Spending and Performance Gaps, Sports Streaming Audiences, & More | Weekly Marketing News

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The world of marketing can sometimes feel like it moves at the speed of light. To make it easier to keep up, we created this roundup of all the top headlines that made an impact this week. 

In digital marketing news, in February of 2022 CMOs reported that they were willing to spend 57% of their budgets on digital marketing, and were planning to increase their spending by another 16% next year. But some of those respondents are now reporting that they are seeing lower than expected returns on their investments. Harvard Business Review covered a few of the reasons why this might be happening in a new analysis. First, they suggest that some companies have not fully developed their digital marketing organization. In fact, in 2021 more than 60% of marketing leaders reported that their companies were either only in the nascent stage or the emerging stage of this journey. As a result, some of their teams are facing a steep learning curve when it comes to taking their data analytics and mastering turning that data into actionable metrics. But there are ways that these brands can combat this.

In Connected TV news, it looks like fans of live sports are on their way to joining the world of streaming. In fact, by 2025, 118 million people in the US are expected to be streaming their favorite sports (a 71% increase compared to 2021), according to eMarketer. This will become especially true for football fans—this year Prime video and Twitch are set to become the exclusive streaming home of Thursday Night Football. But what will Amazon’s Thursday Night Football audience look like? Adweek has some ideas. The news source expects ​​Amazon TNF viewers to be around five years younger than linear NFL viewers, and have a 36% higher household income range. Ultimately, as streaming becomes more prevalent for this audience group over the next few, brands should be looking to Connected TV advertising in order to connect with the next generation of sports fans.

Check out the rest of the articles that caught our attention in the list below. 

DIGITAL

How To Hit the Marketing Gas in the Current Economy – Unfortunately, when times get tough brand marketing budgets often get hit first. But this is often a counter-intuitive decision. In good times and bad, brands still need to grow, and marketing plays a crucial role for businesses, especially during volatile times.

Begin With the End: Reverse Engineering a More Personal Brand Experience – Instead of presenting consumers with multiple ways to engage, too many marketers simply optimize to the highest impact solution on an overall basis. There’s an inherent limitation to this highest common denominator approach.

How Exceptional Customer Experience Can Scale Revenue and Increase Consumer Loyalty – While it’s always been important for businesses to devote energy to the customer experience, now is a key moment to take it seriously.

The Who, What, When, Why, and How of Digital Marketing for Law Firms – At its core, marketing is about connecting with clients in the right place at the right time. In this era of the internet, the right place is often online. That makes digital marketing crucial to law firms trying to grow. 

CONNECTED TV & STREAMING 

As CTV Use Continues To Grow, Here’s How Brands Can Use the Medium To Reach the Right Audiences – Brands are increasingly considering CTV as an option to reach consumers. With traditional linear TV use declining and an increase in the number of consumers using CTV devices, how can companies harness these two trends to reach fragmented audiences?

Connected TV Looks To Maintain ‘Shiny New Thing’ Status – Want some hope in an otherwise questionable TV marketplace with a probable recession to come — at least for streamers? Just look at the viewing time spent on streaming versus the share of advertising money going to streamers.

HBO Max and Discovery+—Streaming’s Newest Odd Couple – Some say opposites attract when it comes to love, but does this statement hold true for streaming content? HBO Max and Discovery+ will soon learn.

More Football Fans Than Ever Are Streaming Games and Here’s How to Reach Them – It’s a tradition for sports fans to gather around the television with friends and families to cheer (or jeer) their favorite football teams. While this is still true, how they’re watching is changing as more viewers make the switch from linear TV to streaming.

76% of Viewers Find FAST Ads Shorter Than Those on Linear TV – Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) is but one component of the expanding AVOD space. How audiences react to the increasing frequency of ads is another factor – one on which FAST channels have the upper hand, new LG Ads data shows.

Ad-Supported Disney+ Subscription Tier To Launch In The U.S. On December 8 – With the launch, a new and comprehensive slate of subscription plans will be made available across Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and the Disney Bundle, giving viewers ultimate flexibility in choosing an option that suits their needs.

MOBILE

49% of Consumers Believe Brands Are Neglecting In-App Customer Support – Mobile apps have become the center of people’s everyday lives, but many companies are missing an opportunity to deliver customer support in a way that is most helpful to their mobile app customers.

TikTok Advertiser Says Apple Data Rules Make Sales Harder To Track – Marketer saw sales spike after a TikTok test, offering a case study in how advertisers can adjust to the new data landscape.

Local Businesses Need to Optimize Their Digital Marketing, Too – Consumers’ increased use of mobile over the past decade allowed advertisers to use digital experiences to connect with people authentically and in real time. And although this shift has given businesses new opportunities, it has also created more complexity.  

Cross-Channel Marketing: Why SMS is an Essential Part of Your E-Commerce Strategy – Cross-channel marketing enables online brands and retailers to blend different communication channels to reach customers and create cohesive shopping experiences.

WE’LL KEEP YOU UP-TO-DATE

That’s it for the roundup this week—next week we’ll be back with another list of what’s making news in marketing.

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