their business, then [the publishers] will have to succumb to that
pressure eventually.” —Diana Gordon, Mindshare
Social platform deals with Moat look smart: Facebook and
Twitter have both agreed to work with third-party verification firm Moat;
In October 2015, Moat became the first firm accredited by the Media
Ratings Council to monitor mobile ad viewability.
Reframing the discussion might bring resolution: In some
respects, the debate over viewability is behind the times. A better way to
look at it might be whether someone engaged with the ad, rather than
simply viewing some portion of it.

30. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #5:
Slow Progress for
Cross-Platform Targeting

31. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
There’s no doubt advertisers like the targeting
capabilities in social (particularly Facebook)
 In a recent
eMarketer
report,
Facebook was
the only
property that
received an A
grade

32. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Facebook’s Atlas ad server is a new way of
thinking about targeting
 Cross-device
 Cross-platform
 Cross-browser
 Based on Facebook data
 Targets real people, not
guesses via cookies

33. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
But agencies and marketers have a ways to go
before they’re fully ready for Atlas
What’s Needed?
Solid data strategy
Defined KPIs
Tag management
infrastructure
“There is a lot
of heavy lifting
that both
agencies and
marketers
need to do.”
—Diana Gordon,
Mindshare

34. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
It’s unclear whether people-based targeting will work for
standard banner ads: “I’m a little hesitant about it. Even if that
traditional banner ad can use Facebook’s very rich targeting, I think
there’s a certain amount of banner blindness” among consumers.
—Rob Wolf, Microsoft
Social data isn’t the be-all, end-all: Not everyone is a Facebook
user. In the US, nearly 40% of internet users don’t use it, eMarketer
calculates. Atlas can’t target people for whom it doesn’t have data.
Atlas won’t make sense if you’re not ready for it: “If you’re still
using social media as a CRM platform or a relevance platform,” it’s not
right for you. —Jill Sherman, DigitasLBi North America

35. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #6:
Buy Buttons Will Stay Niche

36. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Buy buttons are everywhere, but they require a
significant change in consumer behavior
Images: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

37. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
The holidays
may not be
the positive
bellwether
some are
expecting
48%
Percentage of US internet users who
say they don’t use social media to
help with holiday shopping
9%
Percentage who plan to buy directly
from a social media site
Source: Market Track, Sept. 2015

38. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Retailers need
more time to
figure it out

39. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
Now is the time to test buy buttons: “I think that the next year is
going to be [a time to] test and learn, and we'll come out of it
understanding how it can be valuable.” —Robin Kamen, Bliss
Look for places where social commerce makes sense:
On a platform like Pinterest, where consumers often pin things they are
interested in doing or buying, purchasing via a buy button might make
more sense.
Study where your customers are coming from:
“A lot of merchants are telling us the majority of customers they’re
acquiring through the buy button are net new, which means we’re
growing their business.” —Tram Nguyen, Pinterest

40. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #7:
Live-Streaming Video Will
Get Real(-Time)

41. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Twitter’s Periscope is catching on with
marketers—for diverse reasons
Public relations Influencer marketingPromotions

42. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Snapchat and Instagram could be next
Live Stories are Snapchat’s “most addictive
feature.” —Time, Sept. 25, 2015
Images: Snapchat, Wired
“Instagram is becoming a formidable news
service.” —Wired, Oct. 31, 2015

43. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
Event sponsorships are perfect platforms: With the growth of
video in general, more marketers are publishing edited clips from live
events. The next step is simply to livestream from the event, giving users
an exclusive peek into the action.
Consistent, reliable experiences will help livestreaming
grow: Once consumers “start to feel that there is this consistent
environment where [livestream] video exists, and it’s reliable and
engaging, then I think we’ll start to see it start to scale.”
—Diana Gordon, Mindshare
Brands have an opportunity: “It’s something that everyone’s
tiptoeing around, but no one’s really stepped up to owning it.”
—Amir Zonozi, Zoomph

44. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Trend #8:
Messaging Apps Will Be
Marketing’s Next Frontier

45. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
The number of people using mobile messaging is
rising fast
43.7% of
mobile phone
users
Source: eMarketer, Nov. 2015
64.6%

46. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp are poised
to be global powerhouses
900 million monthly
active users
700 million monthly
active users
Source: Facebook, Nov. 2015

47. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Mobile device
users—
particularly
millennials—
are receptive
to this kind of
marketing

48. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
What it means for advertisers:
 Explore customer service or publishing applications
– Before advertising takes hold, eMarketer expects these apps to
become places where marketers can conduct customer service and
publish content. That’s how marketers first used Twitter.
 Functionality and utility will be key
– In China, WeChat has become a “Swiss army knife” of information
and utility, where users can do everything from make mobile
payments to hailing a taxi in addition to messaging and voice or
video chatting.

49. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Reviewing the Predictions

50. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
Eight social marketing trends for 2016:
1. TV ad dollars will start to flow toward social.
2. Social properties will need to respond to ad blocking.
3. Influencer marketing will go mainstream.
4. The viewability debate will drag on.
5. Slow progress for cross-platform targeting.
6. Buy buttons will remain niche.
7. Live-streaming video will get real(-time).
8. Messaging apps will be marketing’s next frontier.

51. Facebook by the Numbers
adroll.com, @AdRoll

52. This report summarizes our in-
depth review of over 55,000
campaigns, which served over
37 billion
impressions.
(46 times more than last year)
adroll.com, @AdRoll
Facebook by the Numbers

53. YOY Increase in Facebook Spend by Industry
adroll.com, @AdRoll

54. Adding Facebook to Retargeting Doubles
Reach
adroll.com, @AdRoll

55. B2B is Embracing Programmatic on Facebook
- B2B used Retargeting on Facebook for
content marketing and as a way to increase
social engagement.
- B2B CTRs increased by 140% and ASPA
increased by 60%
adroll.com, @AdRoll

56. Performance Lift by Adding Cross-Device
Retargeting on Facebook
adroll.com, @AdRoll

57. © 2015 eMarketer Inc.
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Debra Aho Williamson
Social Marketing
Trends for 2016
 US Social Trends for 2016: eMarketer Predictions for Video,
Viewability, Buy Buttons, Messaging and More
 Buy Buttons: Where Social Meets Mobile Commerce
 Mobile Messaging Apps: Global User Forecast, Leaderboard
and Outlook on Monetization
 Social Advertising Effectiveness Scorecard: Industry Execs
Grade the Leading Platforms