Over the last year, the pandemic has caused serious disruption to every business, accelerated digital transformation, and dramatically impacted consumer behavior trends. For example, across industries, consumers are embracing more flexible (and often more digital) offerings like online retail for cars, telehealth appointments for healthcare, and virtual tours for real estate.
Plus, the pandemic has changed the trajectory of how ad spend has been trending — and that’s what we’ll dive into below. These ad spend trends are important markers for savvy agencies to pay attention to, since they signify what channels and industries took the biggest hit and help marketers strategize and plan for success.
Read on to learn more about the ad spend trends for 2021 (and beyond) that savvy agencies and marketers like you need to know — and how you can continue to drive success for your brands.
The ad spend trends you need to know now
In case you missed it, 2019 was a major milestone: it was the very first time that digital advertising spend in the U.S. exceeded traditional advertising spend. Agencies and marketers were prepared to see digital ad spend continue to rise, as it had for each year since 2009 — but we all know what happened in 2020.
As uncertainty loomed in 2020, digital advertising budgets were slashed. And for the first time since the 2009 financial crisis, global ad spend declined. Though it had been growing at an average of 4.5% per year, it fell 8.8% last year.
Now, in spring 2021, things are looking up. Amidst millions of Americans getting vaccinated every day, a strengthening labor market, and more positive signs pointing to the end of the pandemic, we expect to see ad spend grow too.
Dentsu’s Global Ad Spend Forecasts 2021 anticipates that while 2021 ad spend will likely come in below 2019 spend, we’ll see more growth in 2022.
Plus, Dentsu’s Forecasts shares some more promising signs: they project that the sectors that restricted spend the most in 2020 are actually set for the biggest recovery in 2021.
For example, ad spend for travel and hospitality companies – one of the hardest-hit industries last year — is forecasted to grow by almost 30% this year. Read more about how travel is making a comeback — and how marketers can drive success during this resurgence in bookings – here.
Automotive ad spend is also projected to grow almost 14% this year, with more consumers looking to invest in cars and enjoy more local travel.
eMarketer also has some illuminating ad spend projections for this year. They’re even more optimistic than Dentsu, forecasting that US digital ad spend will increase by 25.5% in 2021, the fastest growth rate since 2018. Plus, they project that digital ad spend will be even greater in 2021, surpassing two-thirds of the US ad market.
How agencies can drive digital advertising success
We’re excited for all of these bright spots in these projections, which signify a return to normal and confidence in the industry — but it’s helpful to remind ourselves that it’s always smart to be strategic and efficient.
Take a page from Merkle’s book, where they advise that since there is still uncertainty about when the pandemic will truly end, so “brands must continue to innovate, remain nimble, and keep an eye on consumer behavior – both for signs of recovery and for expectations that will persist post-pandemic.”
Whether your brands’ budgets have returned to pre-COVID levels, your clients are ready to spend even more now, or you still need to be conservative with digital advertising spend, insights from the call channel can help you drive more leads, lower CPLs, and generate more revenue for the brands you work with.
With actionable insights from a call tracking and analytics solution you can optimize campaigns to drive more quality call leads. You can understand who the caller is, what channel and campaign drove the call, if the caller was a sales lead or a sales conversion, and more and then activate these insights directly in platforms like Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Microsoft Advertising, and Adobe Advertising Cloud. This makes SEM optimizations that drive more quality leads at a lower cost a breeze. No matter what your budget is, that’s always a good thing.
You can drive value for your brands’ paid search campaigns by optimizing bid strategies and allocating budget with call channel insights. With call tracking and analytics, you can understand which keywords, ads, and campaigns are driving the most valuable calls. Having data on what’s driving calls that are sales opportunities, sales conversions, and revenue over the phone will help you make better decisions and optimize to drive better results.
For example, you can bid based on the value of calls: Use your call data to understand the average value of calls from different keywords, consumer locations, and days/times and set your bids appropriately. This helps you maximize ROI and drive as many calls as possible at a profitable CPL.
You can also improve results from Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising smart bidding. If you use smart bidding to help drive conversions for your clients, you can have those algorithms optimize only for those calls driving the results and revenue you want, and not bad calls like spam or customer support. You’ll get better results from automated bid strategies because Google and Microsoft Advertising are optimizing with true call conversion value data.
For more tips and tricks on how you can supercharge your SEM results and how your agency can deliver more value to your clients as we recover from the pandemic, check out this guide.
Credit: The Drum
