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Content Marketing Insights 2023

Jessica Toib
Jessica Toib
January 17, 2023

The latest in Content Marketing Insights, the state of content, research, data points & trends. This post is a comprehensive collection of data points and research around content, content marketing, branded content and native advertising.

The stats covers performance, growth, trends for brands, content studios (publishers) and platforms. It is continuously updated, as we share new data in our weekly newsletter.

If you were to sum it up, all the data reflects how consumers are responding to content and what that means for your business.

The best way is to ‘find on page’ from your browser to see if there are specific bullets. Secondly, to browse and liberally copy/paste to a text document.

When searching it is best to use a single word like ‘recall’ rather than ‘brand recall’, as the bullet points do not always line up perfectly with how might phrase it.

We have sourced each piece of data, occasionally the original may have been taken down, try paste the URL into the  internet archive.

Below, we cover Data Supporting Growth of Content in general, Content ROI, and data from Nudge. As an aside, Nudge is a measurement platform for content, providing analytics, insights and intelligence.

Pro tip: Make sure you bookmark this and keep checking in for the latest stories.

How content marketing drives awareness:

  • Via the Polar + IPSOS Connect study. Consumer awareness of a brand increased to 69% after engaging with branded content, while purchase intent was 51%. – MediaPost (May 17, 2017)

How content marketing drives brand recall:

  • People who read for 15 or more seconds are 25% more likely to recall a brand than those who read for 10 or fewer seconds. – Folio Mag (May 7, 2019)

How content marketing drives conversion:

  • “More attention is usually better than less attention in driving desired outcomes. But it’s the outcomes that count. As the Dentsu ‘Attention Economy’ study has so successfully shown, while some ads can, and do, work very well with fleeting glances, other ads, with different objectives, may require more attention to successfully communicate or build memory structures.” –Mike Follett, MD, Lumen Research

The latest insights

Collated from all the 2022 newsletters.

 

Data Supporting Growth of Content

  • Whilst brand awareness is still important (27%), the most popular KPIs are a shift in brand perceptions (31%) and time spent with content (28%). – Netimperative (November 7, 2019)
  • A credible editorial environment is still the number one factor when selecting a media partner (57%), followed by audience profile (52%) and quality of audience engagement (49%). – Netimperative (November 7, 2019)
  • There were 86 ad-tech mergers and acquisitions in the first three quarters of the year, according to data from Results International. – Adweek (November 7, 2019)
  • Only 49% (of content marketers) track MQLs/SQLs and even fewer track sales effectiveness, customer acquisition costs, customer retention, or lifetime value. – Diginomica (November 4, 2019)
  • Publishers and content creators are missing out on $13.4b in ad revenue because of crummy metrics. – TV Rev (November 3, 2019)
  • A new report from Forrester Research predicts that marketers will double their spend on marketing partnerships with Netflix, like product placement and “other creative marketing integrations with brands.” – CNBC (October 29, 2019)
  • According to Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), in Q4 alone, spending on OOH increased by 7.2% YOY. This is the largest quarterly increase since before the Great Recession. – Marketing Dive (October 28, 2019)
  • New research by Nielsen shows that there’s an 8% lower cognitive load at the end of an article, thus making consumers more likely to engage with a next action (or CTA) at the bottom of a piece. This is known as a Moment of Next. – Social Media Today (October 27, 2019)
  • Newsletters are the most effective vehicle for nurturing leads. Of the content marketers polled, 31% cite newsletters, 13% blog posts/short articles and 9% each for in-person events and case studies. – MediaPost (October 23, 2019)
  • Targeting consumers with ads online is far more successful when consumers are online with a mission – going online to research something specific, for example. They are 28% more likely to notice brand content and 26% more likely to share that content, 43% more likely to interact with brands, and 54% more likely to buy from that brand. – Warc (October 17, 2019)
  • On Apple News, “It’s a highly-scaled audience with high engagement in a premium content environment. The average user spends over an hour per month on it.” – Axios (October 15, 2019)
  • Premium publishers are more than three times more effective in driving mid-funnel brand lift metrics, such as favorability, consideration, and intent to recommend. It also showed that premium publisher effectiveness is driven in part by higher viewability rates, which include lower levels of invalid traffic. – Adweek (October 11, 2019)
  • The conversion rate of the native ads and branded content that dealt with sports and included detailed information on each player and country’s team was higher than the conversion of any other content that briefly reported on the highlights of the World Cup. – Adweek (October 11, 2019)
  • Cardlytics found that back-to-school shoppers who buyers from a brand both in-store and online spend 48% more than those who use only one of those channels. – Beet.TV (October 9, 2019)
    • People who have identified themselves as ad avoiders were 22% more engaged and more likely to remember brands mentioned in a podcast compared to TV ads. – Branding in Asia (October 9, 2019)
      • 94% of listeners consume podcasts while performing other tasks. Doing chores at home (61%) and driving (55%) were the most common, with exercising, shopping and running errands also popular.
      • Activity makes listeners more receptive. Rather than reducing the brand impact, the research shows that the active group scored more highly on all measures – engagement (+18%), emotional intensity (+40%) and long term memory of the podcast (+22%).
  • Post-GDPR, Financial Times see private deals rise from 5% to 70% of programmatic revenue. – Digiday (October 8, 2019)
  • Today, about 75% of Bustle Digital Group’s revenue comes from direct-sold advertising, 90% of which involves some branded content creation. – Digiday (October 1, 2019)
  • Amid declining ad revenue from ad blockers, Burda cut a quarter of ad impressions. In turn, digital ad revenues rose slowly back up, with an average 38% year-on-year lift recorded across all its titles in 2018. – Digiday (October 1, 2019)
  • A great case study for others wondering if lower ad load CAN lead to better revenue.
  • Brand mentions in the podcast deliver on average 16% higher engagement and 12% higher memory encoding than the surrounding content (in contrast, global radio benchmarks show brand mentions on average score 5% lower than content). – Warc (September 26, 2019)
  • An elevated state of engagement for brand mentions also drives brand metrics across the board: awareness (+89% uplift), brand consideration (+57%), brand favourability (+24%), and purchase intent (+14%)./li>
  • Reddit is on track to double its ad revenue from $100m in 2019 to $200m in 2021. – AdAge (September 19, 2019)
  • Digital ad spend makes up 70% of Godiva’s marketing budget. – Digiday (September 16, 2019)
  • For GiveMeSport, improved page speed, increased direct traffic 63%. – Digiday (September 13, 2019)
  • The Atlantic audience is up 20% YOY. And readers who visit four or more times/month are up 25%. – Nieman Lab (September 5, 2019)
  • 84% of respondents believe data collection and management will be needed to drive customer insight, but only 49% think they deliver well on that today. – eMarketer (August 28, 2019)
  • Switching off ad personalization caused a 52% revenue drop in this Google experiment. – Simon Harris (August 28, 2019)
  • Axel Springer news brands see 10.6% ad revenue decline in the year leading to Q2. – The Drum (August 14, 2019)
  • Hearst doubles global digital ad revenue year on year. And has run 200 campaigns with its global team. – Digiday (August 14, 2019)
  • ViacomCBS will be one of the largest content spenders in industry, $13b past 12 months vs $15b for Netflix. – Sara Fischer (August 13, 2019)
  • Spotify has had 100,000 podcasts sign up for its beta since October last year. And 450,000 total shows as part of its catalog. – The Verge (August 13, 2019)
  • [Via OutBrain study] Consumers are significantly more likely to understand why they’re shown native ads compared to ads on Facebook (57% vs 52%). – MarTech Advisor (August 7, 2019)
  • This understanding extends to trust with 22% of consumers trusting native ads versus 17% trusting Facebook ads.
  • 28% of consumers have clicked on native content in the past six months. Native Discoveries are considered educational, interesting, and relevant.
  • [Via Sharethrough Study] Consumers are 25% more likely to look at a native ad than a banner ad.- What’s Next in Publishing (August 6, 2019)
  • They look at them 53% more frequently and check them out 4.1 times per session on average, versus 2.7 for standard banners./li>
  • Sponsored posts with #ad on Instagram almost double. – Campaign Live (August 1, 2019)
  • The top 50 most photographed brands on Twitter, #1 is Amazon. – Brand Watch (July 2019)
  • PopSugar has an 80% retention from 2018 to 2019 from its top 20 advertisers. – AdExchanger (July 31, 2019)
  • Amazon’s increasingly important online ad business, revenue climbed 37% to $3 billion. – CNBC (July 25, 2019)
  • NBCUniversal has a 10-person team dedicated to DTC advertisers, and is working with 150 DTC companies. – Business Insider (July 25, 2019)
    • Of the marketers polled, only 3.4% say their content is extremely effective, down from 12% in 2017. And a paltry 5.4% feel it’s very effective, compared to 18% the year before. – The Drum (July 24, 2019)
      • The big jump was in companies reporting that they’re somewhat effective: 47.3%. That admission of mediocrity is up from 19% in 2017.
  • Parsley produces 46% less content than in the previous 6 months, but have increased monthly views and visitors by about 25%. – Search Engine Land (July 23, 2019)
  • LinkedIn sessions grew 22% YOY. – Search Engine Land (July 19, 2019)
  • 30 of the 38 Super Bowl advertisers also bought Twitter ads during the Super Bowl. – NYSE (July 16, 2019)
  • The second quarter of 2019 was the biggest for influencer marketing, with a total spend of $442m. 18% growth on the prior quarter. – The Drum (July 15, 2019)
  • Host-read ads continue to be the preferred ad type for podcasts, making up 63.3% of ads in 2018. Announcer-read/pre-produced ads made up 35% of last year’s ads. – eMarketer (July 12, 2019)
  • [On Twitter] The platform and GroupM found that video content optimized for Twitter drives 33% more emotional engagement than non-optimized spots, while a Magna/IPG Media Lab sponsored study found that users spend 24% more time with Creator ads. – Mobile Marketer (July 11, 2019)
  • Facebook’s flagship shows under 2m views per episode. Snap has multiple shows with 25m+ unique views. – Josh Constine (July 10, 2019)
  • Quibi has already sold $100m in ads. – CNBC (June 19, 2019)
  • BuzzFeed aims to drive $260m in sales of branded product through retail. – Digiday (June 14, 2019)
  • 55% of publishers are profiting off of Snapchat, according to Digiday research. – Digiday (June 12, 2019)
    • Related, 51% of publishers using Google AMP said it delivered a “very significant” or “extremely significant” amount of revenues while 28% said the same about Facebook. YouTube was a key revenue driver for 25% of publishers.
  • According to traffic data pulled from Parse.ly’s 2000+ publisher member sites for the month of May, demand is highest for news about politics and government, followed by sports and immigration. – Axios (June 11, 2019)
  • [From the Branded Content Project study] “With one-third of respondents reporting margins over 50% and one-quarter seeing client retention rates over 80%, this data informs us that when sold to businesses that need to educate or inform local audiences, branded content can be a successful way to increase and diversify revenues”. – Adweek (June 11, 2019)
  • Consumers spend more time on mobile than they do tv. – eMarketer (June 4, 2019)
  • Podcast spend to exceed $1b by 2021. – The Verge (June 3, 2019)
    • Dynamically inserted ads (into podcasts) now account for 48.8% of podcast ads business.
  • [For mobile] 67% of tested ads were processed within just 0.4 seconds. About 60% of desktop ad exposures are seen at 2-3 seconds. – Business of Apps (May 31, 2019)
  • Bing now generates $7.5b/year from search advertising. – eMarketer (May 31, 2019)
  • Arc, the WaPo CMS has 175 publishers onboard. – Adweek (May 29, 2019)
  • With Lonely Planet, Nativo’s platform helped support sponsored content volume growth by as much as 300%. – MarTechSeries (May 28, 2019)
  • In 2020 the average daily time on Facebook will drop to 37 minutes. – eMarketer (May 27, 2019)
  • Facebook revamped 2.2 billion fake accounts in Q1 2019. – Kurt Wagner (May 23, 2019)
  • Fullscreen proves that social branded content drives purchases, Consumers exposed to the branded posts bought the advertised product at a 1.5 – 5.2% higher rate than control audiences. And, the group of people that had not only seen the posts but also engaged with them (liked, commented, shared, etc.) bought the advertised product at a 58% higher rate than those who were exposed but didn’t engage. – kidscreen (May 22, 2019)
  • Nielsen estimates that Americans watch as much tv as they did 16 years ago but they’ve now doubled their media diet to include just as much digital consumption as tv. – Axios (May 21, 2019)
  • Medium has between 200k-400k subscribers paying $50 per year. – Alex Heath (May 21, 2019)
  • Netflix will spend $15b on programming this year. – Benedict Evans (May 19, 2019)
  • Native display makes up 63% of total display spend. – iab (May 17, 2019)
  • [Australia] 45 percent of consumers believe if they see a brand on a trusted platform, they will also trust it. Whilst 35% believe brands on platforms they like will be a good fit for them. – Bandt (May 16, 2019)
  • The average person does 22.2 searches a day. – Mindshare (May 2019)
  • 49% of US internet users said that TV was one of the mediums where they were most likely to see a relevant ad, while just 12% said the same about streaming video. – eMarketer (May 15, 2019)
  • Forbes Media’s content solution now account for 40% of its direct revenue. – Digiday (May 14, 2019)
  • Mercedes distributes 11 million copies of its print magazines. – The Drum (May 14, 2019)
  • ICloud is the top service mobile users upload to in the US. Above web browsing, above SnapChat, above Google. – @benbajarin via Twitter (May 10, 2019)
  • People who read for 15 or more seconds are 25% more likely to recall a brand than those who read for 10 or fewer seconds. – Folio Mag (May 7, 2019)
  • YouTube reaches more 18-49 year olds than ALL cable tv networks combined. – MediaPost (May 7, 2019)
  • Almost 80% of consumers that watch digital video are agreeable to ads in exchange for free content. – Marketing Dive (May 6, 2019)
  • Instagram influencers posting 150% more sponsored content than a year ago. – Marketing Land (May 6, 2019)
  • Substack’s 12 top-earning writers make an average of more than $160,000 each, more than 40,000 people are paying for Substack newsletters today. – Buzzfeed (April 29, 2019)
  • 51.7% of US social network users will be mobile-only in 2019. – eMarketer (April 26, 2019)
  • On average US adults will spend 3 hours 43 minutes per day on mobile devices. – eMarketer (April 26, 2019)
  • In 2019, 65% of all Google searches will be on mobile. – The Drum (April 24, 2019)
  • 13% Spike in Investment of In-House Branded Content Creation. – Martech Advisor (April 23, 2019)
  • Nativo says effective content marketing is able to achieve five-times more conversions than traditional display retargeting – MediaPost (April 22, 2019)
  • Advertisers to spend 38.7% of their US digital video ad budgets on native formats in 2020. – eMarketer (April 17, 2019)
  • Hulu’s chief executive, Randy Freer, expects that the ad market for online television will grow to $50 billion within three years. – The New York Times (April 16, 2019)
    • Driven by social, native advertising will account for 62.7% of total US display ad spending in 2019, up from 54.2% in 2017. – eMarketer (April 16, 2019)
  • Native will account for 30.8% of nonsocial display ad spend this year, up from 19.1% in 2017.
  • US advertisers will spend $43.90 billion this year on native display ads—$8.66 billion more than they did last year.
  • Premium, ad-free and ad-limited SVOD services account for just under 10% of TV consumption among all audiences. – MediaPost (April 8, 2019)
  • 200,000 people subscribed to Apple News in the first 24 hours. – MacRumors (April 2, 2019)
  • The number of advertisers buying branded content has leveled off; it has hovered steadily between 2,500 and 3,000 since the beginning of 2018, according to Mediaradar data. – Digiday (April 1, 2019)
  • Reddit to cross $100m in ad revenues this year. – eMarketer (March 26, 2019)
  • [On Reddit vs Facebook video ads] Video completion rates on eight- to 10-second video ads were 2.5 times higher than benchmarks, and 70% of the views occurred on mobile. – Marketing Dive (March 25, 2019)
  • Bing Ads took down 900 million bad ads and removed 300,000 bad sites from its system. It also suspended nearly 200,000 accounts from the Bing Ads platform in 2018 – twice the number in the prior year. – MediaPost (March 25, 2019)
  • Snapchat expected to exceed $1b in revenue in 2020, slower than expected but still growing. – eMarketer (March 25, 2019)
  • Stronger-than-expected internet advertising will drive 4.7% growth in total global ad spend in 2019. “We have upgraded our forecasts after internet ad spend markedly exceeded our expectations in 2018,” Barnard explained, adding, “We now estimate that internet advertising grew 16% last year, up from our previous forecast of 12%.” – MediaPost (March 25, 2019)
  • 88.8% of native ads in the US will become more mobile, up from 85.2% in 2018. Likewise, 87.7% of native will be purchased programmatically in 2020, up from 86.7% in 2018. The share of native that comes from social will slightly decline from 76.7% in 2018 to 73.5% in 2020. – eMarketer (March 18, 2019)
  • Of the marketers polled, only 3.4% say their content is extremely effective, down from 12% in 2017. And a paltry 5.4% feel it’s very effective, compared to 18% the year before. – MediaPost (March 15, 2019)
    • The big jump was in companies reporting that they’re somewhat effective: 47.3%. That admission of mediocrity is up from 19% in 2017.
  • Turners Launchpad has nearly done 1,000 campaigns for advertisers. – Digiday (March 15, 2019)
  • YouTube is responsible for 37% of all mobile internet traffic. In contrast to Netflix, which is 2.4%. – Statista (March 11, 2019)
  • AdYouLike predicts native advertising will exceed $402b by 2025. – The Drum (March 6, 2019)
  • Less than 10% of US marketers think their attribution is excellent. – eMarketer (March 1, 2019)
  • Bidtellect reported that Mobile advertising engagement continues to increase; in Q4 2018, Mobile CTR was 150% higher than Desktop and 19.2% higher than Tablet. – Bidtellect
  • In 2018 an average of 575 podcasts were started every day. – Chartable (February 20, 2019)
    • 60m people listen to podcasts a few times a week, or 91m listen at least once a week.
  • This year digital revenue is set to surpass all other media, last year it surpassed tv. – Axios (February 20, 2019)
  • CPVs in Buffer’s study of vertical vs square video were 68% lower with vertical video. – Business 2 Community (February 19, 2019)
  • [A Verizon Media Study] Most people accepted advertising as a form of content, and with 79% of respondents agreeing that they would prefer to see ads blending in with the page. – WARC (February 15, 2019)
  • Digital advertising revenues rise to $26.2 billion in Q3, up 22% YOY. – IAB (February 14, 2019)
  • Ads seen in a premium context are viewed for 17% longer and with 29% higher levels of engagement than ads on social sites such as Facebook and YouTube. – Campaign (February 8, 2019)
  • With a lean, profitable operation of 10 full-time employees, Morning Brew’s revenue topped $3 million in 2018, according to the company. Morning Brew’s native advertising revenue averages $200,000 a week thanks to more than 40 active clients, including Microsoft, JPMorgan and Allbirds. – Forbes (February 7, 2019)
  • Brand investments in advertising and scholarships in to eSports will double from $694m in 2018 to $1.39 billion in 2021. – eMarketer (February 5, 2019)
  • Hearst’s branded content revenue grew 40% in 2018. Ramping up over 300 campaigns. – WWD (January 30, 2019)
  • Audiences are predicted to watch 20% fewer minutes of video ads per day, leading brands to embrace short-form video ads. – Marketing Dive (January 15, 2019)
  • Publishers are still confident that advertising revenue will remain a vital revenue stream in 2019, with 81% saying it was an important area for them (among many), followed by subscription (78%), native ads (75%), events (48%), and e-commerce (31%). – WARC (January 15, 2019)
  • 60% of European publishers expect revenue from video, native and mobile formats to grow more than 25% next year. – Mobile Marketing (November 23, 2018)
  • Viewers of branded content were 62 percent more likely to show a positive reaction compared with those who watched 30-second ads. – AdAge (November 19, 2018)
    • Those who viewed branded content were 17 percent more likely to say that they were “very likely” to buy the brand being advertised.
  • Explore Adobe’s data centre for 2018 holiday predictions, actuals and analysis. – Adobe (November 2018)
  • Bidtellect released an infographic with some interesting stats ahead of Black Friday. For example, last year, they saw a 17% increase in sales compared to the year before and 66% of sales were made from mobile phones or tablets. – Bidtellect (November 15, 2018)
  • In an October 2018 survey by Ascend2 of 145 marketers worldwide, more than half of respondents said that integrating disparate systems was a challenging barrier in developing a successful strategy for utilizing marketing technology. – eMarketer (November 15, 2018)
    • That’s more than they anticipate to spend on labour.
  • Digital Ad Spend hits record-breaking $49.5B for first half of 2018. A 23% YOY increase. – IAB (November 13, 2018)
  • 47% of in-house programmatic struggles with ROI attribution. – eMarketer (November 9, 2018)
  • Requests for video drive 5 billion searches per day. – Youplus (November 7, 2018)
  • In an October 2018 survey by Ascend2 of 145 marketers worldwide, more than half of respondents said that integrating disparate systems was a challenging barrier in developing a successful strategy for utilizing marketing technology. – eMarketer (November 6, 2018)
    • 65% of respondents have increasing marketing ROI as a leading priority, followed by improving efficiency at 57% and attributing revenue to marketing (39%).
  • 86% of brand marketers in the US plan to increase their investment in ‘Outcome-Driven Media’ over the next 24-48 months. – Xaxis (November, 2018)
    • 77% of marketers said they analyze all media activity in-house.
  • Less than a third of marketers and agencies are requiring performance guarantees for branded-content campaigns. – Digiday (October 31, 2018)
  • 74.5% of communications professionals rely on branded content in their campaigns. According to a USB Annenberg survey. – O’Dwyer (October 31, 2018)
  • Rockstar games launches Red Dead Redemption by buying and removing all ads – to then notify users ( who often have Adblock on). Apparently 60-70% of Imgurs desktop users use ad blockers. – The Drum (October 30, 2018)
  • 70% of users who feel a connection to a brand spend twice as much as those who don’t. – Adweek (October 30, 2018)
  • Video comprises 26% of non-social native spend, 63% growth over 2017. – MediaPost (October 23, 2018)
  • 6 in 10 of client side marketers pay under $10k for branded content distribution on an average campaign. – Digiday (October 22, 2018)
    • 89% of entrants in to the effective content strategy WARC awards agreed that clients will be investing more in the future. A clear bias – but content is hot right now. – Benzinga (October 18, 2018)
  • Nearly half (44%) of entrants surveyed by WARC cited new customer acquisition as a key objective of their content marketing.
  • Global growth rate of programmatic remains unchanged, up 22% over 2017, and that programmatic now accounts for 55% of worldwide digital media buying. – MediaPost (October 16, 2018)
  • MTV targets 20-25% of revenue from branded content in two years. – Buzz in Content (October 9, 2018)
  • An IAB study of Ad Supported Video Player – OTT consumers finds that ad receptiveness is stronger for ASV OTT viewers than those who watch SVOD or TV-only. – Business Wire (October 9, 2018)
    • ASV OTT viewers are more likely to try new brands, with 36 percent stating they learn about new brands/products/services from video ads. In fact, ASV OTT viewers report spending more on online subscription purchases ($119 per month vs. $89/mo for SVOD viewers)—from meal kits to contact lenses—making them an ideal target for direct-to-consumer marketers.
  • Branded video makes up 27% of Facebook’s entire branded content space. Photos make up 73%. – Cision (October 2, 2018)
  • A new report says US spending on native advertising is set to hit nearly $33B in 2018. – Market Journal (September 26, 2018)
  • Lights. Camera. Action. 95% of consumers say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service. – PR News (September 26, 2018)
  • Moving on up! A third of content marketers increased their spending this year, compared to last year. – Forbes (September 24, 2018)
  • Turns out even advertisers actively avoid ads. Yep, even their own. 98% stream ad-free content and 27% report using ad blockers. But since 96% prefer articles to banners, there’s hope for us content folks yet! – MarTech (September 21, 2018)
  • 9.4% of marketers have decreased their third party data usage and 11.4% anticipate they’ll use less third party in time. – eMarketer (September 5, 2018)
  • Half of content marketers struggling determining the right KPIs to measure. – Digiday (August 29, 2018)
  • 50,000 writers a week contribute to Medium. – Digiday (August 21, 2018)
  • 75% of brands tracked by MediaRadar ran programmatic. – OnlineVideo.net (August 14, 2018)
  • A Deloitte and OnResearch study found that 1/3 of respondents spend more than 5% of their annual revenues on technology. – eMarketer (August 13, 2018)
  • India’s branded entertainment content is expected to touch $1.6b by 2022. – Exchange 4 Media (August 13, 2018)
  • For advertisers, the pricing for the Shoppable AR Lenses is the same as typical AR Lenses, between $10 and $14 for 1,000 AR Lens plays. – Digiday (August 10, 2018)
  • Gannett saw on the national front, strong double-digit year-over-year growth in digital media revenues with advances in video, high impact digital display, branded content, and sponsorship. – Motley Fool (August 9, 2018)
  • [Tech/design discussion] How AMP drove a 70% decline in conversion. – Medium (August 8, 2018)
  • 87% of ad execs say they hold back spending on media and platforms due to poor measurement. – MediaPost (August 7, 2018)
  • According to a Sprout Social Study the top three challenges for social marketers are measuring ROI (55%), understanding cross channel social success (42%) and developing a strategy to support business goals at (39%). – Small Business Trends (August 1, 2018)
  • 12% of of influencers had bought fake followers in this Influencer Index study. Put another way, that’s 1 in 8 influencer. – Holmes Report (July 31, 2018)
  • 80 percent of online users report feeling overwhelmed by the number of ads they see. – Business Wire (July 26, 2018)
  • When ads.txt filters were not applied, 1% of display ad spend and 72% of video ad spend went to unauthorized programmatic platforms. – eMarketer (July 26, 2018)
  • 2,705 brands are running native ads monthly, and 188 new brands are buying content each month in 2018. – Mediapost (July 23, 2018)
  • Print advertisers down 13% January to April, shrinking from 172,155 advertisers to 151,825 advertisers. That means over 20,000 advertisers have shifted spend. – Mediapost (July 23, 2018)
  • Looking at the Nudge data on Beauty Content, it’s clear that there are two formats that perform better than the rest: Articles (52% above benchmarks) + Lists (13% above benchmarks). – Nudge (July 19, 2018)
  • Seems like a drop in the bucket when according to PQ Media, global branded entertainment revenues grew 8% in 2017 to $106bn. – The Drum (July 9, 2018)
  • [On Print Media] Estimates indicate a drop of a massive 80 percent in the last three years alone, according to Publicis Media’s chief investment officer, Amer El Hajj. – AMEinfo (July 9, 2018)
  • Reddit users spend more than 16 minutes per day on the site. In comparison, the average time spent on Twitter is 6 minutes and 10 for Facebook. – Marketing Dive (July 6, 2018)
  • Email newsletters drive 124% higher attention for travel brands. – Nudge (July 4, 2018)
  • From a Native study on Viewable vs Non-Viewable bidding strategies. For placements with 40 percent viewability and below, we see a more extreme lift across our network. These placements, which sit at the bottom of the page, are 3.5-times more likely to lead to a conversion than the 70-80 percent viewable placements. In other words, once users are done consuming the content they came for, they are more likely to engage with your brand. – MarTech (July 2, 2018)
  • Instagram stories is twice as big as Snapchat. – The Motley Fool (July 2, 2018)
  • From a Twitter + Magna study on their influencer content. Creator video tweets that include branding in their first 3 seconds boost unaided ad recall by 214 percent. – Online Video (June 27, 2018)
  • 20% of Chefclub’s revenue comes from branded content. – Digiday (June 26, 2018)
  • 84% of 1.7b YouTube views were driven by influencers, as opposed to 13% for media companies and 3% for brands. – TV[R]EV (June 20, 2018)
  • The latest data suggests that the optimal length for native video content on mobile and tablet should be between 15 and 22 seconds. After 22 seconds, user interest does wane. – The Drum (June 15, 2018)
  • Self-reported Podcast revenues $317m in 2017. – MarTech (June 12, 2018)
  • From Comscore Data on Nativo: when a user visits the Nativo marketplace, they spend an average 59 seconds per page, compared to 46 seconds for Facebook. Read the post for more datapoints on comparatives with other native players. – GlobeNewsWire (June 11, 2018)
  • Content makes consumers 131% more likely to buy. – Twitter (June 6, 2018)
  • AdYouLike served 33m native video ads in the first four months of 2018. – MediaPost (June 5, 2018)
  • 79% of influencers plan to create more branded content in the next year than they currently do. – Adweek (June 3, 2018)
  • MediaCom’s recent ‘Effectiveness of Partnerships’ study highlighted the benefits of striking strategic partnerships between advertiser, agency, and media owner. The report concluded that partnerships “can be up to twice as effective pound for pound at driving brand health metrics than standard advertising”. – ExchangeWire (May 30, 2018)
  • People are spending 18 minutes more a day online than they were last year. Growing from 5.6 hours to 5.9 hours. – Recode (May 30, 2018)
  • 10 things you need to know about sponsored video. – Tubular (May 22, 2018)
  • 42% of content marketers don’t have access to the right technology. – Agility PR (May 22, 2018)
  • User sentiment with Snap among its key 18- to 34-year-old demographic plunged 73% following the redesign. – The Motley Fool (May 21, 2018)
  • Facebook stories has 150m daily active users. – TechCrunch (May 17, 2018)
    • 26% of consumers associate the word ‘fake’ with social. – MarTech Series (May 15, 2018)
    • Three-quarters of respondents also said the rise in fake news has made them more likely to seek out quality, trustworthy news sites.
  • Branded content contributed more than 50% of advertising revenue to BBC Global News. An increase from 38% last year. – The Drum (May 10, 2018)
  • Via Reuters Content Connect II Report, 77% of global consumers expect to see more personalized content in the future. – Reuters (May 9, 2018)
  • Also, 63% of consumers agree that personally relevant content improves how they feel about the brand associated with it.
  • And 58% see brands in a more positive light if they provide them with content that match their interests.
  • Further global consumers consider sponsored content more appealing if it is thought provoking (64%), imaginative (58%), humorous (55%) and innovative (51%). – PRNewswire (May 9, 2018)
  • US marketers will increase their investment in marketing technology by 27% over the next four years, spending more than $122 billion on marketing tech by 2022. – eMarketer (May 9, 2018)
  • Contextual video increases dwell time by 1/3. – netimperative (May 3, 2018)
  • SnapChat CPA is 5 times lower than Instagram and average CTR is 2.2%. – mish guru (May 3, 2018)
  • SnapChat daily usage is 30 minutes/day. – eMarketer (May 2, 2018)
  • Video ads now make up half of Twitter’s revenue. – MarketWatch (April 30, 2018)
  • The average influencer campaign on RhythmOne was $71k in 2017. – Business Wire (April 30, 2018)
  • [Instagram Influencer Agency] 1.67% of Instagram audience signed up to email newsletter. 2-5% swipe up rate on ads. – Digiday (April 19, 2018)
  • Blog output by brands has increased over 800% in the past five years but organic social share of blogs has decreased by 89%. Hence, the rise of native. – Harvard Business Review (April 19, 2018)
  • More than 200 publishers have sold vertical video advertising this year, nearly twice the 112 that sold vertical video in Q1, 2017. – Digiday (April 16, 2018)
  • In a survey of PR professionals, 64% predict that in 5 years consumers will not be able to tell the difference between news stories & promotional content. 59% believe the average person will not care if they can tell the difference. – The Drum (April 14, 2018)
  • Global branded entertainment content grew 8% in 2017 to $106.2b. – The Holmes Report (April 13, 2018)
  • Facebook spend grows 62% in Q1, Instagram 136%, Snap 234%. – MediaPost (April 12, 2018)
  • Native Ad Spend will make up nearly 60% of display spending in 2018. This spend remains the key focus for displacement. – eMarketer (April 11, 2018)
  • 85% of native display will transact programmatically in 2018. – eMarketer (April 9, 2018)
  • Stash saw more than 5% of sponsored content readers made a deposit (i.e. converted) in their recent program. – MediaPost (April 5, 2018)
  • Half of 18-19 y/o’s and 57% of people 20-36 believe that ads have become more relevant over the past two years.
    – MediaPost (April 4, 2018)
  • UK Email Marketers are returning £32.28 per pound spent. – MediaPost (April 4, 2018)
  • While viewing branded influencer videos, 93% of the time consumers’ eyes were locked on the content; this is 30% higher than the experience viewing a brand pre-roll ad. – Media Play News (April 3, 2018)
  • This high attention correlated to 2x higher levels of brand recall.
  • Nativo’s 2017 Share of Native Ad Spend. – Venture Beat (April 2, 2018)
  • Chrome’s mobile article recommendations up 2,100% in one year. Driving as many visits as Twitter. – Nieman Lab (March 29, 2018)
  • More than half the briefs that come in to FT are for branded content. – Digiday (March 15, 2018)
  • Adstage found Facebook CPMS increased 122% YOY in January, compared to 45% YOY. Driven by the newsfeed changes. – Twitter (March 8, 2018)
  • 95% of Bustle’s revenue comes from direct display and branded content. – Digiday (March 8, 2018)
  • Nearly 280m people, or 85% of the US population go online each month. 16% exclusively access the internet via mobile. – eMarketer (March 8, 2018)
  • 42% of consumers who discover brands on Facebook are likely to go on and complete their purchases on Amazon. – eMarketer (March 3, 2018)
  • Nearly 40% of advertisers intend to invest more heavily in branded video in 2018, and 62% feel it’s the most effective content marketing medium. – RYOT UK Study (February 26, 2018)
  • Native spend grew 568% through 2017. – theTradeDesk (February 22, 2018)
  • 8% of Buzzfeed’s Tasty food channel views were sponsored content. – Variety (February 20, 2018)
  • Viewers skip 90% of pre-roll video ads. – Conquesitor (February 19, 2018)
  • 76% of marketing execs aim to increase branded content in 2018. – Digital Journal (February 13, 2018)
  • 2/3 of consumers expect direct brand connectivity. Slide 22. – iab. (February 12, 2018)
  • Percentage of total digital population reached monthly by: blogs 71%; social network 87%; search 90% Slide 135. – iab. (February 12, 2018)
  • On Valentine’s, consumers spend 69% longer on quizzes. – Nudge (February 9, 2018)
  • Ads seen in a premium context are viewed for 17% longer and with 29% higher levels of engagement than ads on social sites such as Facebook and YouTube. – Campaign (February 8, 2018)
  • Representing 5.1% of downloads, Spotify is the #2 podcasting platform. Shows how much Apple dominates. – PODnews (February 8, 2018)
  • USAToday’s branded content sales has grown 40% YOY 2016/17. – Adweek (January 4, 2018)
  • Nearly 50% of marketers don’t know where their ads are running online. – Marketing Dive (December 15, 2017)
  • BuzzFeed generated $52m from Facebook, Amazon, Netflix & Google this year. Roughly a quarter of their revenue. – Crunchbase (December 13, 2017)
  • CNN found that nearly 80% of consumers are familiar with branded content, and (lucky for us) across generations, they like it. – Inc. (December 7, 2017)
  • How consumers consumption of content changes on Thanksgiving & Black Friday. – Nudge! (December 1, 2017)
    • Average attention is 28-30% lower than norms across both days. i.e. attention is more fickle and you have to fight harder to get it.
    • The highest quality distribution sources for were email, native & social.
    • During Thanksgiving, peak desktop consumption was 12-1pm, Tablet 8pm-10pm, and mobile was fairly consistent from 9am through 11pm.
    • On Black Friday, peak desktop usage was 9-12, tablet at 10 and mobile 8am-3pm.
  • 71% of the C suite reckon most branded is boring, expected and repetitive. Brands who can get it right can win a valuable new audience. – Raconteur (November 22, 2017)
  • NY Times programmatic direct revenue double in the last 12 months. – Digiday (November 22, 2017)
  • Time Inc’s branded content studio The Foundry has produced over 1000 campaigns over the past two years. – Digiday (November 16, 2017)
  • Longer headlines get higher CTRS. Headlines with 16 words garnered a CTR of 0.33%. By comparison, pithy headlines of just four words recorded an average CTR of less than half that, at just 0.14%. – Polar/eMarketer (November 3, 2017)
  • While the proportion of UK consumers who trust premium publishers is relatively high, with 79% trusting the BBC, and 55% trusting The Times and The Guardian, only 36% said they trust news content on Facebook and Twitter. – Business wire via UK ShareThrough (October 31, 2017)
  • Across 400 publishers, spend on buying traffic for branded content has roughly doubled year over year, according to Keywee. – Digiday(October 27, 2017)
  • Brands using programmatic dropped 2% YOY. Whilst minimal, it isn’t growth. – MediaPost (October 23, 2017)
  • Vidyard released their video benchmarks. – Vidyard
  • CNN has grown native ad placements 300% since it enabled ShareThrough distribution platform. – Digiday (October 10, 2017)
  • 47% adults 22 to 45 years old are watching absolutely no content on traditional TV platforms. Study by Omnicom’s Hearts & Science. – AdAge (October 6, 2017)
  • Facebook branded content in the UK is estimated to be worth over £100M per year. – Tubular Insights (September 22, 2017)
  • When engaging with content accompanied by companion display ads, users demonstrated 17% more purchase intent. – Marketing Land (August 18, 2017)
  • Branded content has 69% unaided awareness and 51% persuasion, in a recent IPSOS + Polar report. – Marketing Land (August 18, 2017)
  • Digital Content Marketing revenues are projected to grow at a 22% compound annual rate from 2017 to 2021 reaching $24b in 2021. – MediaPost (August 18, 2017)
  • Norwegian division of MediaCom recently reported that its revenues increased by 23% due partly to the production and distribution of commercial content such as native advertising. – Native Advertising Institute (August 11, 2017)
  • [On a survey of agencies, what one thing should brands do this Christmas] 42.9% of respondents named branded content as the preferred technique, followed with 28.6% saying Influencer campaigns. – The Drum (August 11, 2017)
  • Finance specialist Dianomi serves 3.5 billion ad units/monthly. – MediaPost (August 4, 2017)
  • A Nativo & comScore study explored the pairing of native ads pair with on-site branded content. The results, the pairing drives an increase in unaided awareness 11%, online ad recall 18% and purchase intent 13%. – MediaPost (August 4, 2017)
    • ^ This might seem obvious but in planning campaigns, factor this in. Consider more of publisher amplification than off-network.
  • The number of advertisers buying native formats has leaped 74% between the start of 2016 and Q1 2017. – Business Insider (July 14, 2017)
  • Time Inc study reveals 2/3 consumers trust branded content more than traditional advertising. – MediaPost (June 30, 2017)
    • ^The same study concluded that 92% believe brands have expertise on topics and add value to content.
  • 89% believe custom content is a great way for brands to break through the clutter.
  • 88% indicating that custom content feels like a good way for new brands it hasn’t heard of to reach them.
  • 90% of those polled like the idea of custom content as a way for brands to engage them.
  • 84% agreeing that custom content is a way for brands to engage them, and 72% wanting video and infographics to better explore a story or data.
  • Gen Z-> 93% saying they want to see brands do something new, unique, or creative to get their attention.
  • Branded Content on YouTube sees 85% increase in viewership. I.e. brands are getting better at creating content.
    – Mark Fidelman, Twitter (June 9, 2017)
  • Since employing the Taboola Feed on its pages last month, the New York Daily News saw a revenue increase of 26% and engagement of 40% on mobile. – MediaPost (May 24, 2017)
  • 1/3 of millennials have purchased from a brand after seeing a sponsored post. – Business Insider (May 22, 2017)
  • Media companies social branded content posts, grew 77% in the last 6 months – Purecontent (May 18, 2017)
  • Via the Polar + IPSOS Connect study. Consumer awareness of a brand increased to 69% after engaging with branded content, while purchase intent was 51%. – MediaPost (May 17, 2017)
  • MindEdge’s recent study show that 61% of millennials recognize that terms like “promoted” and “sponsored” refer to native ads. – MindEdge, Twitter (May 11, 2017)
  • Google DFP has had a 7x increase in native impressions since May 2016, with average CTRs are 4x higher than traditional banner ads. – Google (May 10, 2017)
  • AdsNative polled its customer base of 7,500 web and mobile publishers on the state of native advertising in Q1. – MediaPost (April 26, 2017)
    • More than 90% of publishers saw native ad revenue increase in Q1.
    • Programmatic trends: 49% planning to grow programmatic guaranteed, 34% pushing their vendors to run first-price auctions, and 17% looking to implement server-side header bidding.
  • Branded Content 100 publishers globally will collectively generate $3 billion in branded content digital revenue in 2017. – MediaPost (April 19, 2017)
  • “Year over year, Food & Drink grew their share of native ad spend the most by 9%. Food & Drink is followed by Travel and Business, which both grew their share by 4%.
    ” – Yahoo (April 10, 2017)
  • More than 80% of affluent millennial internet users in India want branded content, compared with 73% worldwide. – CMO (March 30, 2017)
  • Facebook makes up 84.2% of all US Native Display. – eMarketer (March 21, 2017)
  • AsiaPAC made up 43.4% of Yahoo’s monetized impressions – Yahoo (March 1, 2017)
  • 60.7% of respondents awarded positive ratings to native content in a BurdaForward study. – Native Advertising Institute (February 14, 2017)
  • Readiness to buy increases by 50% (breakdown by vertical) – Native Advertising Institute (February 10, 2017)
  • Between October 2016 and December 2016, the use of native video grew 3.75x, according to Bidtellect’s video run-rate on its platform – MediaPost (February 8, 2017)
  • From July 2016, the number of brands doing both native video and display grew nearly 3x by the end of 2016. The average split for marketers is 80% standard native and 20% native video – MediaPost (February 8, 2017)
  • Polar unpacks the $50 billion content advertising ecosystem with their view that content advertising will grow from 6.6% in 2016 to 13.7% of the digital ad market by 2021. The write up is full of ammo and stats on native and the various layers. – Polar (January 31, 2017)
  • Programmatic Native grows almost 90% in 2016, but overall adoption remains low – MediaPost (January 25, 2017)
  • “Premium Branded Content will be a $20 Billion Market by 2021”
    “Top 100 publishers globally make up 50% of the market, they will generate $3 billion in 2017 and $10 billion by 2021.”- Polar (January 19, 2017)
  • Yahoo also has monetized 74.5b impressions in the second half. As a point of comparison TripleLift mentioned they had traded 23b impressions/month in 2016. Traded vs monetized is different. – WSJ (January 18, 2017)
  • Facebook Audience Network serve ads to 1 billion people each month, 83 % native – AdWeek (January 12, 2017)
  • The number of video ad impressions through Google’s Programmatic Direct has doubled from January to September 2016. – AdAge (December 16, 2016)
  • The number of programmatic direct details executed by retail advertisers grew 2.8 times Q4 2014 to Q4 2016, Google anticipating a 150-200% jump again this Q4 (2016) – AdAge (December 16, 2016)
  • BuzzFeed expects branded content and agency services to drive nearly all of its $250 million in revenue forecast for this year (2016). – WSJ (December 11, 2016)
  • Social networks currently account for 39% of the respondents’ native ad budgets, but that is up 14% over 2015 – MediaPost (December 5, 2016)
  • Nearly half (48%) of newspaper media are carrying some form of native advertising and another 39% are likely to turn to the channel as an advertising option (2016)
    “Native advertising’s share of overall advertising revenue at many of the world’s leading newspapers are expected to grow to 25% by 2018” – WARC (October 31, 2016)
  • Native ad spend in the UK grew 29.9% in first 6 months of 2016 to 451M pounds. – The Drum (October 25, 2016)

 

Content ROI Datapoints

  • MTV targets 20-25% of revenue from branded content in two years. – Buzz in Content (October 9, 2018)
  • Stash saw more than 5% of sponsored content readers made a deposit (i.e. converted) in their recent program. – MediaPost (April 5, 2018)
  • When engaging with content accompanied by companion display ads, users demonstrated 17% more purchase intent. – Marketing Land (August 18, 2017)
  • Branded content has 69% unaided awareness and 51% persuasion, in a recent IPSOS + Polar report. – Marketing Land (August 18, 2017)
  • A Nativo & comScore study explored the pairing of native ads pair with on-site branded content. The results, the pairing drives an increase in unaided awareness 11%, online ad recall 18% and purchase intent 13%. – MediaPost (August 4, 2017)
  • 1/3 of millennials have purchased from a brand after seeing a sponsored post. – Business Insider (May 22, 2017)
  • Via the Polar + IPSOS Connect study. Consumer awareness of a brand increased to 69% after engaging with branded content, while purchase intent was 51%. – MediaPost (May 17, 2017)
  • Google DFP’s CTRs are 4x higher than traditional banner ads. – Google (May 10, 2017)
  • Readiness to buy increases by 50% (breakdown by vertical) – Native Advertising Institute (February 10, 2017)

 

Data from Nudge

  • Looking at the Nudge data on Beauty Content, it’s clear that there are two formats that perform better than the rest: Articles (52% above benchmarks) + Lists (13% above benchmarks). – Nudge (July 19, 2018)
  • Email newsletters drive 124% higher attention for travel brands. – Nudge (July 4, 2018)
  • Articles perform 88.5% better during Earth Day, than the Nudge benchmark. – Nudge (April 18, 2018)
  • Nudge data shows that during SXSW, email & owned are the best mechanisms for driving high quality traffic. Email is 48% and owned is 35% above the attention standard. – Nudge (March 8, 2018)
  • On Valentine’s, consumers spend 69% longer on quizzes. – Nudge (February 9, 2018)
  • Amongst the top 5 content formats, attention is on average 14% higher during Super Bowl than the Nudge Benchmark. – Nudge (January 31, 2018)
  • How consumers consumption of content changes on Thanksgiving & Black Friday. – Nudge (December 1, 2017)
    • Average attention is 28-30% lower than norms across both days. i.e. attention is more fickle and you have to fight harder to get it.
    • The highest quality distribution sources for were email, native & social.
    • During Thanksgiving, peak desktop consumption was 12-1pm, Tablet 8pm-10pm, and mobile was fairly consistent from 9am through 11pm.
    • On Black Friday, peak desktop usage was 9-12, tablet at 10 and mobile 8am-3pm.

 

Further reading for predictions of branded content

  • Native Ad Institute
    An article by the Native Ad Institute from Jan 10, 2018 with predictions about the future growth in 2018.
  • SAT Press Releases
    An article by SAT Press Releases on future growth of the native market (From London Jan 30,2017) “Global investments in native advertising will reach $85.5b in 2020, a +213% growth from 2016.”
  • Red Branch Media
    “In 2016, 56% of total U.S. display ad revenue was spent on native advertising. Business Insider Intelligence predicts this will increase to 74% by 2021”.

 

This is part of our Guide to Content Marketing

..

 

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