Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Transformation
    Operations
    Data
    Experience
    Performance
    Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech
    Mission
    Team
    Newsletter
    Search Engine Land
    Third Door Media

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Digital Transformation » Exclusive: Survey shows social media poised to capture holiday ad spend

Exclusive: Survey shows social media poised to capture holiday ad spend

Wondering if you should advertise on Facebook and Instagram this holiday season? Survey says - yes! Here's a sneak peek at how 260 business owners plan to attract shoppers this holiday season.

Brian Handly on September 13, 2018 at 2:29 pm

With consumer confidence at an all-time high, we should all expect increased ad spend with new and emerging technologies, like location data tools and social media analytical platforms, to directly reach the 2018 holiday shopper.

So how will marketers develop their approach? To understand how and when they plan to reach holiday shoppers, we surveyed over 260 owners and managers of small-to-medium businesses in the United States in September.  While the survey is not yet published, we are exclusively sharing some of our findings here before publishing it on our website.

Our biggest takeaway: social media will be the clear winner in terms of capturing the bulk of holiday ad spend. The majority of respondents indicated most of their holiday advertising will go towards social media, namely Facebook and Instagram, with more than double the responses of “email marketing” and “TV.”

Facebook and Instagram win!

This wasn’t a surprise to us due to the increasing simplicity of building campaigns and reaching target audiences on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Cost efficiency is also a major factor in opting for social media ad spend, as noted in our previous survey from this year.  That survey focused on the appeal of the Instagram to small-to-medium business marketers.

Digital marketing continues to grow its dominance over traditional media combining all digital channels, our survey found over two-thirds of ad spend this holiday season will fall into this category compared to the traditional channels like print, TV, and radio.

However, even digital advertising is changing as we step further into this age of technology. Small-to-medium businesses are showing impressive familiarity with sophisticated tools like social media analytics and geotargeting.

Incredibly, our recent survey revealed nearly ninety percent of small business (SMB) advertisers consider geotargeting as important to their holiday 2018 campaigns.

This exemplifies the increasing utilization of this technology, this isn’t Nike or Google utilizing location data during the holidays, but small businesses with a fraction of their advertising budget. Clearly, geotargeting tools are resonating with retailers and business of all sizes as it allow companies to directly reach their target audiences.

We also learned from our new survey that October is the most popular timeframe for SMBs to change their messaging to reflect their holiday promotions, followed by November and September.  Over 10 percent of respondents indicated they change their messaging beginning in August or earlier, while another 18 percent indicated they don’t change messaging at all. This last group represents an opportunity for digital sales teams and agencies to understand why they don’t change their strategies, and to add value to the relationship.

This holiday season has the potential to set new records for both in-store and online purchases. As SMBs plan to spend more on digital and concentrate that ad spend within social media, we expect to see a strong quarterly performance from Facebook and Google as they are indicated by SMBs to be the top chosen outlets of digital ad spend among SMBs this holiday season. We expect this trend will carry over to large businesses, as well.

We anticipate consumers to see promotions that are increasingly relevant to them, as the use of audience targeting and location-based marketing continues to rise.

Whether they’re the brand themselves or their agency partners, the teams running these campaigns will generally be looking to maximize their campaign performance from October through December.

They’ll use geotargeting to help find their target audience, and allocate their ad spend towards the social media channels, followed by spending on Google. We hope understanding these market dynamics will help companies maximize their performance this holiday season.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    What are your secrets to overcoming marketing challenges? Take our survey

    IAS introduces new Control Panel for contextual targeting

    Metaverse marketers favor virtual reality over NFTs

    Casted adds firmographic data to its B2B video and podcast platform

    Ruthless prioritization: The key to marketing momentum

About The Author

Brian Handly
Brian is currently the CEO of Reveal Mobile. He was previously a GM of Microsoft’s Online Services division and has more than 20 years of technical, operational and executive management experience. Brian was co-founder and CEO of Accipiter, which was acquired by aQuantive in December of 2006 followed by the acquisition of aQuantive by Microsoft in 2007.

Related Topics

Digital TransformationPerformance MarketingSocial Media Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

June 7, 2022: Master Classes

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Discovering Now: Spring

Learn More About Our MarTech Events

June 14-15, 2022: SMX Advanced (virtual)

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next (virtual)

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes (virtual)

Learn More About Our SMX Events

Webinars

Data-Driven Answers to Achieve Omnichannel Success

Is Your Marketing Stack Ready for Omnichannel CX?

Outrank in Organic Search with These 5 Core Tactics

See More Webinars

Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Sales Enablement Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Digital Experience Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Call Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports

White Papers

Realising the power of virtual events for demand generation

The Progressive Marketer’s Ultimate Events Strategy 2022 Worksheet

CMO Guide: How to Plan Smart and Pivot Fast

The Retail Renaissance Report, USA Edition: 4 Keys to Predicting Online & In-Store Demand Across Global Markets

Thinking Bigger About Marketing Budgets

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.