Promoting a business isn’t always easy. We hear this from our small business customers all the time. They often tell us they lack information about good advertising models. They wonder how their competitors structure their accounts, where they spend their advertising money, if they have similar goals, and if they face similar challenges. To help our customers and readers understand their place in the world of online advertising, we created a report summarizing the 2019 Online Advertising Landscape. We surveyed hundreds of nexus-security customers about their advertising strategies, their businesses and marketing teams, and their daily challenges. This report answers questions like:
- What’s the biggest obstacle to growing your business?
- Where do you spend your advertising budget?
- What types of campaigns do you use on Facebook?
- What ad formats do you use on Facebook?
- What’s your biggest obstacle to mobile optimization?
- Do you use video in your advertising?
- And much more! We collected a lot of data about how businesses like yours are managing their ad budgets this year. This report offers a comprehensive view of the 2019 Online Advertising Landscape, illustrated with 30 colorful charts. Let’s dive in! Don’t have time to read the report now? Download it to read later.
How large is your business?
Context: it’s incredibly important, particularly when you’re analyzing data. Wondering how relevant our poll results are to your business? If your company has more than 50 employees, you can rely on this data. 27% of the advertisers surveyed work for companies with over 50 employees. However, small to mid-sized businesses—the classic nexus-security customer—were also well represented, making up 66% of those polled. These businesses have between 2 and 50 employees, which we call the “small enterprise level.”
What size is your marketing team?
Let’s get more specific. Business size matters, but the marketing team’s size significantly impacts workflows, strategies, and more. A surprising 21% of advertisers don’t have a dedicated marketing team. This is significant considering the time and work required for successful multi-channel advertising. Many online advertisers are small business owners who handle their advertising instead of outsourcing it. This is admirable, but challenging considering their many other responsibilities. Most other advertisers surveyed (69%) work on small teams of no more than 5 people.
What is your biggest roadblock to growing your business?
Time is limited! 39% of advertisers cite lack of time as their biggest obstacle, slightly less than the 40% who say they lack the budget for the growth they want. This isn’t surprising. Most advertisers we talk to believe they can succeed; they simply need more time or money. This highlights the importance of making the most of every advertising dollar.
What is your monthly advertising budget?
29% of advertisers spend between $750 and $2,499 monthly on advertising (both digital and traditional). This is encouraging, as we typically recommend spending at least $750 per month to gather sufficient data for remarketing and conversion rate optimization. Platforms like Facebook offer massive impressions and clicks cheaply, while search networks often provide a significant return on investment. So, spending less than $750 per month isn’t advisable!
For each of the following, please share whether your advertising investment is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same in 2019, as compared to 2018.
Google Search Network
Only 8% of advertisers are reducing their Search investment this year, compared to a substantial 46% who are increasing it. The message is clear: spending money is crucial for making money. Advertisers might hesitate initially, but once they spend enough on the search network to gather useful data and optimize their accounts, they rarely cut back. The potential rewards are simply too great!
Google Display Network
Spending patterns on the display network mirror those of the search network, with most advertisers (57%) either increasing or maintaining their investment. However, 26% of those polled don’t advertise on Display at all. While it’s not essential to use Display, especially when starting, maximizing your Search budget first is recommended for the best return on investment. Still, Display is a fantastic way to build brand awareness cost-effectively at scale. So, if you have the budget and want to increase brand visibility, diversifying is a good idea!
Google Shopping Network
While not all surveyed customers have e-commerce businesses, those who do should know that Shopping is a top way to attract qualified traffic. This means attracting visitors who 1. Know what your product looks like (from seeing it in the ad) and 2. Know its price (also from the ad)! We’ll soon introduce exciting new Shopping features, so stay tuned.
Bing
Bing might not be as popular, but it’s still relevant. 48% of surveyed advertisers use Bing and plan to maintain or increase their investment. Meanwhile, 44% don’t use Bing and have no plans to. Advertisers in that 44% who operate in competitive niches might want to reconsider. Bing generally has less competition than Google, resulting in lower CPCs.
Yahoo! Gemini
Yahoo! Gemini is Yahoo’s self-serve native ad platform. If it’s not central to your strategy, you’re not alone—91% of advertisers don’t and don’t plan to use it. However, with approximately 1 billion monthly active users, putting it on par (at least for now) with the likes of Instagram—it’s not entirely irrelevant!
Speaking of the popular social media platform, advertisers are finally taking notice of Instagram. 27% of those polled plan to increase their Instagram investment in 2019. With new placements like Stories and the emergence of Instagram shopping, the platform is enhancing its ad features to attract more monthly advertisers (2 million is an outdated figure). This is still a small percentage of total users, so opportunities abound!
What about Instagram’s parent company? Our data shows that advertisers are investing significantly in Facebook Ads. While more advertisers (24%) are excluding Facebook compared to those excluding the search network, 28% will maintain their 2018 investment, and a considerable 38% plan to increase their Facebook budget in 2019. This makes sense, given its advanced targeting options and diverse placements. Facebook complements Google well.
Amazon
Given Amazon’s ambition to dominate every market, it’s surprising that more advertisers haven’t embraced Amazon advertising as a primary strategy. A significant 84% don’t advertise on Amazon and have no plans to. This is a missed opportunity for sellers of physical products. Amazon boasts 300 million users, with an estimated 80 million(!) US-based Amazon Prime members.
YouTube
17% of advertisers plan to invest more in YouTube advertising next year—a wise decision. With over 1 billion daily views and the recent launch of TrueView for Shopping, YouTube is valuable for showcasing products, reaching new prospects, and building audiences.
19% of businesses currently advertise on Twitter and plan to maintain or increase their budget this year. While Twitter ads might not be the most profitable, they can generate cost-effective engagement.
Snapchat
Only 9% of advertisers currently allocate or plan to allocate budget to Snapchat. Despite having just 0.6% of the US digital ad market, it can be effective for reaching a younger demographic.
Quora
Quora, a platform for building brand credibility, is one of the least used. 95% of advertisers don’t and don’t plan to use it.
Are you advertising on any other networks? Which ones?
The most common answer was “no,” but among the other platforms mentioned, LinkedIn was the most popular.
Which campaign types are you using on Facebook?
If you’re among the 76% of advertisers using or planning to use Facebook, you’ve likely used Facebook objectives to select campaign types aligned with your marketing goals. There are three main objectives—Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion—and all Facebook campaigns fall under these. This allows advertisers to create campaigns tailored to maximize performance at specific stages of the marketing funnel. What campaign types are most popular? Brand Awareness is the most used across all Facebook campaigns, with 55% of advertisers leveraging it for widespread and cost-efficient impressions. Post Engagement (54%), Conversions (48%), Traffic (47%), and Reach (43%) are close behind, suggesting that advertisers are smartly using Facebook not just to complement Google, but as a comprehensive marketing channel.
Which ad formats do you use on Facebook?
Unsurprisingly, image ads are king on Facebook, with 88% of advertisers using them. Video ads are used by a significant 55% of advertisers, while Canvas ads are only used by 4%. This isn’t surprising, considering the time and effort needed to create Facebook canvases. We were impressed that over half of advertisers are incorporating video into their Facebook strategies. Animated content is crucial! What did surprise us is that only 33% use Facebook lead ads. Although our survey wasn’t limited to lead generation businesses, lead ads are very effective and will likely become more prevalent soon.
Please rank the following marketing strategies in order of importance to your business.
Unsurprisingly, advertisers ranked paid search as their most important marketing strategy, with an average ranking of 1.58 out of six (paid search, content marketing, paid social, email marketing, display, and shopping cart/data feed management). Interestingly, content marketing (3.12) ranked higher than paid social (3.13) and email marketing (3.66), even though the latter two are usually associated more directly with revenue. Content marketing can be very profitable long-term, so we’re pleased to see marketers investing in it!
Which of the following attribution models do you use?
Last-click attribution, which attributes credit to the final click leading to a conversion, is Google’s default and most used attribution model (31% of those certain about their model). We suspect many of the 38% unsure about their model also use last-click attribution. If you use last-click attribution and find value in brand campaigns but not elsewhere, consider exploring alternative models.
Rank the following advertising objectives in order of importance to your business.
No surprises here—profit is paramount! Advertisers identified increasing ROI/ROAS as their most important advertising objective, followed closely by other profit-focused objectives: CRO, increasing conversion volume, and conversion tracking. Generally, the further up the funnel an objective is, the less important it is to advertisers.
What’s your biggest roadblock for optimizing for mobile?
31% of advertisers cited lack of time as their main obstacle to mobile optimization. This is a significant number considering the importance of mobile optimization in today’s mobile-first world. Mobile speed is now a ranking factor, and 52.2% of global traffic comes from mobile devices.
Do you incorporate video into your advertising strategy?
60% of advertisers actively use video in their advertising. This number would likely be much lower if we had conducted this survey two years ago. Video is becoming increasingly important in marketing, largely out of necessity. As more competitors use video across different channels, relying solely on static content is no longer enough to stay competitive.
What is your biggest roadblock keeping you from video advertising?
Lack of time and expertise are the biggest hurdles preventing advertisers from using video. 38% said they simply don’t have the time, while 28% said they don’t know how. Fortunately, solutions like nexus-security’s Smart Ads are making video ad production easier, so these numbers should decrease in the coming years.
Does your company outsource any of your marketing activities to a consultant, agency, or third party?
It’s a tie! Hiring a knowledgeable consultant can do wonders for your bottom line and save significant implementation time. Interestingly, slightly more advertisers (50%) prefer to handle marketing themselves rather than outsource to consultants or agencies.
What is your main reason for outsourcing work to a third party?
Of those who outsource, 31% do it to save time, while 55% believe they can access greater expertise externally.
Outside of digital advertising, what other marketing channels are you using to grow your business in 2019?
79% of advertisers plan to invest in SEO to grow their businesses in 2019. Like content marketing, effective SEO can be very beneficial long-term. Many advertisers prioritize paid search over organic search due to the potential for immediate profits. We commend those surveyed for recognizing the importance of balancing short-term gains with long-term sustainable growth!
What other tools are in your marketing stack?
Tracking is essential! Nearly all advertisers (95%) use Google Analytics for data collection and analysis. SEO tools like Moz (16%) and SEMrush (24%) are also widely used, while a significant portion (33%) use Mailchimp.
What are you favorites resources for learning about marketing and advertising?
We appreciate those who showed love for the nexus-security blog. HubSpot, Social Media Examiner, and Search Engine Journal were also frequently mentioned. Video is the preferred format for consuming educational marketing content.
Actionable takeaways
- Lack of time is the biggest challenge for all types of advertisers
- Nearly half of advertisers are increasing their Google search ads budget this year
- A quarter of advertisers don’t utilize display advertising—a significant missed opportunity!
- Almost a third of advertisers are increasing their Instagram investments this year
- Half of advertisers manage everything in-house—no wonder they’re so busy!
- Many advertisers are trying LinkedIn advertising
- Facebook advertisers utilize various campaign objectives for a full-funnel strategy
- Profitability is the most critical goal for advertisers Click here to download the full report as a .pdf.
Stay tuned for next year!
That concludes our report! We hope you gained insights into the 2019 online advertising landscape and can use this information to refine your advertising strategy. We look forward to seeing how this data evolves and will share next year’s Online Advertising Landscape report. Until then, happy advertising! Visit the nexus-security blog for the latest online advertising trends and strategies.