# data[].attributes.body
Miquela Sousa/Lil Miquela. She was created by LA-based tech startup Brud and is managed by PR firm, Huxley. She is a musician, change seeker, and style visionary, and was named in TIME magazine as one of the ‘25 most influential people on the internet.’ The depth of her character is human-like, garnering her endless media attention and opportunities. These include interviewing J Balvin at Coachella, modeling for Prada, and getting millions of streams on Spotify for her music according to virtualhumans.org.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The 19-year-old is a singer, a model and an Influencer who is worth $6m. What is the Miquela's phenomenon? Elizabeth Harris | Eds: Francesca Gransden | 29 March 2020 From @LilMiquela Instagram account. © Courtesy of Brud The @

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The recent collaboration between Depop and The Sims feels like a peek into what social media could look like with the development of web3 and the metaverse. Avatars find their origin in gaming, and across social media we tend to use photos of ourselves as our avatars - a visual representation of ourselves digitally. The web3 space will enhance current social media platforms and allow us to engage in a more interactive and meaningful way, allowing us to create 3D representations of ourselves, whether based on our physical likeness or a more creative representation that visualizes aspects of our personality we may not show in real-life.

This shift will undoubtedly give way to different forms of influencing. Whether it's brands creating their own avatars to act as community facilitators, or marketing agencies creating their own avatar influencers, influencer marketing will evolve massively. But, how has this manifested so far and what is the future set to look like?

Metaverse Fashion Week and virtual influencers

The metaverse isn't accessible yet. However, there have been events staged that offer a glimpse of what it may look like. Take Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) for example: the event was hosted in Decentraland and featured virtual influencers modeling digital wearables by some of the biggest names in luxury fashion. These digital wearables were then shoppable as an item via NFT and could be worn on your avatar, some of which also had a physical twin. Seats to a digital front row could be purchased for some events, and with celebrity avatars and fashion journalists taking up seats, there was very much the idea of being seen.

As brands invest more heavily into their development of digital products and web3 versions of social media play out, we're likely to see the rise of avatar influencers and them becoming more mainstream. The arrival of the metaverse will allow avatars to establish their digital presence and build on their reputation. It will also allow people to engage with brands in a more interactive way.

The rise of 'independent' virtual influencers

Independent virtual influencers are those that aren't owned or created by a brand for its own use, paradoxically these influencers aren't truly 'independent' as they're often controlled by digital marketing and PR agencies. Entire personal brands are developed around these avatars to ensure relatability, which has sometimes been met with backlash due to agencies simulating engagements between these influencers, encouraging political opinions, and even forming relationships between them. What appears to be a human personality is carefully simulated by digital marketing, PR, and branding experts.

The most popular example of this is Miquela Sousa/Lil Miquela. She was created by LA-based tech startup Brud and is managed by PR firm, Huxley. She is a musician, change seeker, and style visionary, and was named in TIME magazine as one of the '25 most influential people on the internet.' The depth of her character is human-like, garnering her endless media attention and opportunities. These include interviewing J Balvin at Coachella, modeling for Prada, and getting millions of streams on Spotify for her music according to virtualhumans.org.

Bermuda (@bermudaisbae) is another Brud creation that has advertised for Chanel, Balenciaga, Tesla, and Starbucks on her Instagram. She used to be in a couple with Blawko22 and sparked controversy for hacking Lil Miquela's Instagram and for her political views and support for Trump, which she has recently changed. While stunts like these are often staged to garner attention, it does also raise the question of what we will look for in the next generation of virtual influencers, will these be carefully controlled and brand-owned, a safe bet in the era of cancel culture, or are we likely to see more 'human' avatars, that make mistakes or have conflicting views but deal with them appropriately?

How are brands using virtual influencers?

Brands that have already begun to use completely computer-generated virtual influencers have seen success, but that's not to say that the avatar created is devoid of any human elements. They can be used as a complete visual representation of a brand and its values and are also under the brand's control. This can also be a way for the brand to comment on social and political issues without directly involving the brand, adding new layers to the brand's image and building rapport with its target audience.

This isn't a new concept at all, but one that has come into the public discussion more recently because it is almost a viable reality. The Yoox Net-a-Porter group launched their virtual influencer Daisy in 2018, she features across multiple brand campaigns, including Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. The model exists to promote clothing, engage with other virtual influencers, and spend the majority of her time amongst models and changemakers within the fashion industry.

But with brands already creating their own computer-generated influencers, is the race already on for influencers who want to continue having an online presence? Brands like Prada have already branded avatars that are completely in line with the brand's values and image. "Candy" was imagined and brought to life in 2011 and then relaunched this year across print, film, and social media as she interacted with a real-life fragrance bottle designed by Fabien Baron. The key idea behind producing Candy, a computer-generated avatar or 'virtual muse', was to make the launch more appealing to a younger audience, in particular Gen Z.

Real-life influencers will still have a place, however, the dynamic of this could be set to shift. Brand-owned influencers will act as a visual representation of the brand that customers can engage with, but there'll be limits to what these avatars can effectively promote due to being directly owned by the brand. Influencer marketing works because a third party is recommending the brand rather than the brand recommending itself, it also works because the influencer acts as an intermediary between the brand and the customer, and the customer can typically relate more naturally to said influencer.

According to Mintel Consumer Data, nearly half of people who follow social media personalities are interested in following a virtual influencer. We predict that this figure is likely to increase as social media moves into web3 and virtual influencers become more commonplace.

Why do brands and influencers need to strike the authenticity balance to be successful?

Gone are the days when brands could just post content to social media without engaging with their audiences; community building is more important than ever and this is only set to become more prevalent with the development of the metaverse. We've already seen brands like Innocent master brand personification and how that is delivered through clever use of tone of voice (TOV).

The increase in interactivity in social media on web3 will potentially see this come to ultimate fruition, with brands able to create visual avatar representations of their brand, allowing their communities to engage more meaningfully. Ultimately, brands, current influencers, and prospective influencers all need to carefully consider their digital presence and how they can be more 'human' and multidimensional online.

How can marketers, brands, and influencers adapt their strategies for success?

Evolving technology will undoubtedly continue to force our industry to shapeshift, but by focusing on community building and developing an authentic digital presence, marketers can ensure success for brands and personal brands alike. Achieving this will require a collaborative strategy, focusing on utilizing a variety of channels for organic performance. Agencies and in-house teams that favor a siloed approach are less likely to create effective communities, which will be the core of social media as we move into web3. By combining insight from professionals across varying specialisms, brands can create a consistent and engaging digital presence.

The Sims x Depop collaboration and the idea of Simfluencers simulate how web3 social media could look, with its increased interactivity enabling an almost game-like, escapist experience. There's particularly potential within the fashion industry where the more mainstream creation of clothes that are digitally wearable will allow avatars to try them on prior to purchasing, particularly where avatars are close recreations of our real-life form. This would allow brands to create a digital in-store experience, where avatars can feel as though they're in the store through the power of virtual reality (VR).

The organic performance team at Honchō are specialists across a plethora of areas, creating collaborative digital strategies that are essential for any brand that wants to improve its digital presence for the years to come. We combine digital PR, content, and SEO to improve the visibility and exterior perception of your brand.

To learn more about the metaverse and the future of marketing, read this.

Schaunagh Gleenson, Digital PR and outreach specialist, Honch o

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Virtual influencers: How are they set to change the future of influencer marketing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The recent collaboration between Depop and The Sims feels like a peek into what social media could look like with the development of web3 and the metaverse. Avatars find their origin in gaming, and across social media we tend to use photos of ourselves as our avatars - a visual representation of o...

# data[].attributes.headline
Outstream ads have a higher CTR (click-through-rate) and longer engagement rate than in-stream video advertising.

# data[].attributes.subject
Outstream ads have a higher CTR (click-through-rate) and longer engagement rate than in-stream video advertising.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kate Novatska, Marketing expert at Epom

What is the most appealing ad format in 2019? Video ads for sure. 96% of marketers want to have it in their advertising strategy, while 54% of users crave for more video content in their feeds. How to match this demand and get new customers, if most of the pre-rolls are already taken by somebody else? The answer is outstream video ads.

Videos are magnets that stick to your eyes. Even when it comes to crappy clips on Youtube, we usually can't help but click "play". Resisting to watch a video with a clickbait headline is as hard as resisting to steal fries from your friend's Big Mac combo. And if regular videos look so delicious, why can't online video advertising be the same?

Fast Fact: Smaato and Liftoff reported that programmatic video ads receive a 7.5X higher CTR than banners.

Everyone should be insanely happy with their video ad campaign performance, but there's one thing that still frustrates many. In-stream video ads are expensive and need a video player to work. Web pages with video players are rare, let alone the fact that pre-roll or mid-roll ad setup is challenging. Doesn't sound as good as before.

Is there something to make video ads look great again?

Meet the outstream video format. These video ads have nothing to do with video players and just emerge in the middle of any page. They don't require a tiresome setup, as there are ready code templates to copy-and-paste. Outstream videos win over your audience without hijacking an elite ad placement behind the main video content, which eventually takes over all the attention.

Contents:

Definition: What is Outstream Video Advertising?

If you need a simple explanation of what outstream video ads are, here it is. They are all video ads that live outside video players. Nobody has been talking about it, but you've seen them scattered around editorial content. Muted videos that appear out of nowhere when you're reading a cool article on Forbes are exactly what I'm talking about.

Speaking more professionally, outstream video advertising is a form of native advertising that involves a large-format video player that emerges in the middle of the page content and automatically plays a video ad. Outstream can be played anywhere, anytime, and still bring most of the benefits of regular programmatic video.

When to Use Outstream Video Ads?

Outstream video advertising comes to the rescue when you need to expand your video ad campaign beyond the video player. There are several major use cases of the outstream video format:

Absence of the video player. You work with publishers that don't have videos on their websites.

Reach expansion. You already run in-stream campaigns and want to grow further.

Native-like look. You want your ad to be coherent with the website's content.

Customization. You need to spill over the standard requirements of in-stream video ads.

New effective format. You are curious to see if outstream does well for your business.

Let's elaborate on why outstream video ads may perform better than in-stream by looking at specific cases.

Benefits of Outstream Video Ads for Users, Publishers, and Advertisers

Aside from benefits for ad agencies, advertisers, and website users, outstream video advertising also has strengths that can be utilized by publishers. Let's summarize the major gains for each party.

Disadvantages of Outstream Video Format

More freedom also means more responsibility. If implemented the right way, outstream video ads are indeed less intrusive and more effective. But, the customizable nature of these ads has a flip side. Poor optimization and wrong placement of the ad is not uncommon here. So, instead of having a neat native-like look, they may turn into the user's worst nightmare.

The second drawback of outstream is that it's hard to be purchased programmatically via a demand-side platform. Publishers can't list such inventory units in their SSP platform, as this kind of inventory is not intended to be on the website from the start. Those video ads can be placed anywhere and nowhere at the same time, and that's a problem when it comes to automatic media buying: an RTB algorithm is not able to read unlisted units.

Outstream vs. In-Stream Video Advertising

Instream video advertising, as you may have guessed, is the stuff we see before or during the actual video we watch. We usually can't ignore it or skip it and are compelled to endure 10 sec of a loud and often irrelevant message. Video ad units are often traded via the direct method of media buying using an ad server, therefore this message can be the same for each visitor.

Fast fact: 66% of US users hate when they press play and see a pre-roll video ad automatically playing with sound. No wonder: we all get annoyed if something interrupts us from watching, say, our favorite Youtube channel.

Outstream video aims to solve this problem and provide a less disruptive experience to the site visitors. These kind of native video ads utilizes integration rather than interruption. The user can scroll them down or skip them at anytime if they are not interested. Moreover, outstream units are often muted by default. When somebody's curious about the ad's content, they may turn on sound and watch the video.

As I mentioned above, outstream video ads are also easier to set up. All you need is a Javascript code to embed your video on the page. Instream is more tricky, as it requires changes in a video player, which has a certain algorithm of work, unlike the web page that only has a layout.

Ad agencies and advertisers see the future in native video advertising. According to eMarketer, 77% of agencies and 70% of advertisers consider outstream to become a more important ad format in their digital advertising strategies within the upcoming years. Only 60% of both parties say so about instream ads.

Bullet Points:

Instream video ads require a video player to be displayed, outstream video ads can be shown anywhere on the page even if there are no videos on it.

Instream video ads interrupt the main content, outstream video ads can be scrolled or skipped.

Instream video ads always autoplay out loud, outstream video ads are muted by default.

Instream video ads need a substantial change in the video playing algorithm, outstream video ads can be added to the web code in one click.

Instream video ads should meet strict requirements, outstream video ads can be customized on behalf of the advertiser.

Examples of Outstream Video + 3 Templates from Epom Ad Server

The only reliable way to show outstream video ads on the website is to give a well-written piece of JS code to the publisher. And you don't need to come up with it by yourself. We at Epom ad server have already thought ahead and created three outstream video templates to provide the best user experience to hook your target audience.

The following three templates are the most widespread examples of outstream video: in-read, overlay, and slider ad formats. Here we will go over each one in more detail.

In-Feed Outstream Video Ads

In-feed or in-read video ads are also dubbed as native video advertisements. They are called so because they blend-in editorial content and seem like they're meant to be there. In-read ads smoothly appear in the middle of the page surrounded by text or other types of content. It happens when the user scrolls the feed to the designated place, which can be the best spot for displaying such an advertisement.

Outstream in-feed offers benefits to both users and advertisers. It can't go unnoticed and draws the attention, especially if you tailor it to look like the website's design. On the other hand, it doesn't distract the user from reading the article. So, if they're not interested, they may just pass by and ignore this video ad.

Benefits of In-Read Ad Format:

Native-like look;

Non-disruptive user experience;

Can't go unnoticed;

May be placed anywhere on the page;

Draws the attention by its dynamics.

Overlay Outstream Video Ads

An overlay video ad is a good candidate to replace a pre-roll ad, as it works almost the same way but is much simpler to implement. While the user is on the page, overlay covers up an existing video player or another fitting element on the website, auto-playing a muted video. The user can watch it just as a pre-roll video ad, yet it gives you more customization freedom to make it less intrusive for the audience.

Thus, you can allow users to skip overlay whenever they want, setting up a close button. Once they press on it, the ad will disappear and they'll get back access to the main video. I want to also remind you that overlay is not a part of a video player, so it can be installed over it in a matter of seconds using Epom overlay video template.

Benefits of Overlay Ad Format:

Highly customizable;

Can be skipped or muted;

May serve as a pre-roll;

2X cheaper than a pre-roll;

Easy to set up;

Slider Outstream Video Ads

Sliders are the most spectacular among other outstream video ad examples: they drive into the page from the designated corner, ready to impress the user with the compelling message. It's important to carefully select the pages on which to display slider ads, as they may cover up primary content in a way the user may dislike. But if applied properly, sliders are the most engaging and notable video ads.

Benefits of Slider Ad Format:

Spectacular and engaging;

Can be easily skipped;

Extra customizable.

Epom video templates are ready-made pieces of code that will help you serve outstream video ads in the right way. And now, aren't you curious which outstream template will work best for your business? Roll your sleeves up and let's take a quiz:

Which kind of superhero are you in the AD universe?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Outstream Video Ads: Moving Beyond the Limitations of Pre-Roll

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kate Novatska, Marketing expert at Epom What is the most appealing ad format in 2019? Video ads for sure. 96% of marketers want to have it in their advertising strategy, while 54% of users crave for more video content in their feeds.

# data[].attributes.headline
79% of marketers who aren’t using video plan to build a video strategy in 2022. And 99% of those who already use video are planning to use it more.

# data[].attributes.subject
79% of marketers who aren’t using video plan to build a video strategy in 2022. And 99% of those who already use video are planning to use it more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's well established that video has been one of the breakout trends in the marketing world for the past decade.

But what's happening in video marketing right now? And how does its growth and success stand up to the twists and turns of a global pandemic?

At , we've released an annual State of Video Marketing survey every year since 2015, charting usage, spend, channels, and opinions among video marketers and consumers.

We recently released our eighth State of Video Marketing report and, in light of the chaos of recent years, it's perhaps our most fascinating set of findings yet.

Our research suggests:

Video remains a key priority for marketers with usage and spend both, overall, increasing in 2021, and plans to increase again in the next 12 months.

The pandemic continues to impact video marketing plans - but the disruption appears to be reduced compared to last year, as people adjust to a 'new normal.'

People are watching more video online than ever before - in fact the amount of online video they watch has almost doubled since 2018.

Marketers feel more positive about the return on investment offered by video than ever, as it continues to strongly influence traffic, leads, sales, and audience understanding.

Consumers continue to use video as an integral part of their journey with brands, and are excited to see even more video content in the year ahead.

About the Survey

Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing Survey is an annual report, now in its eighth iteration. Every year, we ask a range of questions - many of them the same from year-to-year - to evaluate how the video marketing landscape is changing and growing.

This time around, our survey was taken by a sample of 582 unique respondents (only around 7% of whom were Wyzowl customers) consisting of professional marketers and consumers.

The key findings ...

86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, holding steady from last year.

This is the high point in a general story of video usage growing which can be traced back to 2016 (the first time we asked this particular question in this way).

Also, 92% of marketers who use video say that it's an important part of their marketing strategy.

Perhaps most strikingly, 87% of video marketers reported that video gives them a positive ROI - a world away from the lowly 33% who felt that way in 2015. This could well be attributed to greater understanding of how to use video, as well as how to track and quantify its impact.

Most marketers feel that video is a brilliant investment for lead generation. 86% of video marketers say video has been effective for generating leads, up another 2% from 2021 and up 5% since 2019.

81% of marketers feel that video has a direct, positive impact on sales.

94% of marketers agree that videos have helped increase user understanding of their product or service.

On measuring success, most marketers (62%) consider video engagement the top metric. Views or plays were a close second (61%).

While only 27% of video marketers consider sales as a measurement of success, 81% report that video marketing has improved their company's bottom line - meaning that videos will have a positive impact even if the focus remains on other metrics.

Pandemic Impact

Unfortunately, 2021 was not the end of the pandemic - and it looks like COVID is likely to continue to make its impact felt in 2022.

So what impact is this having on the world of video marketing?

Well, 64% of marketers say the pandemic has affected their video marketing plans for 2021 and 2022. Out of these people, three-quarters said the pandemic made it more likely they would create video, and the other quarter said it made it less likely.

But, the good news is, the pandemic's impact on video marketing budget seems to be diminishing.

In last year's survey we asked marketers whether they expected their 2021 video marketing budget to be affected, and 63% said they thought it would be.

This year's number - still high, at 50% - represents a considerable fall.

Looking Ahead

All the signs suggest that usage and spend are on course to continue their growth in 2022.

More than 99% of current video marketers told us they'll continue using video in 2021, and two-thirds plan to increase or maintain their spend.

What's more, from the people who told us they don't currently use video, 79% told us they expect to start in 2022. (This is 10% higher than last year's figure of 69% and 20% higher than the year before that.)

The net result of this is that we can all expect to see more noise and competition for audience attention in the coming 12 months.

Of course, while oversaturation is a challenge, it isn't an insurmountable one. It simply raises the bar in terms of content quality. Your videos will need to be well-planned, and very well-executed.

The Big Opportunities for Video Marketing in 2022

You'd be forgiven for looking at these numbers and feeling that video might be on the verge of reaching saturation point. Most of the percentage data around usage, spend, and consumer opinion are in the 80s and 90s - where they've held, consistently, for a number of years.

But the good news is that there still seems to be underutilized opportunities for marketers to explore video.

It's notable that audiences continue to watch more video. Our data suggests the amount of online video watched per week, per person, has almost doubled since 2018.

And what about where they watch it? Unsurprisingly, YouTube is the most widely-used platform among video marketers - used by 88%, with a considerable gap to the next widely-used.

But some of the lesser-used video tactics also seem to reap real results for video marketers.

This year we asked people to tell us the purposes of the videos they'd created.

Explainer videos have seen tremendous success. As well as being the most common 'goal' of a marketing video, an overwhelming majority of people (96%) report watching explainer videos to learn more about a product, with 88% being swayed to make a purchase.

The product doesn't have to be physical, either. 78% of people say they've been convinced to purchase an app or piece of software because of a video.

To Sum Up

The rise of video as a marketing tool seems inexorable.

Nearly nine out of ten people report wanting to see more videos from brands in 2021, making video an excellent tool for lead generation and brand awareness.

In many ways, with people spending more time at home - working remotely - the demand (and consumption) of video has accelerated.

Video looks set to continue its ten-year overnight success story into the coming decade. These stats paint a picture of a media type that's almost universally popular among both marketers and their audiences, helping achieve a number of incredibly important goals.

You can check out the full report - with plenty more data points - and get a downloadable version by visiting Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing 2022 page.
Editor's note: This post was originally published on HubSpot in January 2018 and has been updated to reflect the latest data.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Video Marketers Should Know in 2022, According to Wyzowl Research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's well established that video has been one of the breakout trends in the marketing world for the past decade. But what's happening in video marketing right now? And how does its growth and success stand up to the twists and turns of a global pandemic?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An electrifying launch: Volvo XC40 Recharge Pure Electric on #VolvoVerse

# data[].attributes.headline
Internet searches for the term “metaverse” rose 7,200% in 2021. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Internet searches for the term “metaverse” rose 7,200% in 2021. 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Internet searches for the term 'metaverse' rose 7,200% in 2021. Those aren't media mentions. That's individual curiosity, a clear signal of how much people want to understand the term.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as " Big Tech". The term "Web3" was coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and the idea gained interest in 2021 from cryptocurrency enthusiasts, large technology companies, and venture capital firms. The concepts of Web3 were first represented in 2013.

Critics have expressed concerns over the centralization of wealth to a small group of investors and individuals, or a loss of privacy due to more expansive data collection. Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have argued that Web3 only serves as a buzzword or marketing term.

Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 refer to eras in the history of the World Wide Web as it evolved through various technologies and formats. Web 1.0 refers roughly to the period from 1989 to 2004, where most sites consisted of static pages, and the vast majority of users were consumers, not producers of content. Web 2.0 is based around the idea of "the web as platform" and centers on user-created content uploaded to forums, social media and networking services, blogs, and wikis, among other services. Web 2.0 is generally considered to have begun around 2004 and continues to the current day.

Web3 is distinct from Tim Berners-Lee's 1999 concept for a Semantic Web. In 2006, Berners-Lee described the Semantic Web as a component of Web 3.0, which is different from the meaning of Web3 in blockchain contexts.

The term "Web3" was coined by Polkadot founder and Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood in 2014, referring to a "decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain." In 2021, the idea of Web3 gained popularity. Particular interest spiked toward the end of 2021, largely due to interest from cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investments from high-profile technologists and companies. Executives from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz traveled to Washington, DC, in October 2021 to lobby for the idea as a potential solution to questions about regulation of the web, with which policymakers have been grappling.

Specific visions for Web3 differ, and the term has been described by Olga Kharif as "hazy", but they revolve around the idea of decentralization and often incorporate blockchain technologies, such as various cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Kharif has described Web3 as an idea that "would build financial assets, in the form of tokens, into the inner workings of almost anything you do online". A policy brief published by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge defined Web3 as "the putative next generation of the web's technical, legal, and payments infrastructure-including blockchain, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies." According to Liu, Zhuotao, et al (2021), three fundamental architectural enablers of Web3 were identified as a combination of decentralized or federated platforms, secured interoperability, and verifiable computing through distributed ledger technologies.

Some visions are based around the concept of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Decentralized finance (DeFi) is another key concept; in it, users exchange currency without bank or government involvement. Self-sovereign identity allows users to identify themselves without relying on an authentication system such as OAuth, in which a trusted party has to be reached in order to assess identity.

Academic researchers, such as Tomer J. Chaffer and Justin Goldston in 2022, have described Web3 as a possible solution to concerns about the over-centralization of the web in a few " Big Tech" companies. Some have expressed the notion that Web3 could improve data security, scalability, and privacy beyond what is currently possible with Web 2.0 platforms. Bloomberg states that skeptics say the idea "is a long way from proving its use beyond niche applications, many of them tools aimed at crypto traders". The New York Times reported that several investors are betting $27billion that Web3 "is the future of the internet".

Some Web 2.0 companies, including Reddit and Discord, have explored incorporating Web3 technologies into their platforms. On November 8, 2021, CEO Jason Citron tweeted a screenshot suggesting Discord might be exploring integrating cryptocurrency wallets into their platform. Two days later, and after heavy user backlash, Discord announced they had no plans to integrate such technologies and that it was an internal-only concept that had been developed in a company-wide hackathon.

Some legal scholars quoted by The Conversation have expressed concerns over the difficulty of regulating a decentralized web, which they reported might make it more difficult to prevent cybercrime, online harassment, hate speech, and the dissemination of child pornography. But, the news website also states that, "[decentralized web] represents the cyber-libertarian views and hopes of the past that the internet can empower ordinary people by breaking down existing power structures". Some other critics of Web3 see the concept as a part of a cryptocurrency bubble, or as an extension of blockchain-based trends that they see as overhyped or harmful, particularly NFTs. Some critics have raised concerns about the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Cryptocurrencies vary in efficiency, with proof of stake having been designed to be less energy intensive than the more widely used proof of work, although there is disagreement about how secure and decentralized this is in practice. Others have expressed beliefs that Web3 and the associated technologies are a pyramid scheme.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, dismissed Web3 as a "venture capitalists' plaything". Dorsey opined that Web3 will not democratize the internet, but it will shift power from players like Facebook to venture capital funds like Andreessen Horowitz.

Liam Proven, writing for The Register, concludes that Web3 is "a myth, a fairy story. It's what parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to become economists".

In 2021, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed skepticism about Web3 in a tweet, saying that Web3 "seems more marketing buzzword than reality right now."

In November 2021, James Grimmelmann of Cornell University referred to Web3 as vaporware, calling it "a promised future internet that fixes all the things people don't like about the current internet, even when it's contradictory." Grimmelmann also argued that moving the internet toward a blockchain-focused infrastructure would centralize and cause more data collection compared to the current internet.

Software engineer Stephen Diehl described Web3 in a blog post as a "vapid marketing campaign that attempts to reframe the public's negative associations of crypto assets into a false narrative about disruption of legacy tech company hegemony."

Decentralization concerns

Kevin Werbach, author of The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust, has said that "many so-called 'Web 3.0' solutions are not as decentralized as they seem, while others have yet to show they are scalable, secure and accessible enough for the mass market", adding that this "may change, but it's not a given that all these limitations will be overcome".

In early 2022, Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal, articulated how Web3 is not as decentralized as it appears to be, mainly due to consolidation in the cryptocurrency field, including in blockchain application programming interfaces which are currently mainly controlled by the companies Alchemy and Infura; cryptocurrency exchanges which are mainly dominated by Binance, Coinbase, MetaMask, and OpenSea; and the stablecoin market which is currently dominated by Tether. Marlinspike also remarked that the new web resembles the old web.

An article from 2022 stated "early adopters want to make a new internet that alleviates the problems of the old one" but said if companies put the same type of people in charge as on the earlier version, and those people had similar attitudes, the same problems would happen. Another article in the same issue of the magazine quoted Alex Smeele, co-founder of Non-Fungible Labs, who said companies that wanted to participate in Web3 were "actually going to have to rethink their entire business model."

Ana Constantino, founder of meetup platform Nowhere, said the metaverse did not really welcome everyone, because owners of NFT virtual real estate on sites such as Decentraland could keep people out who did not have the assets.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
(also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as " Big Tech".

# data[].attributes.headline
TEDxBinghamtonUniversity- The four-letter code to selling anything by Derek Thompson

# data[].attributes.subject
TEDxBinghamtonUniversity- The four-letter code to selling anything by Derek Thompson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The four-letter code to selling anything | Derek Thompson | TEDxBinghamtonUniversity

# data[].attributes.body
Three ways to use AI in digital marketing:

1. Use smart segmentation to identify the target audience.

2. Establish a relationship with customers on their terms.

3. Deliver tailored content to each segment of the target group.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
AI in marketing is a way to offer customers a digital and personalized consumer experience. This content is tailored to consumers' needs, offers better segmentation and build relationships with consumers on their terms. As the number of marketers and customers aware of the opportunities offered by AI increases, we can expect it to become more frequently used in sales. And for that reason, it is useful to know how to use it effectively for your own company.

From the article, you will learn, among others:

How marketers can use AI to increase sales and improve consumer experience.

How to apply AI to customer segmentation.

How to use AI to establish relationships with customers on their terms.

How to use AI to create content tailored to your group.

As many as 70% of customers argue the trouble-free transfer of their affairs between individual channels and departments, as well as adapting the actions taken from previous interactions, is very important to convince and trust a given brand. That is why the majority of customers (62%) declare that they are open to companies that use AI, which can significantly improve these processes and thus increase the level of service.

So if you're considering how to use AI to personalize your consumer experience, then you're in the right place. Let's think in detail about how marketers can take advantage of the opportunities offered today by AI.

How can marketers use Artificial Intelligence?

As a marketer, you have the data you need to create value. You just need to start by clearly defining how to use new solutions. Here are three ways to use AI in digital marketing:

1. Use smart segmentation to identify the target audience.

2. Establish a relationship with customers on their terms.

3. Deliver tailored content to each segment of the target group.

1. Use of AI and smart segmentation to identify the target group
Target group segmentation is an important part of all marketing activities. It is difficult to convince the consumer, if you do not know who you want to convince at all.

In the past, marketers have set a general goal, asking themselves questions such as: "Do we want a higher level of awareness, commitment, retention, profits or something else?" They then manually estimated the optimal target group for the campaign.

Today, AI and Predictive Analytics allow marketers to accurately identify the best target group. The process is faster and more accurate - it can also help identify new segments of this group that are characterized by the same attributes. This approach allows customers to present a more individualised offer to customers, thereby creating a unique, personal bond that would be difficult to achieve without AI.

How does this whole process look like in practice? A travel clothing retailer who divides its customers into avid camping holiday lovers and hikers can use AI segmentation to identify many specific types of customers. AI can help him identify a group of "lux-campers" looking for comfortable tents and a high level of comfort, or "trail enthusiasts" who buy the most technically advanced equipment. Once identified, it can apply individualised campaigns to them, emphasizing the advantages of a travel coffee maker useful to "lux-campers", or a new watch with GPS, which will find recognition among "trail enthusiasts". The information AI provides will suddenly turn out to be much more accurate, and the relationships established with customers more durable.

AI can also help in determining the actions that clients from individual segments can take after receiving the message intended for them. Let's start by answering yes/no to a few simple questions. For example, after you send an email:

Will the target group open it or not?

Will the client read it carefully?

Will the client decide to purchase a product from the brand?

Will the client cancel the subscription?

With answers to the above questions, you can better customize the content of the message. For customers who usually do not respond to your emails, you can encourage them to update their communication preferences so that they only receive content that's useful to them. For customers who respond to your messages, membership in the loyalty program can be the ideal way to develop a relationship with each other.
In conclusion, here are some ways to use AI for more accurate customer segmentation:

Summarize the characteristics of your main target audience - who they are and what its members are.

Use AI to perform deeper analysis and identify new personality types.

Treat these personality types as sub-segments and give them personalized messages.

2. Use AI to establish relationships with customers on their terms
Detailed segmentation of the target group is a good start, but as a marketer, you also need to communicate the right messages delivered through the right channels and at the perfect time. You can use email, mobile devices, desktops, laptops, as well as social media. AI can help you prepare perfect messages, determine their quantity and choose channels to maintain the right level of customer engagement.

By analysing the number of messages sent to clients and comparing it to the number of active clients, you can get an image showing the target audience's preferences for interacting with your messages. For example, some customer groups will not simply use specific channels. AI can help you predict this phenomenon. Someone who is unlikely to open the email will not be persuaded by a notification sent to the phone or to a social media account. The same applies to optimizing the time of shipment of content, to reach the customer when he or she is most likely to pay attention to your message.

In conclusion: here's how AI can help you reach your customers where they are:

Verify to who, when and through what channels you send messages.

Use your preference centres and AI to gather information about customer preferences related to frequency, channels, and time of sending messages.

Run A/B and multiple-choice tests to measure the effectiveness of AI-optimized campaigns compared to previous results.

3. Use AI to provide each segment of a target group with content tailored to its needs
Once you have identified the correct target audience and when and where you can reach it, go to create engaging content. Previously, you could have used content with special offers or other creative elements that changed depending on your specific attributes. We call this approach the use of dynamic content. It is a good solution, but often requires time-consuming manual work. Thanks to AI, this can change.

For companies offering thousands of products and having hundreds of thousands of customers, AI can help determine a number of product recommendations that are tailored to the expectations of each segment of the target group. AI-based product recommendations take into account the behaviour of web browser users and product similarities, introducing customers to products they most likely buy.

In addition to products, AI-based campaigns can also include personalized banner ads that can get customers to take specific action. With the increase in the number of information obtained by AI, the content of your offers or campaigns can be dynamically personalized. The whole process is simple and requires the creation of dynamic fields on the website, in the mobile application or in the e-mail brochure. AI will then fill them with the right bids for the target group segment.

In conclusion, here's how to use AI to properly determine the amount of personalized content:

Create different offers for each segment of your target audience.

Use multiple tags or metadata to identify the groups for which individual offers should be intended.

Insert dynamic fields in your content, associated with tags and metadata.

Use automated, AI-based recommending engines and machine learning processes.

Artificial intelligence and marketing - a link for many years

Along with the expansion of the offer for customers and the increasing possibilities of establishing contact with them, the demand for personalized consumer experiences and the nature of marketing materials will also grow. That is why we are convinced that AI will stay with us for years to come.
To stay one step ahead of the competition, marketers should treat AI as a tool to help them better segment customers, achieve a higher level of consumer engagement and use dynamic content strategies. All these elements, as well as many others, will soon become an important part of the toolkit used by each marketer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to leverage AI in marketing: three ways to improve consumer experience

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
AI in marketing is a way to offer customers a digital and personalized consumer experience. This content is tailored to consumers' needs, offers better segmentation and build relationships with consumers on their terms. As the number of marketers and customers aware of the opportunities offered by AI increases, we can expect it to become more frequently used in sales.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As marketers, we are always looking for new ways to get more bang for our buck. Co-marketing allows you to do just that - the process involves two or more companies working together to reap the benefits of their combined efforts.

We've compiled the co-marketing tips and tricks below to help you create a successful co-marketing campaign and relationship, from start to finish.

Partner companies typically collaborate on promotional efforts for a co-branded offer. In a co-marketing partnership, both companies promote a piece of content or product, and share the results of that promotion.

By levering the relationship and reach of a partner, co-marketing campaigns are designed to deliver more leads, buzz, and awareness, with less work.

Co-Marketing vs. Co-Branding

You've probably heard the terms co-marketing and co-branding thrown around quite a bit - but what's the difference? Is there one?

Turns out, they're actually pretty similar.

While co-branding refers to a partnership in which two companies combine their products or expertise to create an even more valuable product or offer (Think: Doritos Locos Tacos), co-marketing takes things a step further.

Co-marketing campaigns provide teams with an opportunity to work together to promote a shared offer - such as a co-branded product or piece of content. In a co-marketing partnership, both companies promote that offer, and share the results of that promotion with each other.

More on how this process works next.

How does co-marketing work?

The most common way to co-market is for two companies that have similar audiences to work together on a piece of content or campaign, and promote it to both audiences.

This content (e.g. ebook, webinar, template, etc.) typically sits behind a lead generation form to capture contact information. The goal is for both partners to share the downloads from the offer, thus getting twice the leads that they normally would.

But that's not the only way to carry out a co-marketing campaign. Straying from the approach above, two partners might agree to host an event together and split the costs. Or, on a smaller scale, partners could agree to a series of guest blog posts on each other's sites.

The most important thing when deciding to do co-marketing with a certain partner, is to make sure the purpose and goal of the project is similar for both parties. If one partner wants leads, but another is looking for ticket sales to their annual event, you'll be hard-pressed to find a project that satisfies both needs.

One aspect of virtually every co-marketing campaign you'll need is a shared landing page.

Co-Marketing Shared Landing Page

Both your content and landing page should be co-branded - and it should be obvious. This entails using both partner's logos in the header, and mentioning both partners throughout the content.

Since you will likely be sharing the offer's downloads with your partner, you will need to consult with your legal team about the proper disclaimer to include at the bottom of the form.

For example, our offer with Google simply states that we are authorized to share their information with the specific partner after a user downloads the ebook.

To keep things organized within your marketing automation tool, we also suggest that you come up with a unique code for naming these co-branded pages to differentiate them from your existing ones. Not to mention, this will make it easy to locate them via internal search.

Next, you may be wondering how you should go about determining which businesses would be good partners for your business. Let's review the answer to that question next.

How to Find the Right Co-Marketing Partners to Work With

In any co-marketing relationship, you want to make sure there is mutual benefit to working together. Check out tips in determining if a partner is a good fit here.

You can also ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do they have a similar type of audience that my company has and wants to grow? If not, the value I would get out of promoting our content to their audience may not be worth it.

2. How many new leads am I going to get from this partnership? Is it large enough to be worth my time? Only you can decide what is worth it.

3. Do they have some expertise that I don't have? Let's say my audience is dying to know more about how to optimize for local SEO, but my knowledge base is limited to general SEO knowledge. Maybe I partner with an expert on local SEO.

4. Does their brand and name have a good reputation? Don't partner with people who will bring down your credibility.

5. Are the people you are working with enjoyable to work with? Sure, co-marketing is a job, but it should still be enjoyable. Look for partners that you actually look forward to working with.

How to Plan a Co-Marketing Agreement

You've found a partner to work with - that's great! But, what's the next step?

1. Come up with an idea to pitch.

Once you determine you'd like to work with a partner, it's time to come up with an idea to pitch. When approaching this step, do your homework first. Learn what you can about the company and their audience, tailor your ideas to what would be appealing to them, and show them the value you're going to provide.

Odds are, if you are the one pitching the idea, you are the small fish and they are the big fish. In other words, it'd be easy for them to say no in this scenario. To combat this, go the extra mile to show them that they'd be crazy not to work with you.

If you are on the other end of the pitch, remain open to ideas. Even if the person pitching you isn't a pro, don't disregard the opportunity immediately. If it's a totally unrealistic partnership, be honest with them. And if the idea sounds interesting but it's just not a great time for you to take on the project, consider adding them to a backlog of potential partners you'd want to work with in the future.

2. Make your goals clear.

If you want leads, make sure your partner knows that. Make sure they also want leads, too. If your goals are misaligned, neither of you will get value you had hoped and planned for out of the relationship.

3. Agree on the content you'll share and promote.

Next, agree on the type of content you'll share and promote among your audience. This includes the topic and theme of the content. Decide on a topic that is going to be mutually beneficial and appeal to both audiences.

4. Determine your timeline.

Set a timeline for your co-marketing campaign. This way, everyone is on the same page and gets their portion of the work done on time.

Pro Tip: For a larger project, like an ebook or webinar, double the amount of time it takes your team to write a campaign on your own. This will allow for time for approvals and feedback among your team members and your partner's team members.

5. Decide what your strong skills are.

Between the your business and your partner's, it's likely you both have specific strengths and bring different things to the table. So, assign tasks and work accordingly.

Simply, if you assign tasks related to your co-marketing content and/or campaign based on which partner is better at what, the process will be streamlined and efficient (and likely, a lot more effective among audience members, too!).

6. Write up a formal co-marketing partnership agreement.

Like most things in business, it's important your co-marketing partnership is solidified and official. To do this, ensure it's in writing, in a formal agreement. With an agreement in place from the start, you have something to point back at if anything goes wrong or any miscommunications arise. (This may be a legal document or a non-legal document of good faith.)

The details of this agreement should include:

Types of Co-Marketing Content

Time to decide what type of co-marketing project you're going to work on. Below are a few common examples to help get the wheels turning.

Ebook

An ebook is a very common form of co-marketing content because it is easy to split up the work - someone lays out the design, someone else writes the content, and so on.

Below is an example of an ebook HubSpot created with the LinkedIn Sales Solutions team:

Blog Post

Co-creating a blog post is one of the lower effort ways to do a co-marketing project. You may also each write a guest post for each other's blogs. For example, here's a guest post on the HubSpot blog.

Webinar

Webinars are often the go-to type of co-marketing content. Why? Well, it's pretty easy to find an expert who is willing to talk for an hour on the topic of their expertise. It is also a well-known format for educational materials. And they're easy to co-host.

Below is an example of a webinar that HubSpot hosted with partner, HotJar. Users could sign up via a landing page on HubSpot's site to attend. Now that the webinar is in the past, visitors can still download the recording at this URL.

Video

Creating a video with a partner is a great way to have your message heard by many, while also promoting both of your brands. For example, HubSpot hosted an interview video series with team members from Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Twitter Chat

A Twitter chat is a virtual event where people gather to discuss a common topic. This allows you to show your expertise, and invite and interact with members of both of your target audiences. Also, Twitter allows you to promote your Chat to broaden your reach even more.

Here's a list of examples of Twitter Chats for your review.

Event (Online or Offline)

Co-marketing can also take form in larger events, both in online or in person. You and your partner may host the event together and brand the entire event in a way that depicts and shares both of your branding and marketing.

Aside from a webinar, you might host a live Q&A. For instance, maybe your business has an employee be an interviewer for the session. Meanwhile, your partner can have one of their team members be the interviewee.

For example, HubSpot's educational series, Adapt 2020, offers a variety of content but the campaign includes live events that happen weekly. Those who choose to sign up are invited to a live, virtual event where industry experts - including HubSpot executives, HubSpot partners, and more - discuss the chosen topic of the week.

Once you choose the type of co-marketing content you'll move forward with, it's time for you and your partner to plan the execution of your campaign.

How to Execute Your Co-Marketing Campaign

There are some steps you should work through to effectively execute your co-marketing campaign with your partner.

1. Outline your co-marketing campaign.

Once you have chosen your topic and form of co-marketing, start with a shared Google Doc - brain dump, collaborate, and outline your plan here.

By using a Google Doc from the start, you your team and your partner's team can simultaneously edit and add to the details on the Doc. In terms of timing, allow both of your teams about a week or so to hash out and finalize all ideas/ plans in this Doc.

2. Begin content creation.

Once you have agreed on the outline, assigned marketers can jump in and begin content creation. Typically, I split the creation of content between partners by having one partner write and another design, so that voice and design are consistent.

The other option is to have each partner write up and design half of the content, and then fuse the two together. Keep in mind that this will require a thorough consistency check once both parts are brought together.

After the first draft is complete, send to the partner to give feedback or approve. Give ample time between a writing due date and a feedback due date. I like to give a week if I have planned far enough in advance to allow for this.

3. Finalize your campaign content.

During the content finalization period, have your promotional team begin creating the assets needed to promote the content, such as the shared landing page as well as emails, social media images, infographics, blog posts, etc. Since working with a partner will likely take longer than a normal content creation process, this will help to save you some time.

Next, it's time to promote your co-marketing content.

4. Promote your content.

It's important to set an agreed upon launch date with the partner. On this date, both teams' email, social campaigns, and blog promotion should start.

About two or three weeks prior to the launch date, have a brainstorm with all people involved from both teams to discuss what promotional tactics you will use and the timeframe for promotion. Will you both promote the same hashtag on Twitter? What audiences will you be promoting it to?

Below are a few examples of how you can promote your content across various inbound marketing channels:

Blog Posts

Blog posts are a great way to drive traffic to your co-marketing content and offers. Common places to share co-marketing blog content include daily and weekly emails to subscribers, social accounts, and mutually agreed upon areas that you can reach target audience members. For example, at HubSpot, this content may be shared via HubSpot Academy.

Social Media

Promoting your content on social media is a great way to drive awareness to your co-marketing campaign and attract visitors to your site and content.

Remember, tag your your co-marketing partner and ensure they do the same while sharing content that involves your business. This is easy to do and you'll benefit from the cross-promotion as members of each other's audiences will be able to view and interact with the content.

Email

Email is still one of the best ways to reach a large group of people at once - you can easily encourage recipients to attend your co-marketing webinar or event, or download your content.

In your message, be clear that the email involves your brand and your partner - your co-marketing efforts should be clear, meaning it's obvious to all recipients that there are two companies involved.

If you're looking to track your partner's promotions efforts versus your own, be sure to create unique tracking URLs. This will help you determine which leads came from where. If you're a HubSpot user, here's how you can create unique tracking URLs.

Speaking of tracking, let's talk more about how to measure your co-marketing efforts.

5. Measure your co-marketing campaign's results.

Your co-marketing campaign is live and being promoted - good work! Now it's time to look back and see if your initial efforts were successful.

First and foremost, did you hit your original goal? If so, great. If not, why? What happened? Did you fail to hit the mark, or was it the partner? Keep these things in mind when making decisions to work with them a second time.

Next, look to see if the leads generated through your co-marketing campaign were as high-quality as the leads you typically generate throughout your individual content and campaigns. Things to consider here are: lead-to-customer conversion rate, quality rating within your automation tool and CRM, and whether or not your sales team felt the leads were up to par.

Finally, take a step back and ask yourself the following questions, too:

Was the partnership successful, in your opinion?

Did your partner feel like the relationship was a helpful one for the campaign?

Was it difficult to work with your partner, or smooth?

Did you get high-quality content that you may not have been able to make without your partner?

What worked well while working with this partner, and what didn't?

Once the campaign is over, your partnership doesn't end. You should follow up with your co-marketing partner at this point.

6. Follow up with your co-marketing partner.

Communication with your partner throughout the co-marketing campaign if critical but you'll also want to debrief once the campaign comes to an end. While it typically doesn't make sense to do one project after another with the same partner, there may be an opportunity to work together again in the future.

And if not, it's still important to keep a positive image for your brand and remain professional, no matter the outcome of the campaign.

For instance, imagine you hosted a campaign's landing page on your website. Once the campaign ends, send over the leads generated from your form on that page to your partner. Often times, the easiest way to do this is to simply download the CSV file of leads from your database. If you are looking for a less manual process, you might use a tool like Zapier to send specific leads from your marketing automation platform to your partner's.

Grow Better With Co-Marketing

There are so many ways for you and partners to benefit mutually from co-marketing. Don't be afraid to experiment with different types of campaigns and try working with different partners. This will help you determine what works best among your audience and, therefore, benefits your business most.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is Co-Marketing? A Guide to Co-Branding Marketing Campaigns

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As marketers, we are always looking for new ways to get more bang for our buck. Co-marketing allows you to do just that - the process involves two or more companies working together to reap the benefits of their combined efforts.

# data[].attributes.body
A universally trusted ledger of transactions can help fight ad fraud and eliminate the middlemen.

The ability to record each step of a transaction inside one incorruptible database will make the industry more transparent.

Easy identity verification can help track users across the web.

Different monetization methods for advertisers may come from rewarding users that engage with ads with microtransactions.

# data[].attributes.body
Users have learned to ignore content that resembles ads, is close to ads, or appears in locations traditionally dedicated to ads.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Banner blindness is a long-known web user behavior: it describes people's tendency to ignore page elements that they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) to be ads. And, while webpage patterns and types of advertisements have evolved, banner blindness is still prevalent, our recent research shows.

Banner blindness is an instance of selective attention: people direct their attention only to a subset of the stimuli in the environment - usually those related to their goals. This behavior is a consequence of our limited attention capacities. If we were to attend to the enormous inflow of sounds and patterns that surround us, we would be overwhelmed and behave inefficiently.

On the web, UI elements and different pieces of content all fight for users' attention. To complete their tasks efficiently, people have learned to pay attention to elements that typically are helpful (e.g., navigation bars, search boxes, headlines) and ignore those which are usually void of information. Ads are perhaps the most prominent member of this last category. Hence banner blindness.

Legitimate content elements that have certain ad-like characteristics are ignored, too. Here are the traits that signal an ad:

1. Ad-specific placement, like the top of page or the right rail

2. Ad-like visual treatment, such as animation

3. Proximity to actual ads or promotions

1. Location

Ignoring ads is a learned behavior - like many other user behaviors on the web (classic examples include seeking the company logo in the upper left corner of the page, or looking for the global navigation across the top of the page). In our latest eyetracking study, we observed that some participants have learned to skip past the ad presented at the top of the Google search results, even though its visual design is far from the traditional banner ad.

Because desktop ads typically appear at the top of the page or in the right rail, web users sometimes ignore the content placed there. In our most recent eyetracking study, 26 test participants visited the same webpage as they worked on a task to find the best method for removing a label from a jar. The page included a small amount of text, some images, and advertisements in both the top banner and the right rail. Users read the text on the page, but they looked very little (if at all) at the ads, as shown below.

2. Visual Treatment

An ad doesn't have to appear at the top of the page or in the right rail to be ignored. Today's ads can appear anywhere within a webpage, and users are aware of this fact. Thus, they are careful not to waste time on ads, even when the ads appear within content areas.

On desktop, inline ads are relatively easy to ignore because they are very different from the surrounding page elements. For example, in our recent study, 26 participants who were trying to learn about Mikhail Baryshnikov's dance training ignored the promotion that appeared within the text. The main reason they could do this? The promotion looked different from the text and the photography on the site. Specifically, the ad stood out because of several qualities:

1. Small, rectangular shape in the middle of text

2. Fancy formatting

3. Colored (blue) background against the white page

4. Text embedded in the image

Each of these traits warned users that the rectangle was a promotion, so they could confidently ignore it.

3. Proximity to Ads: Ads Poison Adjacent Items

Content placed in the same part of the screen as an advertisement is often considered to be an ad and is also ignored. This is a simple consequence of known principles:

The Gestalt law of proximity: items that are close to each other are assumed to be part of a group and thus related in function.

As people inspect various items within a region of the screen, they form a mental model of the content available there based on the information scent of the items they attend to. Thus, if one of the items seems completely irrelevant, they will often assume that the entire section is not related to their goal and will stop scanning the rest of the items.

A study participant who was learning how to remove a jar label looked at the right rail just once, presumably deciding that it contained only ads. The right rail did indeed contain sponsored stories, but also housed helpful, fun videos demonstrating how to do various craft projects, such as crocheting a rug or making a magnetic frame. The user was put off by the ad positioned in the same page section and examined no other content in the right rail.

Hot Potato

As seen in the example above, ads can cause users to look away from an area and not return to it again. Such an experience may change not only their local behavior on that specific page, but can also influence their general web behavior: they may not look at the same area on other pages or even on other sites. This is an instance of the hot-potato phenomenon, which Jakob Nielsen and I defined in our book Eyetracking Web Usability. The hot-potato metaphor comes from a game that I used to play in elementary school: in this game, the kids sat in a circle and tossed a ball to one another, while the teacher played music. The teacher would unexpectedly stop the music, at which point whichever kid was holding the ball was out of the game. So, whoever caught the ball wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible and never have to touch it again.

Definition: On the web, the hot-potato scanning pattern occurs when users gaze at an item in which they are not interested, then look away and avoid fixating on that area on that page, and sometimes on other pages on the website, and even on completely different websites.

The hot-potato behavior is a defense mechanism to avoid wasting time and fixations on irrelevant elements. It's also an example of the availability bias: based on one or a few examples, web users assume that the same type of content will always appear in that same location on other pages. But, this assumption is not always right. For example, although in the early days of the web, the right rail, was reserved for ads, its function changed later to include related links. Today, the right rail can be used for pretty much anything.

When content resembles ads and appears in the right rail, users tend to ignore it. In the following example, the user was looking for hikes in the Andes. That information appeared throughout the site, including within the right rail. She fixated once on the right rail, and since the items there appeared to be ads, she never looked at the right rail again.

Let's focus for a moment on just the content area of the page - the area that does not include the hero. There are 148 fixations on the page, out of which 132 are within the content area. Out of those 132 fixations, only one is within the right rail: that's 0.8% of the user's attention within 25% of the content area. The immense mismatch between these two percentages shows the poisonous effect of the hot-potato phenomenon: the number of fixations in the right rail was 33 times smaller than its size might have warranted.

Inline Ads on Mobile

Like desktop users, mobile users try to avoid advertisements. Although on mobile there are some standard locations for ad placement (e.g., top of an article, bottom of the screen), many web pages embed ads within content. Inline ads on mobile are hard to avoid for multiple reasons:

There is less information visible at a time, so it's harder to identify elements that look different from the main content (because so little of the page content is present on the page).

A mobile inline ad is so large in proportion to the screen size that users cannot avert their eyes from it as they swipe down. So, the ad inherently catches some gazes even though people know it's an ad and may not specifically want to look at it.​

Your browser does not support the video tag.
In this gaze replay, a study participant uses www.medicenet.com to research for signs of contagion when you have a cold. He swipes quickly past the two Nordstrom ads. His eyes pass over them, but he doesn't pay attention to them. (In most browsers, hover over the video to display the controls if they're not already visible.)

Your browser does not support the video tag.
This gaze replay shows a mobile user searching for an external hard drive on www.pcmag.com. She had been reading text and scanning images of hard drives. When a large ad for a Samsung Galaxy appeared, she fixated on it a few times. The ad was hard to avoid and unexpected. (In most browsers, hover over the video to display the controls if they're not already visible.)

Faux Ads: Easy to Mistake Visual Elements for Ads on Mobile

Because the phone screen is so small visual treatment plays an important part in whether people assume an inline element to be an ad. Anything that stands out from immediate surrounding context is likely to be considered an ad, although its presentation may be consistent with other elements on the page that are not visible at the time.

Thus, people can sometimes mistakenly assume that big images, graphics, or other elements that stand out are ads. (This happens on desktop also, but we noticed it on mobile for the first time in our recent study.) For example, an experienced mobile user might see the top of an image and then quickly scroll past it before examining it, assuming that it's an ad.

Your browser does not support the video tag.
A user who was looking for a portable generator on www.generac.com ignored a section that resembled an ad because it looked very different from the white page background and images on the rest of the screen. The user scrolled past the section without inspecting it, even though it contained installation information, a topic he would likely have been interested in. (In most browsers, hover over the video to display the controls if they're not already visible.)

How to Prevent Ads from Poisoning Your Content

We first documented banner blindness among web users in 1997, through traditional usability testing. Then, we replicated this finding in more detail in 2007 when we conducted a major eyetracking study. We just completed a new major eyetracking study and found that banner blindness is still a common behavior, as discussed in this article. Banner blindness has now been documented across 3 decades. It's a strong and robust phenomenon and, like advertisements themselves, is not likely to go away any time soon.

Ads are a survival mechanism on the web: many businesses won't last without ad revenue or advertising themselves. And ads can sometimes benefit users. So, getting rid of them is not my recommendation at all. But designers should be smart about how they present site content. In particular, follow these guidelines:

1. Do not make content look like ads. Choose colors, type, background, and overall content style carefully. You may think that making it look different from the rest of the site will increase its salience, but it often has the opposite effect.

2. Run usability tests to make sure that users actually see important content placed in the top banner or right rail.

3. Do not mix content and ads in the same visual section.

Wertheimer, M. (1923/1938). Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II. Psychologische Forschung, 4, 301-350. (Excerpts translated into English as 'Laws of organization in perceptual forms' in W.D Ellis (Ed.), A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Hartcourt, Brace and Co., and as 'Principle of Perceptual Organization' in D.C. Beardslee & Michael Wertheimer (Eds.), Readings in Perception, Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc.).

To learn more about how human behavior affects web usage, consider attending our full-day course The Human Mind and Usability.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Banner Blindness Revisited: Users Dodge Ads on Mobile and Desktop

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Banner blindness is a long-known web user behavior: it describes people's tendency to ignore page elements that they perceive (correctly or incorrectly) to be ads. And, while webpage patterns and types of advertisements have evolved, banner blindness is still prevalent, our recent research shows.

# data[].attributes.body
Brands with ethical practices and standards are bringing their communities into the metaverse, laying the groundwork for mindful retail and fashion in the digital realm to promote their causes, launches, and goods as well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The rise of ethical consumption is driving brand activations in the metaverse. In an interview with Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, CEO and founder of digital retail platform The Fabricant Kerry Murphy said that digital possessions, rather than replacing physical goods, are "adding value. They can be a counterpart to physical possessions, but they can also have a life of their own, completely disassociated from physical reality."

What if that value elevated ethical and sustainable values in retail as well? Brands with ethical practices and standards are bringing their communities into the metaverse, laying the groundwork for mindful retail and fashion in the digital realm.

Depop partnered with The Sims 4, launching a circular fashion collection on the digital gaming platform on July 28 th. A virtual thrift store will sell "used" retail as part of The Sims's "High School Years" expansion pack. The Sims Head of Brand Julia Vector was quoted by HypeBeast stating that the collaboration "allowed us to bring in unique and creative looks that reflect today's fashion trends and how Gen-Z shops and shares fashion."

The International Anti-Fur Coalition (IAFC), the University of Westminster's Fashion Institute, and Hexaware Technologies are collaborating in the metaverse to campaign against the use of animal fur in physical clothing. The UNFUR Project will create digital fur fashion items as NFTs sold as part of a larger campaign to raise awareness of fur trading and promote sustainable alternatives for fur and faux fur clothing. Paul van Raak, Creative Director of Mobiquity, a part of Hexaware, said in a press release that "The UNFUR project intentionally brings tension between buying a digital fur fashion piece (because it is considered beautiful) while you are aware that this should not be bought in the physical world. We use this duality as a trigger to drive the audience to bid on one of the UNFUR NFTs and by doing so support the fight against the fur industry." The proceeds from the NFT sales will combat fur trade.

Other sustainable brands are using the metaverse to promote their causes, launches, and goods as well. Rens, a Finnish sustainable sneaker brand, entered the metaverse in March with limited edition NFTs to mark their climate neutral 'coffee hoodie' launch in the physical world. The collection will include a range of 'Regular,' 'Rare,' and 'Epic' designs that can be purchased with several forms of cryptocurrency.

Ethical and sustainable practices are transferring to metaverse fashion in a range of styles. Leslie Holden, cofounder of the Digital Fashion Group, told Wired, "We really believe that a digital approach is a pragmatic answer to the industry's sustainability issues."

Rachel Kebbe, founder of Circular Services Group, spoke about the value of ethical retail and goods in the metaverse with WWD: "If you think about [the success of bottle recycling] in terms of the metaverse, the metaverse is built on cryptocurrency, which is just another way of denominating value, so how can I give people value for taking the next rightful action with an item and have that traceable?"

Ethical practices don't stop at the physical door. As consumers bring their ethical and sustainable standards with them into the virtual realm, brands will need to lead with ethics when entering the metaverse.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The rise of ethical consumption is driving brand activations in the metaverse. In an interview with Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, CEO and founder of digital retail platform The Fabricant Kerry Murphy said that digital possessions, rather than replacing physical goods, are "adding value.

# data[].attributes.body
Businesses and institutions are increasingly incentivizing sustainable consumer habits with programs that reward them when they make eco-conscious decisions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Trend - Businesses and institutions are increasingly incentivizing sustainable consumer habits with programs that reward them when they make eco-conscious decisions. These programs are linked to everything from recycling to shopping.

Insight - The convenience of today's consumption culture has had an enormous impact on the environment, but also makes it difficult for consumers to extract themselves from the cycle of buying products just to throw them away not long after. Making sustainable choices comes with costs and challenges, and consumers are increasingly turning to brands that help incentivize sustainable purchase decisions to make it easier to be eco-friendly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
brands and institutions create reward programs for eco-friendly habits

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brands and institutions create reward programs for eco-friendly habits

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Trend - Businesses and institutions are increasingly incentivizing sustainable consumer habits with programs that reward them when they make eco-conscious decisions. These programs are linked to everything from recycling to shopping.

# data[].attributes.body
ESG- Environmental, Social, Governance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
You know the importance of messaging. Get it wrong, and your business could fail. Get it right, and your company can see success. If you have an environmental, social, or governance (ESG) message to share, this must be communicated in the right way if you want it to benefit your business and your sustainability values.

Here's what you need to know about ESG marketing strategies for your sustainably-minded business.

What is ESG marketing?

ESG stands for:

1. Environmental: This is how your company actively reduces or eliminates waste or lowers carbon emissions.

2. Social: This is about your reputation, the relationships between other companies and organizations, and your internal inclusion and diversity values.

3. Governance: These are the internal practices, controls, and procedures that oversee and govern the business.

ESG marketing is how you promote these initiatives and strategies to your investors, buyers, and other stakeholders. When it's done the right way, it can build your brand equity, financial worth, and social impact.

Investors are looking for businesses dedicated to positive ESG issues. According to a McKinsey article, "Global sustainable investment now tops $30 trillion-up 68% since 2014 and tenfold since 2004." ESG standards in a business show an investor that the company is dedicated to long-term success, an attractive feature for many investors, especially millennials.

There are over 79.4 million millennials in the US, and they are leading the way in investing in ESG-focused companies. In the 2010s, millennials contributed $51.1 billion to sustainable funds. Nearly 33% often or exclusively invest in companies that have ESG values. This is compared to just 19% of Gen Z, 16% of Gen X and 2% of baby boomers.

Why is ESG messaging important?

ESG strategies help illustrate your company's values of inclusivity, sustainability, equity, and transparency. It shows that you have the self-awareness to recognize the problems in the world, and you are actively (and with purpose) working to fix them through your brand.

It is also important to have a well-executed ESG marketing strategy because consumers demand it. A recent Deloitte study found that nearly one in three consumers would stop buying from a business if they had ethical or sustainability-related concerns about their business practices or products.

ESG messaging is important because your customers and clients demand that your business be transparent and take steps towards a better tomorrow. Share ESG stories and messaging to show them that your company cares about the environment, its people, and the community. It also shows that you are prepared to monitor and govern the company's actions to stay aligned with these values.

How to use ESG Messaging without being spammy

Here are our top suggestions for acting on and executing a positive ESG digital marketing strategy:

1. Tell a balanced story: Be proactive in your ESG messaging. Make sure your story is cohesive and explains the complexity of these issues upfront.

2. Explain why it matters: Explain why your ESG initiatives matter to each stakeholder. This messaging will be different for customers, board members, and staff so adjust your messaging accordingly for each group.

3. Use ESG Data: Track some key measurable metrics in your ESG strategy and use this data to manage corporate agendas and consumer expectations.

4. Don't overdo it: Sharing your ESG story is important, but don't place too much emphasis on it because it begins to appear disingenuous. Share these stories within and between other marketing and sales messages to strike a good content balance.

5. Don't exaggerate: Be honest about your results without exaggerating. Your integrity could be called to question if you make too-good-to-believe claims. Always be sure you can back up your claims and communicate them accurately and authentically.

Here are a few ways to incorporate your ESG messaging into your business:

Make them part of your vision, mission, and values

Share outcomes and KPIs of your ESG initiatives

Share how your ESGs are lowering operating or financial costs to raise revenues and asset values

Use social media or video to share stories of your ESG journey and successes.

Examples of ESG Marketing

Great Bear Rainforest Essential Oils (GBREO)

GBREO is a social enterprise supporting first nations communities. They use sustainably harvested conifer needles for their steam-distilled essential oils. Their ESG messaging focuses on how they provide sustainable employment opportunities and promote the continued cultural health, growth, and prosperity of the pristine Great Bear Rainforest. Purchasing their products positively impacts the local communities that call this region home.

Through various social media and digital marketing strategies, Out-Smarts Marketing helped them share their ESG story with the world. It resulted in significantly increased brand awareness through a 652% increase in Facebook followers and 731% increase in followers on Pinterest.

Fairware is a leader in sustainable product sourcing in an industry that isn't generally known for being very environmentally friendly. Typically, the promotional products industry produces high amounts of waste as people throw out these "swag" items they get at conferences and events.

This Vancouver-based company specializes in ethically sourced, sustainable promotional products that amplify your sustainability values and messages. Their company is built around sustainability so their ESG messaging is always front and centre because it's their key product differentiator.

Patagonia

Patagonia aims to use their resources to do something about our climate crisis. One percent of their profits go back to non-profits that help restore our environment. They promote activism in sports to drive positive social and environmental change, connect with environmental groups to give to local causes, and provide grants for grassroots environmental groups. This environment-first value is instilled in their marketing and products.

Lyft

Lyft set out to create a ride-sharing platform to improve people's lives by providing the world's best transportation. They knew that car ownership was not environmentally friendly or affordable for many. This mandate to provide a more sustainable way to move people around was beneficial during the pandemic (when consumer spending decreased) and continues to drive their actions and strategic decision-making today.

Is ESG marketing good for your business?

Executing an effective ESG marketing strategy can work well for your business if you do it right.

"76% of people will stop buying from companies that don't have an environmental or community strategy (or who execute it poorly)."
- PricewaterhouseCoopers

The best way to do ESG marketing is by creating content and sharing genuine and on-brand stories. Out-Smarts can help you do that through your website, social media, and blog. We specialize (and love) in helping brands dedicated to their ESG strategies. Book a discovery call with us today to chat more about how we can help you share your ESG story with the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You know the importance of messaging. Get it wrong, and your business could fail. Get it right, and your company can see success. If you have an environmental, social, or governance (ESG) message to share, this must be communicated in the right way if you want it to benefit your business and your sustainability values.

# data[].attributes.body
They hyper-rationalise every purchase decision- there’s so much information out there, meaning we can assess the impact of each purchase we make from almost every conceivable angle.

As a result, we tend to be much better-informed when making purchasing decisions than previous generations - this has earned us a much greater deal of decision-making respect from our predecessors than any generation before us, and, in turn, a comparably more powerful influence over their market share - unlike our elders, we (GenZ) are forcing older generations to adapt to us, not vice-versa.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‘True Gen’: Generation Z and its implications for companies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Generation Z characteristics center around the search for truth as the influence of the first generation of true digital natives is now radiating outward. For companies, this will bring both challenges and equally attractive opportunities.

# data[].attributes.body
One of the greatest benefits of subscriptions is that they do not require the customer to make a decision every single time. This leads to predictability and consistent revenue for ecommerce brands in the long run. The anticipation along with ultimate convenience has fueled the adoption of subscription buying.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Rise of Subscription-Based Marketing Services

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The subscription agency business model has seen a massive rise in popularity in recent years, and there is a big reason. Click for more!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Talk of the metaverse has been ubiquitous over the past several months. In 2021, internet searches for the term increased by 7,200 percent. In December, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared his ambition to "help bring the metaverse to life." A month later, Microsoft said that its proposed acquisition of gaming giant Activision provided "building blocks for the metaverse."

It's not just talk; private capital is also rapidly pouring in. In 2021, metaverse-related companies reportedly raised upward of $10 billion, more than twice as much as they did in the previous year. In the past 12 months, one company alone-Epic Games, maker of Fortnite-has not only raised $3 billion to fund its long-term vision for the metaverse but also announced a partnership with LEGO to build a metaverse for kids. The global value creation opportunity from the metaverse could be in the trillions.

What, exactly, is the metaverse? Right now, the interested parties cannot agree on any one definition. But most descriptions-including this particularly insightful take from venture capitalist Matthew Ball, who recently shared his thoughts on the promise of the metaverse with McKinsey -have some elements in common:

The metaverse encompasses immersive environments, often (but not always) using virtual- or augmented-reality technology.

The metaverse is "always on" and exists in real time.

The metaverse spans the virtual and physical worlds, as well as multiple platforms.

The metaverse is powered by a fully functioning virtual economy, often (but not always) built on cryptocurrency and digital goods and assets, including nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

The metaverse enables people to have virtual identities, presence, and "agency," including peer-to-peer interactions, transactions, user-generated content, and "world-building."

We believe that the metaverse is best characterized as an evolution of today's internet-it is something we are immersed in instead of something we look at. It may realize the promise of vast digital worlds to parallel our physical one. For marketers, the metaverse represents an opportunity to engage consumers in entirely new ways while pushing internal capabilities and brand innovation in new directions.

Now is the right time to adopt a test-and-learn mindset, to be open to experiments in the metaverse, and to move on quickly from failure and capitalize on success.

We do continue to see a healthy amount of skepticism about the metaverse, and companies may wish to exercise caution, since the promise may take some time catching up to the hype. But we believe we're at the cusp of a fundamental shift in how people use the internet. (See sidebar, "Six reasons the metaverse is here to stay.") Marketers would be remiss if they didn't start exploring what the metaverse can offer. Now is the right time to adopt a test-and-learn mindset, to be open to experiments, and to move on quickly from failure and capitalize on success.

Rewriting the rules of marketing for the metaverse

We may still be in the first wave of consumer engagement with the metaverse, but lessons are already emerging from companies that found early success. In some ways, the critical elements of marketing in the metaverse resemble those of designing authentic and compelling brand experiences in the physical world. But the application of these elements in the metaverse can be very different. Much as approaches for driving value online continue to evolve, the effective engagement of consumers in the metaverse will require its own evolving recipe for success.

Here's what this landscape looks like today and how organizations can think about their metaverse marketing strategies for the future.

Define your metaverse marketing goals. Why do you want to be part of the metaverse? If your brand's consumers are there, do you want to increase awareness among new audiences, position your brand and generate favorable sentiment, or promote loyalty? Is your goal to spark innovation in your marketing team? For the near term, the primary goal of brands shouldn't be driving sales directly, since sales of virtual items are still far smaller than sales of physical ones. What's more, today's metaverse audiences, especially on online entertainment platforms like Roblox, often skew younger, which brings both opportunities and risks.

Identify the platforms that provide the best opportunity and brand fit. Right now, Roblox, Fortnite, Decentraland, Minecraft, and Meta's Horizon Worlds are just a few of the metaverse games and platforms out there. Some will be better than others for specific purposes. There is ample opportunity to experiment with multiple platforms to see what works. For example, the luxury brand Gucci has conducted multiple brand activations to figure out where and how to connect with Gen Z. Last year, it drew 19.9 million visitors in two weeks when it launched a metaverse version of its real-world Gucci Garden on Roblox. Gucci has also partnered with the fashion-focused metaverse Zepeto, announced plans to launch a virtual world on the blockchain-based platform The Sandbox, and created assets for games including The Sims, Pokémon GO, and Animal Crossing.

Design experiences appealing to target audiences. Consumers tend to see brands in the metaverse as innovative, so the bar for delivering innovative experiences is high. Companies need to determine the ideal balance between native advertising, immersive experiences (including games, virtual stores, events, and sponsorships), and real-world activations to complement the metaverse. Take, for example, what the skateboarding retailer Vans did last fall when it launched the interactive skatepark "Vans World" on Roblox. To build brand awareness and appeal to the company's core demographic, Vans enabled visitors to virtually explore skate sites with friends. Visitors can also earn points through gameplay to spend on virtual sneakers and apparel items, as well as to build customized skateboards in a virtual skate shop. This has successfully engaged both existing and new fans-and has seen more than 48 million visitors so far.

Consumers tend to see brands in the metaverse as innovative, so the bar for delivering innovative experiences is high.

Experiment with money-making models. Direct sales may not be front and center on the metaverse right now, but that doesn't mean brands shouldn't be thinking ahead and planning to capture the future potential. Direct-to-avatar sales of virtual goods are already a $54 billion market, and some forward-thinking brands are testing different opportunities to generate revenues. Forever 21, for example, sells a beanie in Roblox for under a dollar. On the other end of the scale, Gucci sold a digital version of its Dionysus bag last year for $4,115-more than the price of the physical item itself. Nike is trying out unique NFTs with its recent release of Nike Cryptokicks (a virtual model of its Nike Dunk sneakers), designed by the creative studio RTFKT, which Nike acquired in December.

Just as online-to-offline sales conversions are the norm today, we can expect to see more metaverse-to-offline opportunities in the future, too. In April, Chipotle claimed it was the first brand to enable Roblox players to exchange digital currency for real-life rewards when it offered vouchers for burritos to the first 30,000 visitors to its metaverse restaurant.

Create, leverage, and partner for new metaverse capabilities. For the metaverse, as for any new venture, brands should assess the skills they will need, identify which they already have and which they must acquire, and appoint someone to lead the development and execution of a coherent strategy to capture value. Brands should also aim to work with and learn from others, including the independent developer and creator communities that are active on the platforms already.

Roblox, for example, has hundreds of thousands in its developer community who are actively developing a range of experiences and learning how to make money from them. Last November, NASCAR partnered with Badimo, the developers of the popular Roblox game Jailbreak, to add a branded vehicle to the game for a ten-day event. During that time, gamers visited Jailbreak 24 million times-a 30 percent increase in the number of concurrent players. Creative, branding, and marketing agencies are also rapidly launching new service models and metaverse capabilities, including their own virtual studios.

Furthermore, celebrities and influencers are increasingly attaching their names to metaverse initiatives. In some cases, they're deeply involved with the actual creation of new immersive media for the metaverse. Last year, for example, the rapper Snoop Dogg built his own "Snoopverse" in The Sandbox. A few months later, he released the first music video that takes place entirely within the metaverse. " The House I Built," like previous Snoop Dogg videos, features dancing, hanging out by the poolside, and driving nice cars. But this time, it's his digital double enjoying the lifestyle.

Proactively plan for risks to the brand. There are many cautionary examples of brands that exposed themselves to risk by engaging directly with consumers online without having prepared for the rapid feedback loops of the internet or the potential virality of social media. In the metaverse, the risks can be even higher, since these events are live in real-time and more immersive. Brands would do well to establish basic rules of engagement-detailed policies and enforcement practices they can follow later-for customer experience, intellectual-property management, user safety, data privacy, and misinformation, for example. Already, in some cases things have not gone according to plan. One global electronics brand launched a new line of products with great fanfare on its metaverse venue, but disappointed fans had trouble gaining access and had to virtually "queue" outside the venue.

Rethink how you measure marketing success. Measuring the returns on marketing spend is always critical, but the appropriate metrics for the metaverse may not be what you expect. Digital marketing typically focuses on metrics such as the number of visitors, conversions, "likes," and shares, as well as the cost of acquiring customers. With the metaverse, marketers may need to define new engagement metrics accounting for the unique behavioral economics at play (such as the "scarcity" of NFTs, which are supposed to be unique). For example, the online food delivery company Deliveroo deployed virtual drivers to make virtual deliveries in Nintendo's popular Animal Crossing game, including promo codes to activate in real life. Within the first hours of play, it racked up three million in-game interactions with players.

With the metaverse, marketers may need to define new engagement metrics accounting for the unique behavioral economics at play.

Tread carefully but firmly

Clearly, the metaverse already gives companies ample opportunities for brand building and marketing. The current technological limits and modest level of mainstream adoption are not likely to be major obstacles for experimenting, learning, and finding success with marketing in the metaverse.

A few questions will shape its longer-term evolution. Marketers should be aware of these as they shift their focus and marketing budgets to the metaverse:

How will interoperability, or the ability to transfer digital avatars and assets across multiple worlds, work in the metaverse? What implications does that have for brands offering digital assets, such as virtual clothing, today?

How will the social contract and legal framework for the metaverse evolve? How will user safety be ensured, particularly for youth? Sensitivities around marketing to minors have always existed, but as generational shifts occur, they come into sharper focus in the metaverse. What additional responsibilities should brands take on for child safety?

How will first-party consumer data be stored, managed, and protected? How will data privacy laws apply to the metaverse in the future? And how can brands secure consent and source data to enhance their own consumer insights, especially in a world without cookies?

No matter how the metaverse evolves, levels of innovation and consumer adoption will probably accelerate. When you consider how quickly platforms are evolving and the new use cases emerging, it's clear that brands will have incentives to go on testing and learning. It will also be imperative for marketers to secure the talent required to keep up with rapid new developments in areas such as augmented and virtual reality, consumer journey analytics, and social commerce.

Finally, the metaverse has great future potential beyond marketing. To create value throughout the enterprise, companies must take the time to think through the potential strategic implications of the metaverse for sales, operations, production, R&D, and HR. Organizations and brands that plan and execute now will benefit most from the future of the metaverse.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Marketing in the metaverse: An opportunity for innovation and experimentation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although widespread adoption of the metaverse may take some time, leading brands are already rewriting the rules of marketing.

# data[].attributes.body
Vertical Advertising:

Specialised to niche

Targets niche-specific customers

Effective reach based on data

Advertising through trade events, thematic websites, specific publications, etc.

Horizontal Advertising:

Non-specialised

Targets a broader customer base from a wider range of industries

Broader and diverse reach

Advertising through the newspaper, radio channels, television, common websites and publications, etc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What are horizontal vs vertical types of advertising? What specialisation do horizontal and vertical ads offer? How do businesses benefit from horizontal and vertical ads? How to find out whether horizontal or vertical advertising strategies should work well for the business?

Let us begin from the beginning. When the competition becomes more intense, businesses often ask whether we should go for a vertical or horizontal advertising strategy?

Undoubtedly, a deftly chosen advert strategy can serve as one of the most effective budget management tools and bring in leads. Depending upon the niche and the scope of the business, the company can choose either of the two or overlap both horizontal and vertical ads.

We all know that sales measure the success of a successful advertising campaign. And for that reason alone, advertising strategies are placed to target the most relevant and significant audience.
Read more:
1. In-App Advertising: The Complete Guide

2. The Ad Formats and Types Users Like Most [Report]

Vertical advertising is a strategy that businesses use to target industry-specific customers. Customers within a vertical strategy usually have similar interests, needs, and demands.

Instead of appealing to a broad set of customer bases, the vertical ad strategy appeals to the people in a definitive and distinct niche. For example, stay-at-home dads, healthcare, real estate, private primary school teachers, medical publishing, etc.

When to Apply Vertical Advertising?

A vertical advertising strategy is beneficial when your business offers products that suit the specific customer base.

For example, suppose your company hosts wine-tasting events specifically in the countryside. In that case, you can apply the vertical ad strategy to target the customers in vineyards, wineries, farm-to-table restaurants near villages.

Advertising to the broader demographics will cost you more money per acquisition and bring in weak/little conversions, which will make no sense and only add to the cost.

Why use Vertical Advertising?

Potential customers from the specific industry will want to read related content relevant to their interests, needs, and business. They may want to acquire knowledge via printed and digital publications and attend niche-specific events.

Although the competition is less, the risk of demand fluctuation is prominent in industry-specific businesses. That's why building customers relations becomes important for businesses.

Therefore, to target the significant market portion relevant to your niche requires a vertical advertising strategy.

You must select the right medium to reach your target customers with minimal waste. Placing vertical ads will require the advertising planners to study the data on readership and circulation of various publications covering the same niche/ industry.

Then you will choose two or more publications that provide the best coverage for your ad. Various media can be specific magazines, trade events, thematic websites, weekly published journals, niche-related blogs, etc.

Creating a Vertical Advertising Campaign

Vertical advertising is a customer-centric advertising strategy. Whether the product is specialised for a specific industry or has its application only for a specific niche, it's important to understand the demographic's needs and demands by studying the data and figures.

For example, suppose a company makes power tools and wishes to start a vertical advertising campaign to appeal to private contractors. In that case, the company shall analyse what the contractors are looking for in the power tools.

The company shall need to study the data regarding the kinds of tools demanded in the current times or the specifications the targeted audience might be looking for in those tools.

In addition, the company will need to analyse the data of their buying trends, the purpose for which they are buying the tools, the colour of the tools most private contractors prefer, and other relevant topics.

The advertising company can write the copy appealing to the contractors- "best tools for professionals" or "power tools for your ease of work and happy customers".
Read more:
1. Top 12 CPC/PPC Ad Networks (2022 Update)

2. Best CPM Ad Networks For Publishers (2022 Update)

What is Horizontal Advertising?

Unlike vertical advertising, horizontal advertising strategy appeals to various markets and industries.

For example, office supplies companies will have ads for industries like- educational organisations, bureaus, government offices, hardware stores, healthcare, architecture, etc. Horizontal advertising appears to the potential customers who share similar characteristics, needs, and interests but are spread in a different range of industries.

When to apply horizontal advertising?

Because horizontal advertising appeals to a broader and more diverse range of customers, the marketers will be required to design a sophisticated cross-channel advertising campaign that ensures less wastage, budgeted cost, and widespread reach of their ad.

How to build an effective horizontal advertising strategy

A horizontal advertising strategy will require marketers to focus on various aspects of their product. Let's take the example of the office supplies company. The company would want to market its products to a wider range of markets.

They can highlight their product's features appealing to an educational institute and a government office. They can advertise their product to the healthcare centres requiring files, prescription slips, and stationary, while presenting their products to resorts and hotels.

Horizontal advertising will require a cross-channel advertising campaign. It can advertise through networks like radio channels, televisions, newspapers, business magazines and journals, mobile apps, and other advertising networks.

Take a look at successful horizontal advertising.

Many companies collaborate with other companies to reach diverse audiences. For example, a cola company can collaborate with chips-making company to be marketed together.

Or a bag manufacturing company can collaborate with a company that makes uniforms to be marketed and distributed together. This marketing and advertising strategy allows both companies to increase their production capacities and maximise profits.
Read more:
1. Top 8 Mobile Ad Networks for Publishers (2022 Update)

2. AdSense Alternatives: Top 22 Ad Networks to Try in 2022

Horizontal Vs Vertical Advertising

After understanding why and where horizontal and vertical advertising strategies are used, the question remains how a company can choose between horizontal and vertical advertising. Choosing either of the two advertising strategies or using both effectively is a crucial advertising decision that the company needs to make.

As explained earlier, if your business is niche-specific and industry specialised, you can go for vertical advertising. And if your business offers products with diverse applications and uses, you can reach out to a broader customer base.

However, you don't have to choose just one advertising strategy. If you have expertise and experience in one field and can benefit other industries, you can use horizontal and vertical advertising.

For example, if you are a writer with experience and expertise in computer sciences, your writing skills can also be used in other industries.

Horizontal vs. Vertical Ad Network:

When we talk about horizontal vs vertical, it has slight different meaning to what horizontal and vertical ad network means.

Horizontal vs Vertical Ads: Conclusion

Horizontal and vertical advertising are packed with advantages and uses. An effective advertising strategy will involve a careful understanding of the purpose, the customer base it wishes to target, and serving the message in the right way resulting in conversions.

Both horizontal and vertical advertising can be used together and separately, depending upon the requirements of your business.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What are horizontal vs vertical types of advertising? What specialisation do horizontal and vertical ads offer? How do businesses benefit from horizontal and vertical ads? How to find out whether horizontal or vertical advertising strategies should work well for the business? Let us begin from the beginning.

# data[].attributes.body
Case Studies-

Greggs x Primark

Givenchy x Disney

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Image Courtesy of Unsplash.

Partnerships and collaborations have always existed because it is a great marketing and advertising strategy to boost awareness and break into new markets for both parties. For a partnership to work, it must be a mutually beneficial arrangement. However, cross-industry partnerships have been booming in the last few years where unexpected brands from different fields come together to create unique products and experiences.

Not only are they tapping into new customer bases, there is a certain novelty factor when customers are surprised with limited edition collections or one-off collaborations. By introducing both brands into two different markets, they are building new audiences as well as their presence in unknown markets.

Here are just some quick examples of some recent unexpected brand collaborations.

Adidas and Arizona Iced Tea (2019)

The pop up store drummed up so much buzz that the NYPD had to shut down the massive crowds that had lined up on the streets to try to get themselves a pair of the shoes that were originally priced at $1.

Image Courtesy of Adidas

BVG x Adidas Original (2018)

The BVG (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe) is the public transit company that manages the U-Bahn, the trams and the busses in Berlin. In 2018, they partnered up with Adidas Originals to create a unique collector's item - EQT-Support 93/Berlin where the annual ticket was included in the tongue of the shoe. As long as it's worn, it is a valid annual ticket for all AB zones.

Image Courtesy of @overkillshop / Overkill.

Diesel x Coca Cola (2019)

The (Re)Collection was the brainchild of DIESEL and Coca-Cola where an edgy capsule collection was crafted out of partially recycled materials. The collection was sold online.

Image courtesy of Coca Cola

So it's got a lot to do with the fashion scene, what about other products? One of my recent birthday gifts from my fellow industrial designers was the initial inspiration behind this article.

Teenage Engineering are a Stockholm-based creative collective made up of engineers and programmers that share the love for making music and electronics. Their mission is simple - to create the things they think are missing in the world.

FREKVENS, which means "frequency" was a collaboration between IKEA and Teenage Engineering which consisted of set of portable Bluetooth speakers, lights, and accessories. Individually, they are all part of a modular component system:

The speakers (pocket speaker, regular speaker, speaker/subwoofer set)

The lights (bulb box and LED panel box with built-in sen of audio sensors)

Light cover pack (in yellow/red)

Additional accessories: light stand and side table

Modular Design

"Music brings people together" is the core concept of what IKEA proposes as, a simple party system. A retro aesthetic inspired by the Bauhaus design, the products focused on the universal elements of the structural Bauhaus design - a rectangle and a circle. They were also created with ABS plastic so that they can be recycled, melted repeatedly and reshaped without much chemical degradation.

The light cubes can be arranged in all sorts of ways - stacked on top, placed next to each other, on a light stand, with or without additional colour filters, etc. Additionally, all individual lights can be linked to the others with a cable to form an entire ecosystem.

Image Courtesy of IKEA.

Adaption and Personalisation

With the FREKVENS lights, there are 6 patterns of LED lights available and 3 different options for the spotlight - fully on, party mode and a dimmed audio mode. With its modern modular system, users are also given full control as to how they would like to display their lights in their own spaces. Some might want various parts together on a light stand whilst others may prefer individual standalone units.

The minimal design, clean black with a pop of playful colours are also a beautiful coalescence of the aesthetics of IKEA and the Teenage Engineering brand.

Think about the modern digital ecosystem around us. Often, we own multiple devices and use them interchangeably. Real power exists in how devices are used together with others.

As highlighted in Michal Levin's Designing for Multi-Device Experiences, it is important to "understand the different relationships between connected devices, as well as how individuals relate to them, in order to create natural, fluid multi-device experiences that allow these dynamic changes".

These dynamic changes could be context shifts in the ecosystem where it is crucial to deliver the right thing, at the right place, at the right time. It could also be isolated where the same experience is replicated in a different setting. There needs to be a balance between simplicity, collaboration and control. The product or its ecosystem should be easy to set up and the user should always be in full control of their experience.

The FREKVENS line takes all these concepts into account. Not only is there an obvious cause-and-effect relationship between the speakers and lights, new experiences are also created inside a user's home whether it is visually, audibly or even as a feeling.

It is very simple, fun, and playful. You will become like a home roadie setting up your own sound system and light show. It's good enough that you can set up a party, that day. People will appreciate that."

- Jesper Kouthoofd, Head of design and founder teenage engineering

Furniture Pairing

"FREKVENS brings the party, you bring the dance moves". Apart from the music, there are other essential things that are needed for a great party. In this context, IKEA has came up with other pieces of complementary furniture and accessories such as water repellent cushion covers, tiki mugs, stackable tableware and chairs.

Image Courtesy of IKEA

Again, the concept of scalability and adaptability are evident with these complementary pieces - they are of a range of sizes that are useful for individual needs, whether it is a small gathering or a memorable house party.

Going Further: Additional DIY and Personalisation

After the successful launch of FREKVENS, Teenager Engineering themselves have came up with a little extension of the collaborative project by introducing FREKVENS hacks.

As showcased on their website, they have provided users with free 3D ready to print stl files so that all customers who owns a part of the FREKVENS ecosystem can extend it further by printing with their own 3D machines.

Image Courtesy of Teenage Engineering.

Returning to Levin's discussed concepts on building multi device experiences, there are more contexts shifts being taken into account. There are diverse needs across different contexts so it is important to consider different design approaches.

Break down the product flow(s).

Define contexts and analyse of which devices work best in which setting.

Offer features and flows that address multiple devices or problems.

Identify unique needs for specific contexts that requires more than one design approach. FREKVENS hacks is a great example of this.

And most importantly, never forget about consistency.

For example, what if the user wanted to take the speakers outdoors with their phone? Or, what if the entire sound and light system is too big to be carried? Or how about having the spotlights at a certain angle instead of just flat or upwards? All these questions and challenges are transformed into opportunities. As highlighted by the designer, there are no "ifs" or "buts" in this playful collection.

I have one of the FREKVENS spotlight and LED light myself with the additional accessories. From the initial setup process to the actual testing and experience, the product reminded me of the theories and principles of Atomic Design.

We're not designing pages, we're designing systems of components.
- Stephen Hay

In this case, we are not just designing products but systems of components and digital ecosystems. The initial product is presented as simple basic blocks that can work as a standalone but they can also be used together as part of a whole ecosystem. For example, you could have a spotlight a LED light as a base. Then you are gifted another FREKVENS speaker or LED light which you can also personalise to have a differentiating pattern from your first light. Product scalability is clear, simple and entirely in the user's control.

Each addition of each FREKVENS product forms a new component and the combination of multiple components forms a small, then larger system.

This collaboration between IKEA and Teenage Engineering is a perfect example of unexpected, successful outcomes between two different brands. For IKEA, they are all about their furniture, meatballs and improving peoples' lives at home - music is an important factor that affects mood and atmosphere.

It is also a great way to push the brand into new directions and explore new territories. Teenage Engineering has also been immensely successful at making something that is consistent with the IKEA brief yet still challenging the existing perceptions.

The UX Collective donates US$1 for each article published in our platform. This story contributed to Bay Area Black Designers: a professional development community for Black people who are digital designers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area. By joining together in community, members share inspiration, connection, peer mentorship, professional development, resources, feedback, support, and resilience. Silence against systemic racism is not an option. Build the design community you believe in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Creating unique opportunities through unexpected brand collaborations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Partnerships and collaborations have always existed because it is a great marketing and advertising strategy to boost awareness and break into new markets for both parties. For a partnership to work, it must be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

# data[].attributes.body
While retailers overall in the West are still behind China in the pursuit of live commerce, early movers are also starting to rack up significant sales.

To set up a livestream event, companies typically engage a key opinion leader (KOL) or key opinion consumer (KOC) to host the show, introduce the product, and interact with the audience to trigger sales.

Format- Tutorials, Interviews, “Behind-the-scenes” etc; with interactive elements such as games, quizzes, and giveaways to keep viewers engaged and entertained.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The arrival of Alibaba's Taobao Live in May 2016 marked the opening of a new chapter in sales. The Chinese retail giant had pioneered a powerful new approach: linking up an online livestream broadcast with an e-commerce store to allow viewers to watch and shop at the same time. Live commerce quickly established itself as a fixture in sales campaigns for Singles' Day-a major shopping event in China-and, more broadly, as a reliable digital tool for boosting customer engagement and sales. In 2020, the first 30 minutes of Alibaba's Singles' Day presales campaign on Taobao Live generated an impressive $7.5 billion in total transaction value. Welcome to the next wave of the e-commerce revolution.

How exactly this new channel will develop remains to be seen. What is clear is that it holds enormous long-term potential for brands and e-commerce platforms alike. If China's experience is any guide, our analysis indicates that live-commerce-initiated sales could account for as much as 10 to 20 percent of all e-commerce by 2026.

How does live commerce create value?

Live commerce can help brands, retailers, and marketplaces primarily in two areas:

Accelerating conversion. Live commerce is entertaining and immersive, keeping viewers watching longer. It also telescopes customer decision journeys from awareness to purchase. Time-limited tactics such as one-off coupons can be used to generate a sense of urgency. Companies report conversion rates approaching 30 percent-up to ten times higher than in conventional e-commerce.

Improving brand appeal and differentiation. Done well, live commerce increases a brand's appeal and distinctiveness and pulls in additional web traffic. It can strengthen positioning among existing customers and attract new ones, especially young people keen on innovative shopping formats and experiences. Some companies are seeing their share of younger audiences increase by up to 20 percent.

A rapidly growing channel

Live commerce has evolved rapidly in China, taking less than five years to develop into an innovative sales channel with an estimated penetration of 10 percent. The value of China's live-commerce market grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 280 percent between 2017 and 2020, to reach an estimated $171 billion in 2020 (Exhibit 1). This growth spurt has been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Chinese sales are expected to reach $423 billion by 2022.

In terms of demographics, Generation Z and millennials dominate, although live commerce is starting to attract middle-aged and more-senior consumers. By March 2020, live commerce was used by 265 million people-almost 30 percent of Chinese Internet users. Taobao remains the world's biggest player (see sidebar "Key facts on the world's biggest live-commerce player"), with a market share of 35 percent.

Following China's lead, Western brands, retailers, and marketplaces are establishing their own live-commerce ventures and events to promote their products, especially in beauty and fashion. Among the earliest adopters was German beauty retailer Douglas, which streams several shows a week in a range of formats, from workshops with experts to talks with influencers, and reports conversion rates of up to 40 percent. On the fashion front, Tommy Hilfiger recently extended its livestream program to Europe and North America following successes in China, where one show reportedly attracted an audience of 14 million and sold 1,300 hoodies in two minutes. And in December 2020, Walmart piloted a livestream fashion event on TikTok that netted seven times more viewers than expected and enabled it to add 25 percent to its TikTok follower base.

A plethora of specialist start-ups have also emerged, including NTWRK, which features shows where guests talk about limited-availability streetwear, and Buywith, where viewers watch hosts browsing the e-commerce platform and chatting via webcam.

Starting out in live commerce

While live commerce is still an emerging channel with many unknowns, some best practices are emerging, and lessons from e-commerce are proving to be applicable. Brands will need a thoughtful approach to learning how to use the medium-it can be expensive to do live commerce during Singles' Day, for example, so best to try low-risk options first-and evolve their capabilities as they learn (see sidebar "Three live-commerce archetypes").

Our analysis has shown that focusing on answering the following questions can help put brands on the right track.

Which product and audience?

Consider which stage a product has reached in its life cycle. Are you seeking to generate instant feedback on a new product, clear stock of an older item, or give a bestseller an extra boost? Our observations suggest that live events can be highly effective for creating awareness and prompting trial but less so for solidifying loyalty. It's worth noting that many impulse shoppers are one-time buyers, so a newly attracted audience can't be taken for granted; keeping it will take work. Similarly, our experience has shown that shoppers often come from a very different demographic than the brand's typical target group.

To ensure that your show attracts the consumer segments most relevant to your brand, it's critical to know who makes up your audience, what matters to them, and how to get their attention. Using analytics sources and tools to understand who has watched your content in the past can help you build up "personas" of potential customers to guide your choices on your target demographic. In broad terms, Generation X and Generation Z shop-and spend-more online than other groups, but it pays to dig into the data at a more granular level.

Product launches or presentations can attract attention to a new product and convert interest instantly into sales, making them a good choice for seasonal marketing campaigns and exclusive or special deals. To trigger impulse purchases, products need to look good on small and large screens and be positioned as good value for the money.

Which format?

To set up a livestream event, companies typically engage a key opinion leader (KOL) or key opinion consumer (KOC) to host the show, introduce the product, and interact with the audience to trigger sales. Several popular formats have emerged, each with its own strengths:

Tutorials, such as makeup demonstrations hosted by models, are effective not only in showing audiences how to apply or use a specific product but also in suggesting how to combine it with other products, opening up cross-selling opportunities.

Interviews with a big name or influencer from a relevant segment feel more personal, authentic, and genuine than product launches and can be good for building awareness and driving traffic.

"Behind-the-scenes" videos offering the inside story of a product or company help build brand image and loyalty in a target segment-an ethical fashion retailer, for instance, might showcase its sustainable supply chain to environmentally and socially conscious consumers.

Regardless of format, many successful events feature interactive elements such as games, quizzes, and giveaways to keep viewers engaged and entertained. They maintain high production values in photography, location, lighting, and sound and ensure that scripts are not overly focused on the product.

Which enablers?

Planning a live-commerce event also involves deciding on the following:

Technology. The key technology choice is which platform or marketplace to use for hosting the stream and providing e-commerce functionality. Some providers offer one of these functions; others, such as Instagram and Facebook, offer both. The right choice depends on a business's level of maturity with live commerce. It also involves considering which technology provides the biggest target audience, which features it offers (live chat, "likes," and so on), and the level of commission to be paid. Companies with more experience in live commerce can switch to an off-the-shelf solution, such as Livescale or Bambuser, that allows them to tailor the live-shopping experience to suit their brand, syndicate to multiple social-media channels, and offer their customers seamless purchasing from the same page. Companies that want to fully customize the customer experience and functionality often build their own solution.

Tracking. As in e-commerce, effective monitoring and measuring of event impact by audience, day part, and so on is crucial to understanding what works and what doesn't. It is important that the live-commerce operating model be flexible enough to act quickly on that data. After a show, for example, it's possible to send a link to a recording of the show to a viewer who watched for just 20 seconds, or to offer someone who stayed for ten minutes a discount to convert their interest into a purchase. A one-off coupon code can help monitor customer behavior more precisely. Having this degree of flexibility requires a good content library, clear action plans and offer criteria, and a "continuous improvement" mentality.

Marketing. Like any event, good marketing drives performance, and-as experience shows-companies often don't invest enough time or resources to get their marketing right and can "starve" even the best marketing efforts. To maximize views, it's crucial to take an omnichannel approach, alerting target audiences to an upcoming show through newsletters, emails, websites, apps, push notifications, and social media and providing links and information on paid social media. The best producers have an intimate knowledge of the features (such as countdown clocks) offered by the chosen livestreaming platform, and they invest the time to understand which websites their target audience frequents and place ads there.

What's next for live commerce?

Our observations suggest we can expect to see the following developments in the next few years:

Micro- and nano-influencers. Big-name influencers and celebrities with millions of followers are expensive to hire and don't always make the best hosts. Using influencers with a few thousand dedicated followers can generate a more intimate and trusted connection with audiences at lower cost. According to one survey, the engagement rates for nano-influencers on Instagram are ten times those for mega and macro influencers.

Expansion into new sectors. As live commerce increases its reach, industries such as healthcare, engineering, finance-and, in time, B2B sectors-are likely to move in. For example, a leading tech company is planning to use its livestreaming platform to provide health-related content and services such as consultations and appointment scheduling.

Innovative formats. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can make the shopping experience even more immersive and enable buyers to see a product from every angle. In an early example, Ulta Beauty teamed up with AR developer Perfect Corp to include virtual try-ons in its "Beauty School" livestream. In the future, consumers may be able to have virtual face-to-face conversations with a show host just as though they were speaking in a store.

Live commerce has become table stakes for successful consumer companies in China and much of the rest of Asia and is rapidly spreading to Europe and the United States. Some pioneers have achieved extraordinary reach and impact. Others wanting to follow their example will need to move quickly to design their own experiments to get the most out of this dynamic new channel.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
It's showtime! How live commerce is transforming the shopping experience

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Blending entertainment with instant purchasing, live commerce offers retailers, brands, and digital platforms a new channel for creating value.

# data[].attributes.headline
Case Study- Nestlé MUNCH Gave Cricket Fans An "Immersive Metaverse Experience"

# data[].attributes.subject
Case Study- Nestlé MUNCH Gave Cricket Fans An "Immersive Metaverse Experience"

# data[].attributes.body
MUNCH partnered with 4 leading cricket franchises to create an immersive experiential digital world for fans.

The brand created special packaging featuring players from each team, which when scanned took users to a specially curated Digital Ecosystem of that particular team.

Users could entertain themselves with a variety of cricket themed games, but they could also click photos with players using an AR Filter. Users who were able to accumulate points in this ecosystem, could redeem it for both digitally signed jerseys and actual physical merchandise as well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Mad Over Marketing | Advertising, Brands, Media and PR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nestlé MUNCH Gave Cricket Fans An Immersive Metaverse Experience

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today's generation values authentic connections and intimate experiences. Brands are constantly trying to figure out avenues on how to engage with this audience, and be part of their lifestyle. Here's how Nestlé MUNCH leveraged the hype around the ongoing cricket season and gave users a truly immersive digital experience where fans could interact with their...

# data[].attributes.body
The event hosted on ‘Flipkart Live’ platform saw unprecedented response with over 380,000 users logging in for the sale, with more than 319,000 peak concurrent viewers. The sale of Nothing Phone (1) was live for just 10 minutes during the show and the entire inventory was sold off in a flash.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Mad Over Marketing | Advertising, Brands, Media and PR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Flipkart Takes Live Commerce A Notch Higher

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Flipkart opened the sale of Nothing Phone ( 1 ) by conducting The Zero Hour, India's First Live Sale of Nothing Phone (1) on July 21st. The event had Masaba Gupta, Rajiv Makhni, Manushi Chillar, Gaurav Kapoor and Jim Sarbh speaking about their experience of using the Nothing Phone (1), and then they opened up...

# data[].attributes.body
Conscious consumers seek state-of-the-art quality along with eco-friendliness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The ability to track, manage and verify digital assets in a safe and secure way is the reason why NFTs have caused such a stir in the marketing industry.

NFTS: How can companies use them?

This new technology can help brands solve many of the issues that have been holding back from fully adopting digital marketing practices, such as the challenges of attribution and engagement.

NFTs can be used to create and track digital assets that are then stored on a blockchain. This immutable recordkeeping system provides brands with a way to track the ownership and provenance of their assets, as well as ensure that the data associated with them is accurate and cannot be tampered with.

This type of transparency is something that consumers are increasingly demanding from brands, and NFTs provide a way for companies to meet this need.

Furthermore, NFTs offer a way for brands to engage with their customers in a more interactive and personal way. By offering digital assets that can be collected, traded, and sold, brands can create a community of fans and collectors around their products and services.

This type of engagement has the potential to turn customers into lifelong fans, and it is something that traditional marketing methods have struggled to achieve.

NFTs also offer a way for brands to monetize their digital assets in a way that is much more efficient and effective than traditional advertising models.

How companies are adopting NFTs marketing strategies to reach out to consumers and engage them

Some of the world's largest companies are already experimenting with NFTs, and it is only a matter of time before this innovative technology goes mainstream. Ways NFTs can kickstart your small business:

Use it to access your digital services.

By creating an NFT strategy for your brand, you're providing potential customers with a way to access your products and services in a much more secure and efficient way.

This could be anything from offering an NFT-based loyalty program to selling access to your premium content.

Create An Unprecedented And Personalized Experience

NFTs offer a way for you to provide your customers with a unique and personalized experience that is unlike anything else on the market.

By offering digital assets that can be collected, traded, and sold, you can create a community of fans and collectors around your products and services.

This type of engagement has the potential to turn customers into lifelong fans, and it is something that traditional marketing methods have struggled to achieve.

Manage Your Supply Chain

NFTs can also be used to manage and track your supply chain. By storing data about your products and services on a blockchain, you can ensure that your supply chain is efficient and transparent.

Ensure Brand Identity and Loyalty

NFTs offer a way for you to ensure the identity of your brand and build loyalty among your customer base.

By offering digital assets with attractive utilities that can be collected, traded, and sold, you can create a community of fans and collectors around your products and services.

This type of engagement has the potential to turn customers into active lifelong fans, and it is something that traditional marketing methods have struggled to achieve.

Build A Strong Community

NFTs offer a way for you to build a strong community around your brands. You make a customer experience by offering them an active role with voting rights for future brand events, products, services, and more, which can increase the implication and commitment of the collector.

By leveraging the power of NFTs, you can create a business that is built on transparency, customer loyalty, and a strong community.

NFTs: For brands can become the Key to Mass Adoption?

For all the buzz around NFTs, much of the general public still doesn't quite understand what they are or how they work. But they're poised to become key aspects of a wide range of industries, from entertainment to law.

The brands using NFTs tend to benefit from greater transparency, accountability, traceability, efficiency, reliability, and composability. In the near future, we will see more and more businesses use NFTs as a way to enhance their operations.

It's not just the brands, but everyone in the business community with social impact that stands to benefit from the adoption of NFTs. When brands use NFTs, it creates a virtuous circle that benefits not just the business itself but also the customers, employees, partners, and suppliers.

The key to mass adoption is creating awareness and understanding about how NFTs can be used to improve businesses and our lives. We need to educate and guide people about the potential of this technology.

About the Author

Martin Noam Slutzky is a blockchain enthusiast, and co-founder of InvestingNFT.io. InvestingNFT collaborates with brands, athletes and artists to empower their marketing strategies and potentiate their exposure through NFTs by designing exclusives promotions and events increasing the experience and bond with the community.
Got something to say about NFTs or anything else? Write to us or join the discussion in our Telegram channel. You can also catch us on Tik Tok, Facebook, or Twitter.
Disclaimer

All the information contained on our website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Any action the reader takes upon the information found on our website is strictly at their own risk.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
NFTs in Marketing: How They Can Become the Key to Mass Adoption

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The ability to track, manage and verify digital assets in a safe and secure way is the reason why NFTs have caused such a stir in the marketing industry. This new technology can help brands solve many of the issues that have been holding back from fully adopting digital marketing practices, such as the challenges of attribution and engagement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023 is our latest overview of the influencer marketing industry. It summarizes the thoughts of more than 3500 marketing agencies, brands, and other relevant professionals regarding the current state of influencer marketing, along with some predictions of how people expect it to move over the next year and into the future.

The world around us has changed considerably over the last few years. The arrival of Covid in 2020 turned much of the world on its head, with enforced lockdowns and scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood disaster movie. By 2022, however, much of the world was learning to live with Covid, clamoring for something resembling their old lives. Unfortunately, they were also learning to live with the economic consequences of Covid, with supply chain disruptions, a chronic shortage of key workers, and creeping inflation threatening to unsettle the global economy.

Unsurprisingly, many businesses have struggled to survive in the new environment. And those that have made it this far are needing to find new ways to market, so they stand out in the minds of consumers. Creator and influencer marketing appear to be more important than ever for connecting brands with their target customers.

As well as our annual survey collating data related to the influencer marketing industry, the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023 also collects data from our partner, HypeAuditor, and our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in Influencer Marketing: Racial and Gender Inequalities Report 2022 .

Download the Benchmark Report Here

The State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023:

Notable Highlights

Influencer Marketing Industry is set to grow to approximately $21.1 Billion in 2023

63% plan to use AI in executing their influencer campaigns, 2/3rd of these brands will use AI for influencer identification

Nearly 60% of influencers felt they faced discrimination in 2022

Over 83% of our survey respondents still believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing

71% admit to having increased the amount of content they produce and share

67% of those respondents who budget for influencer marketing intend to increase their influencer marketing budget over 2023

23% of respondents intend to spend more than 40% of their entire marketing budget on influencer campaigns

There is a strong preference for working with small (nano - 39% and micro - 30%) influencers ahead of expensive macro-influencers (19%) and celebrities (12%)

It is now the norm to pay influencers (42%), rather than just give them a free product (30%).

TikTok (utilized by 56% of brands using influencer marketing) is now the most popular influencer marketing channel, jumping ahead of Instagram (51%) for the first time, and well ahead of Facebook (42%) and YouTube (38%).

Survey Methodology

We surveyed approximately 3500 people from a range of backgrounds. 38% of our respondents worked at marketing agencies (including those specializing in influencer marketing), and 22.5% considered themselves brands (or brand representatives). 4% are PR agencies. We merged the remaining 35% as Other, representing a wide range of occupations and sectors.

Last year, we saw a relative increase in B2B businesses over B2C firms compared to 2021. However, very little has changed this year, with the comparative percentages remaining almost identical. 62% of those surveyed identify as part of the B2C sector, with the remaining 38% running B2B campaigns.

The most popular vertical represented remains Fashion & Beauty (25% of respondents), although this is up considerably from last year's 15%). Gaming became the second-most popular sector (12.9%), followed by Travel & Lifestyle (12.5%). At 12%, Sports were three times as popular this year than last. Family, Parenting & Home (10.7%) also have increased representation in 2023. The big drop, however, was in Health and Fitness (6.8%). The remaining 19%, grouped as Other (and half the equivalent 2022 percentage), covers every other vertical imaginable.

We have noticed a more global response to this year's survey. 31% of our respondents come from Africa (5% in 2022), 16% came from the USA (57% in 2022), 14% from Asia (APAC) (13% 2022), 8% from Europe (11% 2022), 4% South America (2% 2022), and 28% describe their location as Other (11% 2022). It is highly likely that many respondents who selected Other in 2022, have been more precise in 2023's survey.

The bulk of our respondents came from relatively small organizations, with 38% representing companies with fewer than ten employees. 21% had 10-50 employees, 12% 50-100, 12% 100-1,000, and 16% came from large enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. Overall, however, there are twice as many respondents from larger organizations than last year, which might have a small impact on the comparative results.

Slightly more of our respondents operate eCommerce stores than those who don't. For example, 51% of the respondents run eCommerce stores versus 49% not doing so. This represents a small but noticeable decrease in the percentage of influencer-contracting brands operating eCommerce stores. Last year, almost 54% of such brands ran eCommerce stores.

This is surprisingly high. Remember that our survey respondents come from various backgrounds - brands, marketing agencies, PR agencies, and "Other." Clearly, eCommerce is increasing in popularity for all types of businesses.

However, one thing to be aware of is that the Influencer Marketing Hub now caters to all types of eCommerce. A more significant portion of the site is now devoted to articles about eCommerce than in previous years. As a result, we may have a higher percentage of eCommerce marketers (compared to influencer marketers) visiting the site and answering our survey than previously.

Influencer Marketing Expected to Grow to be Worth $21.1 Billion in 2023

Despite concerns that influencer marketing (indeed, all marketing) might decrease due to Covid19, it didn't, and has continued to increase in popularity since 2020. Initially, some industries, such as tourism and airlines, had to retrench dramatically and cut back their operations and marketing, but many others adjusted their models to survive in the Covid and post-Covid world. Now there is even renewed life in those more Covid-affected industries.

Over the last year, we have experienced a global economic downturn, and increasing inflation rates, making it more difficult for people to pay for their everyday purchases, nevermind perceived extras. Firms are having to compete more fiercely for the consumer's dollar, pound, or euro. Successful businesses understand the importance of marketing, including influencer marketing, in tough times, and increase their expenditures on this, even when they have to cost-cut expenses elsewhere.

From a mere $1.7 billion at the time of this site's beginning in 2016, influencer marketing grew to have an estimated market size of $16.4 billion in 2022. Furthermore, this is expected to jump a further 29% to an estimated $21.1 billion in 2023.

Results From Our Survey

Sizeable Increase in Content in Recent Years, But Rate Slowing

We asked our respondents whether they had increased content output over the last two years. A sizable 71% of them admitted to having upped the amount of content they produced. This is, however, noticeably down on last year's 84%.

Despite the comparative fall in increased content, many firms still realize the insatiable demand for online content. The majority of marketers have still increased their content marketing, year after year. Much of this increase in content must be created and delivered by influencers on behalf of brands. Clearly, new content is continually being developed and shared over newer social networks like TikTok.

An Increasing Majority Have a Standalone Budget for Content Marketing

Nearly 2/3 (63%) admit to having a standalone budget for content marketing. This figure creeps up each year and is up from 61% last year, 59% in 2021, and 55% in our 2020 survey.

Yet, although these figures are over 50%, they are surprisingly low. For example, reports that 82% of their respondents used content marketing in 2021, up from 70% in 2020. also found that almost half (49%) of marketing teams allocate between 30% and 50% of their budget to content.

Perhaps the discrepancy simply reflects that some firms operate a single marketing budget rather than separating it into the different types of marketing they use.

63% of Respondents Feeling the Impact Of 2023's Macroeconomic Woes

The world economy is currently in its most challenging situation since the arrival of influencer marketing. So, it was interesting to see whether the Marketing Departments at our respondent businesses are feeling the pinch. Indeed, 63.2% of our respondent businesses are feeling the impact of 2023's macroeconomic circumstances.

The Vast Majority of Respondents Still Believe Influencer Marketing to be Effective, Though There is More Negative Thinking Than Previously

Unsurprisingly, considering the overall positive sentiment expressed about influencer marketing, just over 83% of our survey respondents believe influencer marketing is an effective form of marketing.

This statistic has exceeded 80% in each of our surveys since 2017, however, it is noticeably lower than last year's 90% support. It is still clear, however, that most firms that try influencer marketing are happy with the results and are willing to continue with the practice. You may read the odd horror story in the media, but that is the exception to the rule. Perhaps the reason for this year's more pessimistic perspective is the economic downturn most of the world is currently enduring. Most influencer marketing partnerships work however and are a win-win situation for all parties.

More Than 80% of Our Respondents Intend to Dedicate a Budget to Influencer Marketing in 2023

The general satisfaction felt by firms that have engaged in influencer marketing seems to flow through to their future planning. For example, 82% of our respondents indicated that they would be dedicating a budget to influencer marketing in 2023.

This is a noticeable increase from last year's 77% result and considerably up from the 37% who claimed they would dedicate a budget in our first survey in 2017. This increase could result from firms increasing marketing to combat the effects of the current global financial crisis.

67% of Respondents Intend to Increase Their Influencer Marketing Spend in 2023

67% of those respondents who budget for influencer marketing intend to increase their influencer marketing budget over the next 12 months. An additional 15% indicate that they expect to keep their budgets the same as in 2023. A further 11% stated that they were unsure how their influencer marketing budgets would change. This leaves just 7% intending to decrease their influencer marketing budgets.

These results suggest significantly increased spending on influencer marketing in 2023, following on from similar-sized boosts in 2022. The 7% planning to decrease their influencer marketing budget is double 2022's 3% figure, however, but is comparable to 2021's results.

Overall, this is further proof that influencer marketing continues to be successful and is now sufficiently mainstream that it can't be considered just a fad. Brands and marketers still recognize the effectiveness of influencer marketing and are not searching for something new.

23% of Respondents Intend to Spend More Than 40% of Their Marketing Budget on Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is, of course, merely one part of the marketing mix. Most businesses balance their marketing budget across a wide range of media to reach the greatest possible relevant audience. However, as we saw above, 82% of our respondents' firms intend to include some influencer marketing in their mix.

This year, we saw a noticeable trend in firms devoting a sizable percentage of their marketing budget to influencer marketing. Clearly, quite a few brands have found success with their influencer marketing and decided to return for more.

23% of respondents are dedicated fans of influencer marketing, intending to spend more than 40% of their marketing budget on influencer campaigns. This is a decided increase on 2022's 5%, 2021's 11%, and 2020's 9%.

13% of respondents (up from 9% in 2022) intend to devote 30-40% of their marketing budget to influencer marketing. An additional 18% plan to allocate 20-30% of their total marketing spending to influencer marketing. This is down on last year's 28% and 2021's 19% assigning this level of marketing budget.

The most common percentage of marketing devoted to influencer marketing again comes in the 10-20% range, with 25% of respondents intending to spend in this range, but this is down significantly on 2022's 39%. 20% expect to spend less than 10%, similar to last year's result.

Although Most Brands Spend Less Than $50K on Influencer Marketing, More Than 11% Spend Over $500K.

Brands of all sizes participate in influencer marketing. Therefore, it should be no surprise to see quite some variation in what firms spend on the activity. 43% of the brands surveyed said they spend less than $10K annually on influencer marketing (higher than last year's 37% - these are probably newcomers dabbling with influencer marketing). 22% spend between $10K and $50K (down from last year's 30%). A further 14% spent $50K to $100K (higher than in 2022), 10% $100K to $500K (unchanged), with a noticeable 11% spending more than $500K (nearly 3x more than last year).

Clearly, the amount that a firm spends depends on its total marketing budget affects the proportion it chooses to devote to influencer marketing. Those brands that opt to work with mega-influencers and celebrities spend more than brands that work alongside micro- or nano-influencers. Last year we saw a leveling out of influencer marketing spending, with most brands spending a middling proportion of their marketing budget on influencer marketing. This year, however, brands have moved to the extremes. Brands with happy influencer marketing experiences have increased the percentage of their marketing budget they spend on the activity. However, brands that have experienced less happy outcomes have decreased or eliminated spending on the activity, turning their attention to other forms of marketing.

Firms Value Working with Influencers They Know

We asked our respondents whether they had worked with the same influencers across different campaigns. The majority, 61% (57% in 2021) said they had, versus 39% (43% in 2021) who claimed to use other influencers for their campaigns (or perhaps had only had one campaign so far). These figures are little changed from those reported in 2021.

Clearly, brands prefer to build relationships with existing influencers rather than go through the entire influencer selection process every time they run a campaign. Of course, some firms will have a range of influencers they call upon depending on the nature of a particular campaign, the products they are trying to promote, and the target market. The 4% increase in firms working with existing influencers probably indicates the natural increase in influencer-business relationships over time. The more successful an influencer campaign is, the greater the likelihood that the parties will want to work together on other campaigns.

More Than 60% Plan to Use AI or ML in Their Influencer Campaigns

Technology is coming to influencer marketing. We asked a new question for 2023's Benchmark Report about whether the respondents planned to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) in 2023 to identify influencers or create effective campaigns. A very sizable 62.9% said they would, alongside 25.4% who thought they may. Only 11.7% gave an unequivocal no to this question. Clearly, AI and ML are now hitting the mainstream.

The Main Purpose of AI/ML Will be for Influencer Identification

We asked those who said they would (or might) use AI/ML in their influencer marketing how they intended to use it. The most popular suggestion (64%) was using social media analytics to identify the most effective influencers for a particular brand or campaign. Although the respondents didn't clarify this, they presumably intend to work with one of the influencer platforms offering influencer identification technology.

Although somewhat less common, the second most popular intended use of AI in influencer marketing is locating and distributing relevant content (13.3%).

Interestingly, 5.6% of the respondents intend to use AI to identify bogus influencers and engagements. It will be interesting to see if this figure rises over time, as more people discover what AI can achieve.

TikTok Still Expected to Deliver the Best ROI for Short-Form Video

Until recently, the name TikTok was synonymous with short-term video, although ardent Snapchat fans may dispute this assessment. However, existing social media companies, YouTube and Meta (Facebook/Instagram) have been hit by the popularity of comparative newcomer, TikTok. Just as Instagram introduced Stories to try and neuter Snapchat, these older social channels have now introduced TikTok-killer features. You will undoubtedly notice YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and now Facebook Reels in your feeds.

We asked our respondents about which they believed would deliver the best ROI in 2023 (we didn't include Facebook Reels in our survey options), and discovered a relatively close battle for the top position between TikTok (42%) and Instagram Reels (34%). 19% believed YouTube Shorts would deliver the best ROI, alongside a few SnapChat disciples, with 6% opting for SnapChat Spotlights.

Strong Preference for Smaller Influencers

We asked those of our respondents intending to work with influencers this year the size of influencer (in terms of followers) they were most likely to utilize. If they used more than one type, they had to pick their most preferred option.

39% of brands chose nano-influencers (1K-10K followers) as their most likely partners, followed by 30% opting for micro-influencers (10K-100K).

Far fewer brands chose to place their focus on larger influencers, with 19% opting for macro-influencers (100K-1M) and 12% mega / celebrity influencers.

This possibly reflects the reality of a small to medium-sized business. You simply can't afford the fees charged by macro and mega-influencers. In addition, there are far fewer of these more popular influencers, limiting the number of brands they can work with. However, it may also reflect that nano and micro-influencers have far higher engagement rates than their more famous counterparts, and may be better value for money for brands wanting to reach a specific dedicated audience.

More Brands Now Pay Influencers Than Give Them Free Product Samples

There has been a notable change in the answers to this question over the last few years. Previously, those giving free samples outnumbered those paying cash to influencers. Last year, numbers were approximately equal. However, this year, noticeably more respondents (41.6%) stated that they pay money to influencers, compared to 29.5% who give them free products. In addition, 17.7% gave their influencers a discount on their product or services (presumably more expensive items), and a smaller 11.2% entered their influencers in a giveaway.

While more brands are willing to pay influencers for their marketing services, 41.6% is still a relatively low percentage, much less than half. It is probably a sign of just how many firms work with micro and nano-influencers. These relative newcomers are happy to receive payment in kind rather than cash. Presumably, it is mainly larger firms with more sizable marketing budgets that pay influencers with money. However, this is gradually changing as even nano and micro-influencers begin to have an understanding of their worth as advocates for a brand.

Major Change in Payment System This Year: More Than Half of Payments to Influencers are Made as a Percentage of Sale

As we prepare the State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report annually, we don't generally tend to see major changes in survey results each year. In most cases, movement is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. However, this question evoked significantly different answers compared to a year ago.

For the first time last year, we asked those respondents who paid their influencers a new question about how they structured their monetary rewards. The most common method (49%) was paying at a flat rate. However, a sizable percentage of other brands (42%) structured their influencer marketing payments more like affiliate marketing payments by paying a percentage of any sales made as a result of the influencer marketing. Payments based on product level (4%) and tiered incentives (4%) were less common.

This year, however, things changed considerably. The most common method (53%) now is paying as a percentage of sales value. Payments based on product level (21%) are five times as popular as a year ago. Respondents favoring flat rates have more than halved to 19.6%, and those paying by tiered incentives remain low at 6.9%.

It's hard to understand the reason for such a significant change. Perhaps in these tough economic times brands are requiring a higher level of evidence for the effectiveness of their influencer marketing spending. Possibly more brands engaging in influencer marketing have made increased sales the goal of their campaign, and fewer targeting brand awareness. It will be most interesting to see how this metric trends next year.

PayPal is Marginally the Most Popular Way to Pay influencers, However, Other Methods Are Almost as Common

Isolating those respondents who pay money to influencers, we asked them their preferred payment method. 29% chose PayPal (down from 34% last year), 28% paid by wire transfer (18% last year), 25% said they paid manually (24% last year), and 17% a third-party payment service, e.g., Wise (24% last year). Manual payments include payments made by cash on delivery (COD), money orders, bank transfers, and even email money transfers in some locations like Canada.

Payment methods depend very much on the location of the influencers. If they are based in a different country from where you operate, PayPal or something like Wise is much easier than a wire transfer or a manual transaction.

Nearly 75% of Brands Track Sales from Influencer Campaigns

Although there are many potential goals for an influencer marketing campaign, it is clear that the majority of firms now undertake influencer marketing to drive sales. Indeed 74% of our survey respondents stated that they track sales from their influencer campaigns.

This is up slightly from last year's 70% and ties in with the previous statistic indicating that the most popular basis for influencer payment is now tied to the increased sales an influencer's activity generates. As influencer marketing has evolved new ways to measure success have developed, with specialist platforms assisting brands alongside a recent streamlining of Google Analytics. However, as we see in the next statistic, there is also now more tracking of email addresses than previously.

Email Addresses and Referral Links are the Most Popular Ways to Attract Sales

Those who tracked sales from their influencer campaigns were asked about their methods of determining these influencer-generated sales. People could select multiple options if they used more than one.

The most common method was to use email addresses (31%), closely followed by referral links (30%). Other methods used included coupon codes (12%), product SKUs (5%), and "other" (21%). This movement towards tracking by email addresses is significant, as only 16% of brands did so last year.

80%+ Recognize the High Quality of Customers from Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Brands carry out influencer marketing for a range of purposes. Some campaigns are designed to increase brand awareness rather than encourage sales. This is because some customers are more lucrative for a business than others - they buy high-margin products and add-ons. In some cases, influencer marketing may bring new customers to the brand, but the additional spending may be less than the cost of running the campaign.

Our survey respondents are highly optimistic about the value of influencer marketing overall. Most agree that influencer marketing attracts high-quality customers, with 82% believing that the quality of customers from influencer marketing campaigns is better than other marketing types.

60% of Respondents Have Used Virtual Influencers

This was a new question in 2023, and the results are somewhat surprising. When asked about whether they had ever used virtual influencers, 60.4% admitted to having done so.

A virtual influencer is a digital character created using computer graphics software. The character is given a personality and acts on social media platforms as if he/she is an influencer. A study in the US found that 58 percent of respondents followed a virtual influencer. In 2022, Lu do Magalu was the most followed virtual influencer, with more than 14.6 million followers on Facebook, 6 million followers on Instagram, more than 2.6 million YouTube subscribers, and over 1.3 million followers on both Twitter and TikTok.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that brands are taking notice of this and wanting to make financial arrangements with (the representatives of) these virtual influencers.

71%+ Measure the ROI on Their Influencer Marketing

We saw above that 75% of our survey respondents stated that they track sales from their influencer campaigns. Therefore, it should be no surprise that a similar number (71%) also measures the ROI from their influencer campaigns. This slightly improves on 2022's 70%, 2021's 67%, and 2020's 65% results.

Indeed, this year's 71% is the highest rate we have seen since the inception of this survey, with the results since 2017 all falling in the range of 65-71%. It is somewhat surprising that just under 30% of firms don't measure their ROI. You would think that every firm would want to know how effective their marketing spending is. At least there is a gradual improvement in this metric, and hopefully, this trend will continue, if not accelerate.

The Most Common Measure of Influencer Marketing Success is Views / Reach / Impressions

This result shows a marked change from previous years, yet it seems inconsistent with increases in firms tracking sales and paying influencers based on the sales they generate.

In 2019 and preceding years, influencer marketing measurement's focus was relatively evenly balanced between differing campaign goals, but Conversion/Sales was the least-supported reason. However, in 2020 things changed, with Conversions/Sales taking a clear, undisputed lead, which continued in 2021 and 2022. However, this year, 49.6% of our respondents stated that they measure the success of an influencer marketing campaign by views/reach/impressions, 25.5% by engagement or clicks, and just 24.9% by conversions/sales.

This differs markedly from last year when 42.3% believed that you should gauge a campaign by the conversions/sales that result, 33.5% were most interested in engagement or clicks generated due to a campaign), and 24.2% were interested in views/reach/impression.

Most Consider Earned Media Value a Good Measure of ROI

Earned Media Value has become more recognized in recent years as a good measure of influencer campaigns' ROI. We asked our respondents whether they considered it a fair representation. This year, 83% favor the measure against 20% who don't. This result is up slightly from last year.

Earned Media Value provides a proxy for the returns on the posts that an influencer has historically given the firms they have worked with. It indicates what an equivalent advertising campaign would cost for the same effect. EMV calculates the worth you receive from content shared by an influencer.

The only negative of using this measure is that the calculation of EMV can be complicated. As such, it can sometimes be difficult for marketers to explain the concepts to their managers.

Another name used for earned media value when related to influencer marketing is influencer media value (IMV), which we have written about in What Exactly is an Influencer's Media Value .

Presumably, most of the 17% against using the statistic either don't understand it or struggle to communicate its worth to their management team.

83% of Firms Take Their Influencer Marketing Spending from Their Marketing Budget

This is another statistic that has shown little change over the period we have undertaken this survey (since 2017). 83% of the respondents in our survey take their influencer marketing spending from their Marketing Department's budget. The remaining 17% take their influencer marketing spending from their PR Department's funds.

Presumably, the firms in the minority group use influencer marketing predominantly for awareness purposes rather than as a direct means to sell their products or services.

72% of Influencer Marketing Campaigns are Run In-House

There has been little change in this statistic this year. A marginally higher 72% of our survey respondents claimed that they ran their influencer campaigns in-house, with the remaining 28% opting to use agencies or managed services for their influencer marketing.

In the past, firms found influencer marketing challenging because they lacked the tools to facilitate the process - organic influencer marketing can be very hit-and-miss, making it frustrating for brands trying to meet their goals. However, many firms now use tools (whether in-house or from third parties) to facilitate the process. For example, they use platforms like HypeAuditor to discover suitable influencers.

Some brands prefer to use agencies when partnering with micro and nano-influencers because the agencies are more experienced at working with influencers at scale. Also, many larger firms use agencies for all their marketing, including influencer marketing.

71% of Respondents Use Tools Developed In-House to Execute Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Last year, we introduced a new question asking our respondents whether they used any tools developed in-house to execute their influencer marketing campaigns. The result was that half admitted to using their own tools.

This year, however, we noticed a significant change. 71% of our respondents now use in-house tools for their influencer marketing campaigns.

As influencer marketing becomes more mainstream, more businesses have developer talent in-house who have the time and capabilities to develop suitable in-house tools.

60% of All Respondents Use 3rd-Party Platforms

Just as more firms use in-house tools for influencer marketing compared to a year ago, noticeably more also use third-party platforms. When asked whether they use third-party platforms to assist them with their influencer marketing, 60.3% said they did (44.6% in 2022).

A clear majority of firms now recognize the advantages of using technology to assist them with their influencer marketing.

We must also remember that these figures exclude brands that opt to use someone else's technology (an agency) to carry out much of their influencer marketing for them).

The Most Popular Use of Influencer Platforms is for Influencer Discovery and Communication

The figures in this section show a percentage of those who answered that they use a third-party platform, not the percentage of all survey respondents as a whole.

Influencer platforms initially focused on offering tools to help with influencer discovery. Therefore, it should be no surprise that that is still the most popular use of influencer platforms at 55% (although down slightly from last year's 58%).

Other popular uses of the influencer platforms include influencer payments (30%), campaign automation and reporting (30%), fraud and fake follower analysis (26%), conversion attribution (23%), and paid amplification (21%). An additional 26% of respondents use the platforms for some other type of service.

Interestingly many of these percentages are lower than in 2022, but the 26% selecting Other is significantly higher. Clearly, the range of services offered by the platforms has expanded, and many forms now use their newer features.

TikTok is Now the Most Common Channel Used by Most Brands Engaging in Influencer Marketing

It was in 2021 that TikTok made its first appearance in our charts, rising from merely being lumped in "Other" in 2020 to 45% usage in 2021. It kept its popularity in 2022, increasing slightly to 46%, but dropping a position to third. In 2023, however, TikTok has come into its own, taking over first place, used by 55.5% of brands tapping into it for influencer marketing campaigns.

From the inception of the IMH Benchmark Report in 2017 until last year Instagram was the network of choice for influencer marketing campaigns. In 2022 it was used by 79% of our respondents for influencer marketing. It is still highly popular, but this year "only" 50.8% of brands go to Instagram when they decide to participate in influencer marketing, dropping it down to second place.

It wasn't all that long ago that Instagram was synonymous with influencer marketing. Is it losing its luster? Time will tell.

Surprisingly, Facebook jumped in popularity as an influencer marketing channel last year, with 50% of brands working with Facebook influencers, although this fell back to 42.1% this year. Facebook doesn't have as many high-profile influencers as its more visual counterparts, but it is still relevant, particularly with older audiences. Perhaps brands have been targeting older Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers with their influencer marketing than previously.

Many of the other social channels have seen reduced usage for influencer marketing compared to last year. For example, 38.3% of the respondents tapped into YouTube for their campaigns (44% last year), 14.4% Twitter (23% last year), 10.1% LinkedIn - presumably those involved with B2B companies (considerably down from 20% last year), 6.3% Twitch (11% last year) and a further 12.8% spread across the less popular or more specialist social networks (up from 7% last year).

Twitter's drop in importance for influencer marketing is notable. Has Elon Musk's Twitter purchase killed confidence in the platform, or is he a white knight rescuing an already-fading platform?

User Generated Content (UGC) is Now the Main Objective for Running an Influencer Campaign

The answers to this question this year are markedly different from those in 2022. At that stage 36.7% of our respondents claimed their influencer campaign aimed to increase sales, 35.7% focused on awareness, and 32.8% declared they engage in influencer marketing to build up a library of user-generated content.

This year, however, the wish for generating UGC jumped ahead as the main reason for influencer marketing campaigns (45%), with Sales (29%) and Awareness (26%) both noticeably reduced in importance.

Perhaps this is a sign of the increased importance of TikTok to influencer marketing - TikTok is now the natural home of UGC, with many brands engaging influencers to set up dance challenges and the like on their behalf.

Influencer Fraud is Still of (Some) Concern to Respondents

Every so often, mainstream media highlights influencer fraud. Luckily there are now many tools to help detect fraudsters, reducing the effects of influencer fraud. Hopefully, it will soon merely be a chapter in the industry's history.

However, influencer fraud has not been wholly vanquished from brands' and marketers' minds yet. There has been less publicity about influencer fraud in this Covid era than previously; however, 64% of firms still have worries about the practice.

Several influencer platforms have recognized this area of concern over the last few years and implemented tools to discover and deter influencer fraud. This may be one of the reasons that this statistic has gradually fallen over each of the last few years.

Continued Fall in Respondents Who Have Experienced Influencer Fraud

Despite concerns about influencer fraud falling, the number of firms that say they have experienced it rose dramatically from 31% in 2022 to 55% this year. The wording of this question looks at any influencer fraud over time, not just in the past year, but nonetheless, there appears to have been a noticeable increase, despite all the tools now available. Is this a sign of increased influencer marketing fraud levels, or is it an indication that businesses are now better at spotting fake "influencers" with whom they have engaged?

Brands are Finding it Relatively Easy to Find Appropriate Influencers

Last year we commented on seemingly inconsistent results to this question. This year, however, things are looking more clear-cut - although those who consider finding appropriate influencers to be of "medium" difficulty are still the largest category (45% down from 63% in 2022), with 37% declaring finding influencers to be easy, that just leaves 18% who considered finding appropriate influencers to be very difficult.

Perhaps the best way to look at this statistic is that 82% don't consider it very difficult to find appropriate influencers. This suggests that brands benefit from having more platforms and other influencer discovery tools available than ever (as well as influencer agencies for those wishing to outsource the entire process). Firms frequently reuse influencers with whom they have worked in the past. Some brands still struggle to find suitable influencers, however, perhaps because they are unwilling to pay for the relevant tools or platforms.

This statistic suggests that influencer platforms and agencies can still do a better job at marketing their services of discovering and reaching out to potential influencers.

The Majority of Firms Have Little Concerns About Brand Safety in Influencer Campaigns

A headline-making issue in past years was influencers acting in a way deemed inappropriate by the brands they represent. For example, Logan Paul once faced criticism over a tasteless video he shared, and brands wondered whether they should continue their connection with him. YouTube has also implemented stricter rules for channels targeting children after concerns about the suitability of some content.

The key to successful influencer marketing is matching your brand with influencers whose fans are similar to your preferred customers and whose values match your own.

A slightly increased 36% of our respondents believe that brand safety is always a concern, although a much reduced 33% acknowledge that brand safety could occasionally be a concern when running an influencer marketing campaign.

The remaining 31% (significantly increased) believe it is not really a concern. Presumably, this last group has mastered the art of finding appropriate influencers for their brands, and they have little concern about incongruent values.

More Than 75% Believe Influencer Marketing Can be Automated

A contentious issue in influencer marketing in the past was the amount of automation you can successfully use. Some people believe you can automate virtually everything from influencer selection to influencer payment. Others value the personal touch and think influencer marketing is a hands-on process.

This year there has been a significant increase in the respondents believing that automation plays a vital role in influencer marketing (77%, up from 56% last year). This ties in with other results that indicate that most businesses using influencer marketing are happy to use tools and platforms (or work with agencies that do so) nowadays. Initial suspicions about AI and automation have dramatically lessened over the last few years.

Content Production is Now Considered Most Valuable When Partnering with Influencers, But Audience Relationship is Still Valued

The most important factor when partnering with influencers for survey respondents is content production at 36% (noticeably up from last year's 24%). This ties in with the view that user-generated content is the primary objective when running an influencer campaign.

29% of the survey respondents believed audience relationship to be the most valuable factor when considering collaborating with a particular influencer. This is noticeably down on last year's 51% and indicates a return to views expressed in 2021. These respondents see little value in working with somebody who doesn't really influence their audience or perhaps has an excellent relationship - but has the wrong audience for that brand.

The third popular reason favored by 17% of our respondents (up from 14%) found for working with influencers is distribution. Although this is lower than the other options, it connects with audience relationships - influencers use their audience to distribute content relating to a brand.

7.5% of our respondents opted for attribution and tracking (6% in 2022). This ties in with those who worked with influencers to generate sales for their partner businesses.

60% of Respondents Prefer Their Influencer Marketing to be Campaign-Based

We have seen more brands cultivating long-term relationships with influencers in recent times. Yet, most brands still think in terms of influencer marketing campaigns. Once they complete one campaign, they plan, organize, and schedule another one. Brands find that influencers they have worked for on previous campaigns are more genuine. Despite this, a significant 60% of influencer marketing relationships are campaign-based (albeit down from 72% in 2022), with only 40% "always on" (28% last year).

While numbers have shifted towards long-term relationships this year, the overall pattern is still clearly campaign based.

This could represent more brands entering the industry, dipping their toes in the water before making long-term commitments to influencers. Alternatively, they may run multiple campaigns, selecting a preferred selection of influencers for each campaign, depending on the target market. Time will tell whether the nature of brand-influencer relationships changes in any significant way.

The Vast Majority Consider Influencer Marketing to be a Scalable Tactic in their Marketing Ecosystem

One of the most significant advantages of influencer marketing over social activity using official company accounts is the ease of scaling the activity. If you want to create a more extensive campaign, all you need to do is work with more influencers, particularly those with larger followings - as long as they remain relevant to your niche.

While organic influencer marketing may be challenging to scale because of the time needed for influencer identification and wooing, there are now approximately 18,900 Influencer Marketing related services/companies worldwide that businesses can use to help scale their efforts. Many of these operate globally and accept clients from anywhere in the world.

57% of our respondents believe that influencer marketing is definitely a scalable tactic in their marketing ecosystem, and a further 26% think it is somewhat of a scalable tactic. Only 14% disagree totally with the sentiment, although that is noticeably higher than last year's 9%. The vast majority recognize that influencer marketing is, to some extent, a scalable tactic in their marketing ecosystem, but it would be interesting to know what has caused more to disagree with the sentiment this year than last.

Views/Reach/Impressions Are Now the Most Important Criteria When Evaluating Influencers

We have regularly seen that businesses have a variety of objectives when they create influencer marketing campaigns. While the criteria by which our survey respondents evaluate influencers do not precisely match their differing goals, there is some clear correlation.

We have noticed elsewhere that brands have changed their most common reasons for working with influencers. This has also flowed through to how they evaluate the success of influencers at meeting goals.

This year 35% of our respondents consider views/reach/impressions to be the most important criterion (21% last year), while 19% opted for content type/category (compared to 23% last year). At 18%, Sales has noticeably more appeal than last year (11%) after being mixed in with Other in earlier benchmark reports.

17% of our respondents rated engagement or clicks as their most important criterion. This is a major decrease from 2022, where 39% opted for this category, ahead of everything else. The remaining 10% of the respondents have different ideas on this topic, opting for Other as the most important criterion when evaluating influencers.

60%+ of Brands Work with More Than 10 Influencers

We asked those respondents engaged in influencer marketing how many influencers they had worked with over the last year. This year we noticed a movement towards working with greater influencer numbers. 39% of our respondents stated that they had worked with 0-10 influencers (54% last year). A further 21% had worked with 10-50 influencers (24%) and 16% had worked with 50-100 influencers (14%).

Some brands prefer to engage in influencer marketing on an even larger scale, with 11% of those surveyed collaborating with 100-1000 influencers (5%). A significant change was the 12% who worked with more than 1,000 influencers, compared to just 3% last year.

These figures probably indicate just how many brands now collaborate with multiple nano- and micro-influencers, rather than just a few macro-influencers and celebrities.

Monthly Campaigns Are Now the Most Used, With the Use of Quarterly Campaigns Falling Dramatically

We saw a gradual movement in favor of quarterly campaigns over the last few years, to the point where it was the most popular campaign type in 2022, but this year the longer campaign period fell dramatically out of fashion.

Of those who operate discrete influencer campaigns, 48% (up from 34%) now prefer to run them monthly. A further 18% (down from 35%) run quarterly campaigns. Just 15% (up fractionally from 14%) prefer to organize campaigns annually. These later companies are probably brands that like the "always-on" approach to influencer marketing. The remaining 19% (up from 18%) take a different approach and only run campaigns whenever they launch a new product.

Finding Influencers to Participate is Again the Greatest Challenge for Those Who Run Campaigns In-house

We asked those survey respondents who ran campaigns in-house what they saw as the greatest challenges they faced. Traditionally, the most significant challenge was finding influencers to participate in their campaigns, but last year it dropped into second place. In 2023, it returns to the top as the biggest challenge for influencer marketers. Despite the increase in usage of both internally developed and external tools to ease the discovery process, 36.3% of respondents ranked this as their top concern (27.4% last year).

Another category to jump up the rankings to 15.3% was processing payments to influencers (from 8.3%).

This year we saw a significant drop in 2022's top concern, with 14.9% opting for measuring ROI and campaign results (28.1% last year).

Other notable areas of concern included managing the contracts/deadlines of the campaign 13.2% (14%), bandwidth/time restraints 6% (13.3%), and Other 14.2% (8.9%).
Our partner, HypeAuditor, provides much of the data for the next section, and it covers up until late 2022.
Social Media User Demographics Statistics

This section highlights statistics that emphasize the types of people most likely to use social media. When you are searching for influencers to promote your brands, you will want to focus on those influencers who are followed by the type of people most likely to be interested in your products or services. The social media network where each influencer has gained the most fame impacts this - clearly, you want to work with popular people on the same social networks where your potential customers spend their time. Remember, just because you spend time on a particular social network doesn't mean that your customers do too, particularly if they are of a different demographic than yourself.

The Majority of Instagram Users Are Aged 25-34

As with last year, the majority of Instagram users are people aged 25-34 (46.81%), followed by 18-24-year-olds (33.17%). In both cases, more females than males use Instagram, although the difference is less for 25-34-year-olds: 18-24 yr-olds (56% female: 44% male), 25-34 yr-olds (52% female:48% male).

For the second year, however, we notice that there are more male Instagram users than females in (almost) all older age groups. For example, the ratio of Instagram users aged 45-54 is 32% female:68% male, although this is based on low overall numbers. Does this indicate that older males are more likely to have an interest in graphics, design, and photography than their female counterparts?

We saw elsewhere in this report that Instagram has lost its spot as the "Top Dog" influencer marketing platform to TikTok. This is possibly a reflection of a lack of interest from Generation Alpha and a reduction in Generation Z - only 4.27% of 13-17-year-old females and 3.11% of 13-17-year-old males now use Instagram. This must have Meta wondering.

TikTok is the Favorite of 13-24-Year-Olds.

Anyone who thought TikTok was just a flash in the pan, ready to fade away as the next trend arrived, doesn't understand the power of TikTok to hook its audience. If you want to reach 13-24-year-old females it is where you should focus your marketing. 24.27% of TikTok's audience are 18-24-year-old females and 17.04% are 13-17-year-old females. Surprisingly, males take to TikTok later, with more 25-34-year-olds liking it (15.74% compared to 11.77% for females of that age), as they do with Instagram.

Also, like Instagram, there are more older TikTok male users (albeit still a very small percentage overall) than female users.

57% of YouTube Viewers Are Male, But Females Dominate the Younger Age Groups

As with Instagram and TikTok, more young females watch YouTube videos than males: Females 13-24 (26%) vs Males 13-24 (22%). However, in all other age groups, males are more likely to view YouTube videos.

Maybe this is because of the inherently passive nature of YouTube compared to TikTok - you can easily view YouTube videos like a traditional television - but you almost feel compelled to engage when watching TikTok videos.

We commented last year, how almost 1 in 5 YouTube views came from male Millennials (25-34-year-olds). This year, that group loves YouTube even more, and now watches 22.2% of all YouTube views.

Lifestyle and Music Top Instagram Influencer Niches

The most common niche in which Instagram influencers posted in 2020, 2021, and 2022 was Lifestyle. This is no great surprise when you consider which influencers are the best known to most people. In addition, lifestyle is an easy niche to share captivating, vivid images.

However, we have seen an interesting change in second place. The inherently non-visual category of Music now takes second place, with Beauty dropping to third. Is this a sign of Instagram's male users having an impact?

Third-placed Beauty is highly visual, however, making it an ideal subject for posting on Instagram. Also, when you consider Instagram's core audience is still 25-34 females, it is hardly surprising that beauty influencers would remain relatively popular on the platform.

Influencer Engagement

Instagram Influencer Engagement Fell to Lowest Level in Five Years

In all the time we have reported on influencer marketing, we have observed a general pattern of Instagram accounts with large numbers of followers having a lower engagement rate than accounts with fewer followers. This is logical - it is much harder for popular influencers to reply to every comment and engage as closely with each follower as smaller Instagrammers. This is because people only have limited time to engage. Also, many people deliberately choose to follow popular influencers passively, happily "lurking," and viewing shared images without active participation.

We have seen a general reduction in engagement over the last few years, however, particularly for large accounts. Indeed, engagement for accounts with over a million followers (0.95%) is now less than half what it was in 2018 (1.97%).

Average engagement overall now stands at 2.05%, down from 2.18% in 2021. However, it is close to 2019's pre-Covid rate of 2.08%.

TikTok Engagement is Considerably Higher Compared to Other Social Networks, Even for Large Influencers

We have observed elsewhere in this Benchmark Report how TikTok has now become the platform of choice for influencer marketing. Not bad for a social channel that we lumped under "Other" until a couple of years ago. One reason for this is undoubtedly the platform's phenomenally high comparative engagement rates.

We've just written about how Instagram's engagement rates range from 0.95% for accounts with over 100K followers to 4.21% for accounts with fewer than 5K followers. In comparison, TikTok's largest accounts with over 1M followers average 10.53% engagement, and small accounts with 1K-5K followers have an incredible 15.04% engagement. No wonder more brands are wanting involvement there.

In one way, however, TikTok has become more "normal". Last year, we reported the oddity that large TikTok accounts had better engagement than smaller accounts. This year, as we showed above, engagement levels picked up for the smaller accounts, meaning that TikTok now exhibits the normal distribution pattern again.

Larger YouTube Channels Have Better Engagement Than Smaller Channels

While TikTok may have returned to its usual engagement distribution pattern, YouTube hasn't (quite) yet. Larger YouTube channels have higher engagement rates than smaller channels. Technically, channels with 100K-1M followers have the highest engagement rate (3.47%), but huge YouTube influencers (1M+ followers) aren't far behind (3.40%). In comparison, small YouTube channels with just 1K-5K followers only manage an engagement of 1.90%.

Instagram Influencer Fraud Has Continued to Decline Since 2019

In those heady pre-Covid days, influencer fraud became a significant discussion point. Indeed, there was a danger that influencer fraud could stop the still-nascent industry in its tracks.

Since then, there have been many tools and platforms developed that brands can use to detect influencer fraud. As a result, the percentage of influencer accounts impacted by fraud fell across the board. By 2021 it was just less than 50%. Rates fell further in 2022, reaching 36.68% on average. Unsurprisingly influencer fraud has had a much greater impact on larger Instagram accounts than on small ones, where fraudsters have less to gain.

As the data indicates, it is still a problem for some influencers, however. Also, as we saw in our Benchmark survey, more brands are now admitting to having been affected by fraud than ever before. It is advisable, therefore, that all brands use the available tools to ensure influencer authenticity when searching for suitable influencers.

Despite us lumping everything together as 'influencer fraud", in some cases, the influencers are the victims, not the perpetrators. For this report, we consider "influencers impacted by fraud" to be Instagram accounts with over 1000 followers with growth anomalies or inauthentic engagement (comments and likes from bots, giveaway comments, comments from Pods, etc.) Not all influencers impacted by fraud do so on purpose. On average, 36.8% of influencers globally are affected by fraud. This is down somewhat from last year's 49.23%.

The Most-Mentioned Brands on Social Media in 2022

Zara Was the Most Mentioned Brand on Instagram in 2022 ... Apart from Instagram Itself

Although Zara's Instagram numbers were smaller than last year, they will be loving the 182K Instagram mentions they received in 2022. Of course, it helped that it had nearly 66K influencers posting and sharing about their products, with a combined reach of more than 1.2 billion people.

However, after a quiet 2021, Instagram once again took the engagement lead on its platform in 2022, with 327K mentions, 86K influencers, and an estimated reach of 1.8 billion.

We commented last year on how pleased YouTube must be to have the tenth most mentions on social rival Instagram. Well, this year YouTube improve on this, coming in eighth place.

Target Was the Most Mentioned Brand on TikTok in 2022

In 2021, TikTok saw an interesting cross-brand trend, with the streamer, Netflix, being the most mentioned brand on the platform. When people weren't watching videos on Netflix, they were talking and making videos about what they'd streamed on TikTok.

Alas, Netflix couldn't quite repeat the feat in 2022, however, although they almost did, being the second-most mentioned brand.

Top place in 2022 went to retail goliath, Target, which received 14,720 mentions compared to Netflix's 11,520.
Highlights from our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in Influencer Marketing: Racial and Gender Inequalities Report.
Notably, however, Netflix's 31M followers swamped Target's 2.1 million.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Influencer Marketing:

Nearly 60% of Influencers Felt They Faced Discrimination

We asked our influencers whether they feel they have ever been discriminated against (as an influencer) on any social platform. 58.3% stated they had, leaving 41.7% who hadn't.

Almost 50% of Influencers Face Discrimination Based on Their Gender

When asked to highlight an area of discrimination the respondents felt they had faced, 47.73% believed they had suffered from gender discrimination. Physical feature discrimination (21.75%) followed this, then racial discrimination (13.29%), political discrimination (9.06%), and sexual discrimination (8.16%).

TikTok Provided the Worst Discrimination Faced by Influencers

We asked influencers to name a channel where they encountered discrimination. Significantly more than half of those respondents who had faced discrimination received it on TikTok (58.42%), compared to YouTube (13.62%), Instagram (12.9%), and Facebook (10.04%).

We have seen elsewhere in this report that TikTok has been increasingly important for brands wishing to engage in influencer marketing. Yet is it not always an easy platform to establish yourself as an influencer, particularly if you are outside the "norm".

Macro- and Mega-Influencers Suffer Most from Discrimination

Macro-influencers (81.25%) and Mega-Influencers (69.7%) are most likely to report facing discrimination than smaller, less popular influencers. This is possibly a reflection of their fame - they are more visible than most, making them greater targets for "haters."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The State of Influencer Marketing 2023: Benchmark Report

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023 is our latest overview of the influencer marketing industry. It summarizes the thoughts of more than 3500 marketing agencies, brands, and other relevant professionals regarding the current state of influencer marketing, along with some predictions of how people expect it to move over the next year and into the future.

# data[].attributes.headline
Case Study- Volvo’s Debut In The Metaverse 

# data[].attributes.subject
Case Study- Volvo’s Debut In The Metaverse 

# data[].attributes.body
To eliminate the need for location shoots and reduce its carbon footprint, the brand revealed the car in the metaverse – the first luxury car brand to do so in India.

The launch gave us a glimpse into what the future looks like: Virtually Sustainable.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Mad Over Marketing | Advertising, Brands, Media and PR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Volvo’s Debut In The Metaverse Is Setting A Sustainable Example

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the past few years, there has been one practice we’ve all been steadily inculcating into our lifestyle: sustainability. As conscious consumers, we now seek balance in all that we desire: state-o…

# data[].attributes.body
Benefits of memes in marketing-

a universal language on the internet

approachable

have a more human feel

elicit emotions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Social Media & Influencer Marketing Speaker, Consultant & Author

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1976, Richard Dawkins coined the word 'meme' in his book The Selfish Gene to explain how ideas evolve and are shared across different cultures. When the Internet connected different corners of the world, this exchange of cultural artifacts became much faster and a lot more efficient.

It's hard to pinpoint when exactly the modern memes were born. All we know is that they started to gather steam in the late 2000s with the emergence of platforms like 9GAG. In later years, the rise of Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter further advanced the meme culture.

Today, memes are everywhere. Sometimes it's a boyfriend that's a bit distracted. Other times, it's Winnie the Pooh elaborating the difference between common and sophisticated language.

But memes aren't just for ridiculing human behavior to get a good chuckle out of the viewers. They can be powerful marketing tools that brands can leverage to drive engagement on their digital channels.
'Meme marketing' is something that businesses should seriously consider.
Let me explain.

Memes are about connection as much as they are about humor. They have the power to build online communities albeit for a short period. Consider the Bernie Sanders mittens meme that went viral last year. It allowed people to feel good, share a laugh and worked as a social glue in a politically turbulent time.

Surely, brands want to inspire a similar sentiment. Creating humorous pictures on regularly and cashing in on trends can help engage the audience, create a sense of association and even inspire brand loyalty.

Here are four reasons you need to work on your meme-making skills right away.

Memes Are Engaging

It is estimated Internet users spend 145 minutes on social media every day. These people are there to watch cat videos, share jokes and take their minds off everything that's bothering them in real life.

On social media, 77% of users follow your pages to avail coupons and discounts. Since there are only so many promo codes you can post to generate activity, memes are a good way to reach out to customers who might not be aware of your brand.

Share a good meme and you're almost guaranteed impressions, likes, shares, retweets and other forms of online interactions. Memes allow brands to engage customers without coming off as too 'salesy'.

Even if the memes aren't closely related to your business, they get your word out. And since first impressions are important, there's nothing better than introducing yourself to potential customers with some good old fashion humor.

Memes Make Your Brand Relatable

Brands these days are using a more relaxed approach to customer communication, often utilizing a casual tone. Few have taken things a step further by adding some sass into the mix. All of this is done to make a brand less robotic and somewhat human.

Customers need to know that you don't represent a stuck-up corporate entity but something that's much more lively. This is where memes come in. Nothing lets the humanity of a brand shine through quite like humor.

There are different shades of meme marketing. Some brands even make memes at their own expense and gain a lot of traction as a result. Self-deprecating jokes are never not funny and people like brands that don't take themselves too seriously. At the end of the day, comedy allows people to forge strong connections with businesses.

Memes Are Free

Ever wonder why there are so many memes on the internet? It's because anyone can make them. You don't even need basic photo-editing skills to make one. Meme generators will do the job for you. What you need to do is add text to a pre-built format. Once that is done, click 'generate' and your job is done.

Meme marketing requires little-to-no investment. Businesses can hire specialists they want to. Quality memes can do a world of good for your social media and therefore, hiring someone that specializes in this sort of thing wouldn't be a bad investment.

However, even if you don't have the resources for a dedicated memer, you can join in the fun. Anyone that keeps us with the popular trends and is social media-savvy can churn out decent memes. Perhaps this is the best thing about this entire practice.

Memes Can Help You Go Viral

What's the holy grail of online marketing? Going viral. That's it. A marketer dreams of creating content that will spread like wildfire and travel from screen to screen. But it's hard to realize this dream with run-of-the-mill promotional posts on social media. Once again, marketing with memes gives you the perfect opportunity to make this happen.

One of the best case studies in viral marketing is Dos Equis beer's "The Most Interesting Man in the World". The advertisement featuring a bearded older gentleman with an outrageous voiceover was picked up by the internet and became one of the most popular memes to ever exist.

Marketers invest a great bit of resources into creating content that would go viral. Of course, most would prefer something that's directly related to their product like a deal or discount code. But that rarely happens. Memes are more shareable and they can become a symbol of your brand for days to come.

How to Get Meme Marketing Right

Memes add a bit of flavor to your entire marketing and they are quite easy to create. However, this doesn't mean you can simply create one and expect a huge influx of visitors the next day. There's a method to this madness.

Before jumping on the meme train, you need to strategize a bit. Good memes are a surefire way to get people talking about you. Bad memes will either go unnoticed or in the worst-case scenario, make your brand seem desperate and out of touch.
Following should be the five key aspects of meme marketing you should never ignore.
1. Timing is the Key

Just like a good punchline, a meme is delivered at the appropriate time. You need to capitalize on a popular trend. So keep an eye out for what's happening on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and Twitter.

Create a funny meme on something that's in discussion and you will quadruple your chances of going viral. For instance, back in February when Godzilla vs. Kong craze was at its peak, the internet was flooded with the memes of the two fictional titans battling it out.

KFC decided to get in on the action and put its own spin on the rivalry while taking shots at its competitors McDonald and Burger King. It was a perfect tweet that got more than 155,700 retweets and 705,000 likes.

This is the level of reach that even marketing campaigns backed by heavy investment fail to achieve. But KFC made it happen with just a single meme. Along with the creativity and humor, it was the timing of this tweet that made it such a hit.

2. Don't Go in Blind

Comedy works best when it's delivered to the right audience. Show a comic strip with "husband and wife" jokes to a millennial and you'd only get looks of disapproval in return. In contrast, someone from an older generation would probably love that sort of humour.

Consider the age of your audience, their cultural backgrounds, race and economic class before putting out a joke. Just because your marketing with memes doesn't mean it should be done on a whim with no thought going into the process.

Let's say you are running the US Department of Health and Human Services' Facebook Page. What you wouldn't want to do is jump into a popular meme trend without first considering how receptive your audience will be to such a post.

Unfortunately, someone thought that would be a good idea. Although Doge is a popular internet icon, making him the mascot of a government healthcare program might not be the brightest of ideas. Health is a serious matter and the simple rule of 'know your audience' would have prevented this gaffe.

3. Be Relatable, Creative and Indirect

Memes work in a certain way. Someone in a corner of the internet comes up with a funny format. Often the material comes from a movie, TV show, news or anything that's currently popular. People add their ingenuity to this format and voila, you have thousands of memes being shared within a few hours.

Among these, the memes that are the most relatable and creative stand out. The third ingredient of this recipe that's essential for brands is being indirect.

Let's go back to that distracted boyfriend meme. Several brands got on the bandwagon when this image became popular back in 2017.

Jimmy John's put out their version of the meme but it failed to gain any traction as it lacked originality and was overtly promotional.

On the flip side, Penguin Random House's meme was an instant hit as it was creative, relatable and didn't seem like a lazy attempt at marketing.

4. Keep the Memes Aligned With Your Online Identity

A viral meme will get you traction on social media for a limited amount of time. But to get more long-term results from your meme marketing efforts, the content needs to support your online identity.

Perhaps no one has figured this out better than Wendy's. The fast food chain was being sassy on Twitter before most of its competitors even figured out how the platform worked.

Over the years, Wendy's has stayed consistent with its edgy, pop-culture savvy and offensive form of comedy. The restaurant has built an entire persona around 'roasting' (insulting) its customers and just being outright mean to everyone online. Wendy's Twitter shares a wide variety of memes on an almost hourly basis.

These memes work because they are aligned with the company's overall online persona. Basically, memes are to Wendy's social media what fries are to Hamburgers.

5. Don't be Desperate

Let's be real. Nothing is worse than humor that is forced. As a marketer, you would feel compelled to get involved in a popular meme format. But sometimes it's better to let it slide if you cannot come up with something funny.

Likewise, don't insert your brand into popular trends where it doesn't belong or you'd risk people laughing at you rather than with you.

McDonald's UK put out a tweet back in 2018 that did the opposite of what meme marketing is supposed to achieve. The format came from the " say no more fam " meme that ridiculed strange haircuts.

The fast food chain made its version of the meme and you can see where the problem lies. The meme made no sense whatsoever and instead of coming across as funny and relatable, the restaurant only managed to embarrass itself on the internet.

Marketing has changed a great deal over the years. Brands can no longer afford to be just promotional, they need to be relatable as well. Even though your purpose is to sell products or services, there's a need to make a genuine connection with the customers.

Comedy is a great way to start conversations, foster relations and then move ahead to promoting whatever is it that you're offering. Meme marketing is a more subtle and indirect promotional strategy.

But before you start, you need to get to know your audience and figure out what they find funny. Not all your creations will be instant hits but that's just fine. Remember to avoid creating something that people will find offensive. You also don't want to seem desperate to get some clicks.

Being in tune with pop culture is also essential. Check what's trending, create a timely meme and don't be too promotional. People should be able to relate to the meme and most importantly, it should be genuinely funny.

Who knows? Maybe you will be able to craft a strong brand identity one meme at a time. The possibilities are endless.
Author Bio
Evelyn Johnson is a full-time cat lady and a part-time blogger. She writes about digital marketing, technology, social issues, and pretty much anything that's in the now.
Hero photo by Sammy Williams on Unsplash
Meme Marketing FAQs

What is Meme branding?

What companies use meme marketing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meme Marketing: It's Time to Take Memes Seriously. Here's the Why and How.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1976, Richard Dawkins coined the word 'meme' in his book The Selfish Gene to explain how ideas evolve and are shared across different cultures. When the Internet connected different corners of the world, this exchange of cultural artifacts became much faster and a lot more efficient.

# data[].attributes.body
Centralized companies own our data and can use that data to inform or optimize their platform for engagement. But no entity or person owns the data at decentralized companies.

Decentralized companies achieve this by using smart contracts, or programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. These smart contracts are the basic concepts around which web3 mechanics such as NFTs, have emerged.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alanna Gregory leads global customer engagement and retention at Afterpay, now a part of Block. Previously, Alanna was the head of marketing and digital product at Hairstory, a private-equity backed global haircare brand. She also worked with Flutterwave (YC S16) and founded a YC-backed marketplace company called Vive. She started her career working on Wall Street and received a B.S.E. in Operations Research from Princeton University.

The Evolution of the Web and Marketing, Explained

To understand any trend, it's important to first examine the path that led to it. So let's take a look at how we got to web3.

Web1

Web1 was defined by static pages, few content creators, and using frames/tables to align page elements.

The most important marketing tactics that emerged from this era included:

Web2

Web2 is where digital marketing capabilities exploded. The web evolved to be consumer-first, mobile-first, and driven by data.

All of this growth happened on centralized platforms like Facebook or Snapchat, whose power and influence grew alongside the data they amassed.
Key highlights of this web2 era include:

2007: iPhone launches, starting the smartphone boom; Facebook unveils ads

2009: Geo-targeted ads gain popularity

2010: DTC brands like Away and Warby Parker grab market share from traditional retailers

2012: Facebook introduced the exchange to advertisers and acquired Instagram, spurring the explosion of influencer marketing

2013: Tools like Braze and Segment enable sophisticated cross-channel customer communications

2015: Shopify goes public, enabling anyone with Wi-Fi to create a DTC ecommerce platform,

2016: Fueled by the rise of video capabilities, mobile ads evolved

Marketers evolved alongside these channels and technologies as well. Empowered with unprecedented insights into the customer, marketing became extremely performance and analytics-oriented - a big shift from web1.

Marketers materialized concepts like cost of customer acquisition (CAC), customer lifetime value (LTV), cohorts, and more, making the impact of marketing quantifiable across niches and industries.

Web3

While web2 redefined the front end of the internet, web3's pioneers have focused on advancements on the back end, powered by data transferring ownership from private entities to private citizens.

Practically speaking, in web2 a marketer only needs to acquire, engage with, and retain the customer. But in web3, marketers have many stakeholders to market to, engage with, and retain. This broad group of stakeholders includes users, developers, and their broader communities.

What's more, web3 leverages the capabilities afforded by decentralization.

In this capacity, decentralization refers to the transfer of control and decision-making from a centralized entity (like Facebook, Instagram, or Google) to a distributed network, where the data is owned by no one.

Centralized companies own our data and can use that data to inform or optimize their platform for engagement. But no entity or person owns the data at decentralized companies.

Decentralized companies achieve this by using smart contracts, or programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. These smart contracts are the basic concepts around which web3 mechanics such as NFTs, have emerged.

Where Web3 Marketing is Headed

We've already seen the growing importance of communities in web2, especially with DTC brands. However, web3 is likely ushering in the next evolution in community marketing. Especially as the number of stakeholders significantly expands.

In web2, stakeholders were merely customers or users. Web3's broader universe of stakeholders includes developers, partners, and investors.

Web3 isn't one big community; there are many different niches, and many communities co-exist together.

For example, Upstream is a community-focused company building an easy-to-use web experience to launch, scale, and manage a DAO. (DAO stands for decentralized autonomous organization and can be defined simply as "an internet community with a shared bank account" on the blockchain.)

Upstream's co-founder of Alex Taub explains the transition of communities from web1, to web2 and web3:

" In 1.0, your community is and based on things like where you were born, where you went to school, what sports team you supported, etc.
In 2.0, your community was a URL, where you joined interest-based online groups across Facebook, Reddit, Discord, etc.
In 3.0, the community is all about ownership. Being part of a community means you're providing funding to run the community and gaining transparency and voting power."

That said, marketing in web3 isn't an entirely new concept. As Alex says, " marketing doesn't change, what people care about does " - and there's some truth to that.

Marketing in web3 leverages a variety of well-understood components such as:

Consumer marketing, where we generate awareness of a project to consumers, educate those consumers and bring them into a community. This includes a number of tactics, including content marketing, product marketing, and SEO.

Developer marketing, where developers are the end-users. Concentrated outreach and developer relations, such as documentation, events, and education, are a central theme of this tactic.

Community marketing, where a broad mix of stakeholders are targeted in a way that is universally rooted in a purpose or mission.

Across all three components, the channels and tactics can change to encompass some of the fields of marketing we are already familiar with.

Channels like content marketing, SEO, and more won't just go away, but instead, can be used alongside new web3 and NFT mechanics.

That said, the importance of each area of marketing may shift with web3.

For example, if community building is central to the success of a web3 project, skills such as social media marketing, influencer marketing, and content marketing, might become more important. And therefore, claim a bigger share of marketing teams or budgets in web3.

What Web3 Layers on to Marketing

Before we begin, it's important to note that the marketing frameworks in web3 need to be contextualized based on the type of web3 company.

Specifically, is the company:

Centralized, or Decentralized? Centralized examples include OpenSea or Coinbase, both of which operate by allowing users to buy and sell digital assets such as NFTs or tokens. The key difference, however, is that these companies make use of traditional corporate governance structures (e.g. corporations) and own the data generated by their platform. Decentralized examples include Solana or Ethereum, which are member-owned communities where activity isn't controlled by a single individual or board.

Tokenized, or Not Tokenized? You must also consider if the company is tokenized (community-owned) or not. In a tokenized scenario, a project is influenced by the success of the community and vice versa. An approach like this embeds long-term success into the model and across stakeholders. Some centralized companies such as Coinbase and OpenSea do not have tokens, but other centralized companies such as Binance do. Decentralized companies such as Ethereum and Solana are tokenized, where tokens have network effects and help to solve the "cold start" problem of launching a new network.

Whether or not a company is tokenized or centralized impacts the marketing approach. Although there's still a fair amount of web2 marketing mechanics that can be blended with new web3 marketing elements.

With that context, let's unpack why web3 might matter for your marketing efforts.

NFTs: The Bridge from Web2 to Web3

As a refresher, NFTs are a piece of IP that live on the blockchain, which has facilitated the concept of digital scarcity. Traditional web2 brands are capitalizing on NFTs as a way to re-write the brand-building playbook and serve a variety of marketing objectives.

Here are some of the ways brands are already using NFTs:

Driving brand awareness and extending reach

Luxury brands such as Burberry have used NFTs to extend the reach of their brand and sell more accessible items.

Burberry partnered with Mythical Games, an NFT-based video game startup, to offer players the ability to purchase Burberry digital accessories in the gaming environment and to transform those accessories into NFTs. Unlike traditional in-game items, players actually own what they are purchasing and can trade it with other players for real money.

Boohoo, an online women's fashion brand also has launched several NFT projects to generate brand awareness.

Joe Smith, a web3 marketing consultant and the former director at social media agency Social Chain, shares more on Boohoo's most recent NFT launch to celebrate women's history month:

" The NFT space is male-dominated and Boohoo wanted to use their brand to involve female artists. We partnered with female-led projects and leveraged Boohoo's Instagram account to drive awareness of the project. In return, artists promoted the project and helped build the brand's Twitter following."

Creating a novel experience and exclusive access

Dolce & Gabbana created a limited edition collection of NFTs. In addition to owning the purchased NFT, the owner would also get a physical suit tailored to their specifications.

Similarly, the NFL, in collaboration with Ticketmaster, gave out virtual NFT tickets that could be traded or sold. In each of these examples, the brands offered a limited access experience to their fans through an NFT.

Driving loyalty and promoting charitable causes

Taco Bell and Coca-Cola each used NFTs to drive loyalty and awareness of their giving initiatives, with all proceeds going towards specific causes. Gucci also donated proceeds of its NFT sale to UNICEF.

Similar to other channels, brands that are early adopters are often rewarded. However, that doesn't guarantee that there won't be failures within the NFTs or web3 space.

In each of these successful examples, incentives were aligned between the brand and customer, turning customers directly into brand evangelists.

But what causes customers to jump in?

Community, Identity, & Status: Much like the world of traditional branding, people buy NFTs to communicate something about themselves, such as a community they're a part of, a social group they belong to, or an interest they're passionate about.

Utility: NFT collections keep their audience engaged by offering tangible uses for holders, such as exclusive merch drops, whitelists to other NFTs, or tickets to events.

The Lottery Ticket: Audiences can now participate in the financial upside of the brands they support. This means even a small investment could be turned into a life-changing amount of money.

Boohoo's Joe Smith believes that brands commonly see NFTs as a marketing tool that they can use to "growth hack" community building.

" While a Facebook community rewards you with likes and comments; an NFT incentivizes you to evangelize a project because you have financial upside, and benefit from helping grow that community; there's a direct incentive to you as a community member.
Furthermore, once you have a community of NFT holders, you are able to provide them with continuous additional value - 'holder only benefits,' where holders of your NFT are rewarded for being a part of your community. This can be via access to certain brand events, access to private discord/telegram channels, or even in the form of 'airdrops', where a second NFT can be gifted to all holders of the initial NFT. Again, providing value for your community then increases their involvement with your brand, their evangelism, etc.
Naturally, brands will always have varying objectives - perhaps they're building a community to populate a 'metaverse' they're building. Perhaps they'll release merch. Maybe they're building a community to nurture around a specific niche/event."

If you're planning on developing an NFT strategy for your brand, it's helpful to frame your strategy in this context:

At Afterpay, a buy-now-pay-later company, we used NFTs for a brand activation at New York Fashion Week (NYFW) this year. While Afterpay is a payment method, it's also a marketplace of tens of thousands of merchants, as well as a place for consumers to discover and shop for products.

Our marketing team's goal in sponsoring NYFW was to make fashion more accessible, just like Afterpay makes it more accessible for consumers to be in control of their finances, make the most of their money, and manage their spending responsibly.

Afterpay's NFT, in partnership with JD Sports, quickly became a valuable new marketing channel to drive awareness of both NYFW and Afterpay.

Mike Earl, director of brand marketing at Afterpay, who managed the activation, shared:

"Our NFT strategy was influenced by our partnership with JD Sports and our mutual goal of powering access to NFT art for consumers. The activation drove earned media and social buzz against both brand and NYFW campaign goals"

Looking Ahead: How to Unlock Mass Web3 Adoption

NFTs are a useful branding opportunity right now, even if their novelty wears off over time. The main challenge is that only 25% of U.S. adults are familiar with NFTs, while only 7% are active users.

OpenSea, the leading peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs, has about 300,000 monthly active traders. Compare that to eBay, which has close to 200 million monthly active users.

To achieve mass adoption of web3 marketing, the technology will need to hit a few key milestones - which could take 5 or more years to come to fruition.

First, there will need to be an enablement layer. In this context, an enablement layer would need to be a mainstream platform(s) for non-crypto users to buy and sell NFTs without a crypto wallet.

On the other side of the equation, there will need to be an easy way for creators to mint NFTs and build storefronts to sell those NFTs, potentially with their own branding. Shopify did this in web2 by making it easy for anyone to open their own branded online store and sell products, without writing any code.

Some early entrants into this web3 space, including Novel, Dime, and Rarify, share a common goal of creating an experience that feels like online shopping.

Maria Constantine, Head of Marketing at Dime.io, discussed some of the hurdles currently present in participating in web3:

" First off, you need to be familiar with the language: NFTs, DAOs, decentralized, etc; it can get confusing very fast if you don't understand these terms. We see users spend several weeks or even months researching to learn about NFTs; the average consumer won't do this to buy your average product. There are too many barriers for the average creator or buyer to get into the space.
Dime makes it super simple for anyone to create an NFT from any digital file-with the ability to even mint verified content pulled directly from your TikTok or Instagram- and list your NFT in USD (versus ETH) so it's not as confusing for someone new to the space.
With Dime, creators with existing audiences on other platforms can engage with NFTs, versus building new communities from scratch. It also makes it super easy for any buyer to engage with web3 assets. The existing platforms have failed because they are too complex, not just for the creator, but for the buyer and audience."

Existing solutions in the market, such as OpenSea, serve as a marketplace rather than an enablement platform - at least to date. It's also worth noting that Shopify recently opened its platform up to crypto payments. This new feature might help companies bridge the gap between web2 and web3. It will be exciting to see how this evolves.

DAOs, a web3 feature mentioned earlier, also benefit from an enablement layer. That's why Upstream created Upstream Collectives: an easy, no-code tool to create, manage, and scale a DAO all in one place.

DAOs were initially introduced as investment clubs or groups of people who want to pool money together to buy digital assets. Recent examples of this type of DAO include:

ConstitutionDAO, where people pooled together to purchase a copy of the US Constitution

KrauseHouse, where people pooled together to buy an NBA team

Another common use case for DAOs is creating gated digital communities, such as:

Similar to NFTs, creating and scaling a DAO requires significant technical knowledge, such as interacting and deploying a smart contract. Most people don't have this experience, yet. Although a solution like Upstream Collectives likely solves this issue.

Until that happens at scale, NFTs will likely remain a niche interest, and be used primarily for novelty and/or brand relevance.

The Marketers' Web3 Toolkit

What does all of this mean for marketers? Well, there are a few tactics, strategies, and more that you should have in your web3 toolkit.

Marketing Tool 1: Community

First and foremost, community is a big piece of web3. In web3, a community is often established before a product, and products often come out of the community.

To start building this community creators often share a roadmap, which is a promise of what the community can expect. Leading up to a launch, those creators can then engage with their community to influence what the project ultimately creates. For example, community members can vote on a series of potential projects and the creators will commit to building the winning project.

How would a community manager start building a community? Boohoo's Joe Smith shares:

" A community manager should be the person who gets people hyped. This can mean creating gamified experiences like digital treasure hunts, asking people to solve puzzles or quizzes, responding to a certain hashtag, and driving Twitter growth and sign-ups for pre-sale slots. Another way might be to build a community on Discord. This might mean setting up a Discord channel, understanding the universe of Discord bots available and how to use them to engage the community."

Another way to build community involves creating content and launching events. Upstream's Alex Taub says:

" We used IRL and URL events that were useful, educational, and informative. Great content in web3 is very impactful. For example, I had someone come up to me and share that he bought his first NFT after a video he saw from us where we explained web3 and NFTs in an easy-to-understand and educational way.

What's more, messaging matters. We understood that DAOs are an acronym that not everyone understands; we want to make the concept accessible. That's why we call them "Collectives"; it's not an acronym and most people understand the concept. Dapper Labs did the same thing, they call their NFTs "collectibles. We're planning to double down on content and events because the impact is so great here."

Airdrops are a fantastic way to engage with your community as well. Creators can use Airdrops to send free tokens (e.g., NFTs or cryptocurrency tokens) en masse to multiple wallet addresses.

Airdrops are a promotional strategy that's often used to build hype around the launch of a new project, gain followers, build momentum, and boost community engagement ahead of a launch.

Marketing Tool 2: Memes

The web3 community loves creating, sharing, and communicating with memes. Simply put, memes are:

Alex from Upstream believes speaking in memes is key to making projects relatable and growing a community. He also mentioned that they are looking for a "meme king or queen" to help grow their follower base.

Airdrops, the aforementioned way to send free tokens en masse to your community, are another tactic for driving engagement and adoption that's specific to web3. They serve as an effective way to generate excitement and get people talking about your product.

Dime's Maria Constantine shared a recent approach an artist on their platform took while launching an NFT project. Ahead of the launch, the artist minted 100 teaser pieces that talked about the process of creating, the inspiration, and the story behind each NFT. When the launch did happen, the project already had 100 people who were incentivized and excited to share more about the main NFT project.

Marketing Tool 3: Web3 KPIs

Succeeding as a marketer in web3 means rethinking launch and growth frameworks. Commonly, the important goals, metrics, and KPIs are not the same as they were in web2.

There are a number of ways KPIs for web3 could take shape including:

1. The size of your community across channels, such as Twitter or Discord.

2. Activity and engagement, where the metrics might include the percent of people voting or logging in.

3. For NFTs, it might specifically be sell-out time or "floor price," the minimum price of any NFT collection. If the floor price remains steady or rises consistently, it's a sign that there's strong demand, people believe in the NFT project, and that the project is delivering on its roadmap.

Some of this is a reflection of how nascent the web3 market is compared to the highly optimized web2. For now, web3 marketers could gravitate towards product engagement or community metrics while selecting KPIs. Eventually, as the market matures, CAC will likely permeate into conversations.

For now, marketers should start with a clear purpose, grow a community around that purpose, and match their growth strategies to this.

What Will Web3 Marketing Become?

The question of what marketing will evolve to in this era remains unanswered.

The most sought-after marketers in the web2 era were the ones who could use data and insights to drive performance. So is the community marketer the next "in demand" professional? Someone who can build a community, engage that community, and connect with existing communities, thought leaders, and influencers? Only time will tell.

While savvy marketers will always evolve, a new breed of marketers may emerge - and those will be in high demand for decades to come.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Hype-Free Overview of Web3 Marketing - Reforge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alanna Gregory leads global customer engagement and retention at Afterpay, now a part of Block. Previously, Alanna was the head of marketing and digital product at Hairstory, a private-equity backed global haircare brand. She also worked with Flutterwave (YC S16) and founded a YC-backed marketplace company called Vive.

# data[].attributes.headline
Case Study- House Of Hiranandani ‘DreamVerse’ NFTs

# data[].attributes.subject
Case Study- House Of Hiranandani ‘DreamVerse’ NFTs

# data[].attributes.body
To pay homage to the engineers and architects on Engineer’s Day, the real estate developer launched a select collection of NFTs (India’s first real estate developer to do so); that were sold out within a few minutes of launch.

As part of the campaign, the NFT owners also got access to exclusive design consultation with some of India’s leading design and staging experts.

It was a strategic 360-degree campaign, kick-started with a teaser phase to build intrigue, and carried forward with an education series on NFTs, before the eventual reveal.

The integrated campaign had multiple touch points and spanned through social media, influencers, PR, database marketing, and even internal employee engagement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Mad Over Marketing | Advertising, Brands, Media and PR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
House Of Hiranandani Is Making Remarkable Use Of NFTs To Celebrate Engineer’s Day This Year

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Always pioneering and inspiring excellence, House Of Hiranandani is taking a step into the future with the launch of the ‘DreamVerse’ NFTs; India’s first real estate developer to do so. For decade…

# data[].attributes.headline
84% of people trust recommendations from people they know over any type of advertising.

# data[].attributes.subject
84% of people trust recommendations from people they know over any type of advertising.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you think online reviews get lost in all the Internet noise, think again. Research shows that 91 percent of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84 percent trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. And they make that decision quickly: 68 percent form an opinion after reading between one and six online reviews.

Online reviews matter -- and that's why you need to create and maintain a process that encourages your customers to leave reviews, monitors the reviews they leave, and improves any negative reviews you might receive. Not only will creating a review process help you receive more -- and better -- reviews, it will also help you run your business better.

Here's the process we've developed at my company to manage our online reviews. It's helped us get to a 9.2 out of 10 on Trustpilot. Feel free to adapt it to the unique needs of your business.

After customers make a purchase, email them a customer satisfaction survey.

Forget online reviews for a moment. We want to know what our customers think about our products and services. Listening to your customers is the best way to improve your offerings -- and get ideas for new offerings.

Not every customer will respond to our survey, of course, and that's okay. The best way to improve your response rate is to provide outstanding products and services. Generally speaking, people tend to give reviews either when they are delighted or when they are upset; the middle ground, so to speak, tends to remain fairly silent.

If you want more people to respond to your surveys -- and to provide online reviews -- work tirelessly to improve the customer experience. We ask some of these customers to then review us on online review sites.

Bad reviews are a huge opportunity, not a problem.

If a customer who responds to our survey feels they had a problem with a product, we immediately work to solve it. Why ask for feedback if you're unwilling to act upon that feedback?

But what if an unhappy customer leaves a negative review online? Our customer service team constantly monitors the site and reaches out directly to try to solve the customer's problem.

The first thing we do is make the customer feel heard. Jump too quickly to trying to solve the problem and some will think you didn't take the time to fully understand the problem -- and how it made the customer feel. Listen, ask questions, and then validate the customer's feelings. Say, for example, "It must have been frustrating for you to not be able to...."

Then focus on solving the problem, confident that you know not only understand the problem, but what the customer really needs.

Once the customer is happy, we politely ask them to edit their rating.

Most will do so -- after all, customers don't want to leave negative reviews. They want to be happy.

But watch out -- if you don't keep an eye on your reviews, you could end up with a lot of angry people like these Expedia customers. With just a simple online search, a potential customer would find these negative ratings. Put yourself in their shoes -- would you want to purchase from a company with this profile?

Don't forget that ratings can vary by culture.

If you've ever conducted surveys involving people from more than one country, you know that scores tend to vary based on that factor alone. This is much like how one supervisor will rate an employee as "outstanding" while another will rate the same employee as "above average." The quality of the product or service doesn't change, but cultural norms do.

For example, Americans tend to be relatively generous with Net Promoter Scores, while Europeans can be much less so.

According to CheckMarket's proposed European NPS variant, the scale should be shifted one number for each category.

Make sure you adjust your expectations, and how you respond to feedback, accordingly: A "7" from a customer in France could be the same as an "8" in the U.S.

And if you aren't sure how to interpret results, no problem: Ask your customers for greater detail. Not only will you learn more about cultural norms, you'll learn more about the most important aspect of any business: Your customers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
84 Percent of People Trust Online Reviews As Much As Friends. Here's How to Manage What They See

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you think online reviews get lost in all the Internet noise, think again. Research shows that 91 percent of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84 percent trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. And they make that decision quickly: 68 percent form an opinion after reading between one and six online reviews.

# data[].attributes.body
Sponsored Placements in e-commerce

One ad agency reports that 35% of Amazon shoppers click on the very first product in the search results.

and the first three products command 64% of all clicks.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sponsored Display ads - Create display advertising campaigns

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create display advertising campaigns in minutes with Sponsored Display ads to reach the right audience for your business on and off Amazon.

# data[].attributes.headline
Case Study- Top Chinese live-streamers sell nearly US$3 billion in goods in 1 day.

# data[].attributes.subject
Case Study- Top Chinese live-streamers sell nearly US$3 billion in goods in 1 day.

# data[].attributes.body
In just one day in October 2021, two of China's top live-streamers, Li Jiaqi and Viya, sold $3 billion worth of goods. That's roughly three times Amazon's average daily sales.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
12 hours, US$1.9 billion in goods: the success of China's 'lipstick brother'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Li Jiaqi, aka Austin Li, sold a record US$1.9 billion in goods in a marathon 12-hour live-stream on the first day of pre-sales leading up to Alibaba's Singles' Day shopping festival.

# data[].attributes.body
Content shared by employees reaches 561% further than the same content shared through a brand’s official social media channels.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Best Employee Advocacy Statistics
Looking for valuable employee advocacy statistics? Below, you'll find the very best stats that apply to marketing, sales, employer branding, and internal communications.
You probably have noticed more publications, companies, and even experts in marketing or sales talking more about the power of employee advocacy.

It is especially important these days as social networks have become massive centers for connecting with prospects and customers.

On top of that, 76% of individuals surveyed say that they're more likely to trust content shared by "normal" people than content shared by brands.

At this point, your company is probably investing time and money into social media already, but a key component that is still missing for most is an employee advocacy program.

Even if you understand the concept and see the value, this somewhat new strategy can still be a hard sell to leaders and the C-suite.

Of course, the best way to prove the value of something is with solid research and stats. With that, there are also a TON of statistics out there.

Instead of giving you every random stat, we've compiled the very best employee advocacy statistics that will make you-or your team-realize how important this is to marketing, sales, human resources, and communications.
Feel free to jump to the sections that matter most:
Important Social Media Statistics

Before we get into the specific employee advocacy statistics for marketing, sales, HR, and comms, it's important to explore some general social media stats.

We all know how big social media platforms can be, but some of these numbers are quite eye-opening and interesting.

Close to half the world's population (3.03 billion people) are on some type of social media. (Statusbrew)

Facebook still reigns as the most popular social media network with 79% of internet users in the US logging on the site. (Pew Research Center)

In Q4 2017, Twitter estimated an average of 330 million monthly active users across the globe-a 4% increase from 2016. (Twitter)

There are more than 800 million LinkedIn user accounts in over 200 countries. (LinkedIn)

In 2012, the average internet user had three social media accounts-now the average is closer to seven accounts. (Globalwebindex)

88% of 18- to 29-year-olds indicated that they use any form of social media, 78% among those ages 30 to 49, to 64% among those ages 50 to 64 (Pew Research Center)

People have an average of 8.6 social media accounts and spent an average of 2 hours 24 mins a day on social media (Backlinko)

67% of consumers surveyed say they are likely to purchase an item or service they see on their social feeds. (B2C)

91% of social media users access social channels through mobile. (Pew Research Center)

General Employee Advocacy Statistics

Additionally, it's important to have some of the general employee advocacy data as well. These are just a snippet of some stats around employees on social media how an employee advocacy program can amplify results.

98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company. (Weber Shandwick)

A recommendation from a friend or family member makes83% of Americans more likely to purchase that product or service. (Convince & Convert)

58.8% of employees in a formal employee advocacy program spend more than five hours per week on social media for business use. For those in a non-formal program, however, only 31.8% spent greater than five hours online (Hinge Marketing).

Employees who participate in a social employee advocacy program organically grow their social networks by 10%+ per year. (EveryoneSocial)

87.2% surveyed recognized employee advocacy contributed to expanding their professional network and 76% believed that it helped them keep up with industry trends. (Hinge Marketing)

B2B decision-makers use thought leadership to vet a company's capabilities. 59% agree that an organization's thought leadership is a more trustworthy source for assessing a company's capabilities than the company's marketing material. (Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Study)

Employee Advocacy Statistics for Marketing

Employee advocacy programs have some of the biggest impacts on marketing, whether that is amplifying brand, driving traffic and leads, etc.

Below are some stand-out employee advocacy stats for marketing.

Brand messages are re-shared 24 times more frequently when distributed by employees' through employee advocacy vs the brand (Business2Community)

79% of firms surveyed reported more online visibility after the implementation of a formal employee advocacy program. 65% reported increased brand recognition. (Hinge Marketing)

Content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared by brand channels. (Social Media Today)

Leads developed through employee social marketing convert 7x more frequently than other leads. (Marketing Advisory Network)

Earned media (press, word-of-mouth, peer-to-peer referrals) drives 4x the brand lift as paid media. (Bazaar Voice)

Peer-to-peer marketing is the leading driver behind 20-50% of all purchasing decisions. (McKinsey)

An employee advocacy program costs 1/10 of paid advertising (or less). (EveryoneSocial)

On average, an employee advocacy program involving 1,000 active participants can generate $1,900,000 in advertising value. (Kredible)

Employee Advocacy Statistics for Sales

These days, salespeople need to be active on social media. It's where prospects and customers are hanging out and researching products and services.

Employee advocacy is an important strategy for sales and generally is called social selling. The two terms are pretty interchangeable when it comes to sales.

Below are some employee advocacy/social selling statistics for sales.

73% of salespeople using social selling as part of their sales process outperformed their sales peers and exceeded quota 23 percent more often. (Aberdeen Group)

According to IBM, when a lead is generated through social selling or employee advocacy that lead is 7X more likely to close compared to other lead gen tactics. (Gartner)

Sales reps using social media as part of their sales techniques outsell 78% of their peers. (Forbes)

91% of B2B buyers are active on social media. (SuperOffice)

64% of teams that use social selling hit quota compared to 49% that don't. (Aberdeen Group)

80% believe their sales force would be more effective and efficient if they could leverage social media. (Sales Management Association)

People are 71% more likely to make a purchase based on a social media referral. (HubSpot)

An employee advocacy program can drive 16% better win rates, 2x pipeline, and deliver 48% larger deals. (EveryoneSocial)

Employee Advocacy Statistics for Employer Branding

Generally, with employee advocacy and social selling, we think of the big impact on marketing and sales. And rightfully so if you look at those above stats.

Yet, employee advocacy also positively affects other departments in your company, like human resources. It's a great way to attract top talent and improve retention.

Below are some employee advocacy stats related to social recruiting and employer branding.

79% of job applicants use social media in their job search. (Glassdoor)

47% of referral hires have greater job satisfaction and stay longer at companies. (Jobvite)

Job seekers rank social media and professional networks as the most useful job search resource compared to job boards, job ads, recruiting agencies, and recruiting events. (CareerArc)

Referrals are one of the top sources of external hires and employee advocates are perfect referrers. A recruitment campaign driven entirely by advocacy can have an on-cost that's close to zero (Social Media Today).

Socially engaged employees are more optimistic, inspired, connected, and tenured. (Altimeter Group)

When asked which employee-shared content consumers found most relevant, recruiting rose to the top: 30% of consumers find job posting useful. (EveryoneSocial)

Employee referrals have the highest applicant to hire conversion rate - only 7% of applicants are via employees but this accounts for 40% of all new hire hires. (Jobvite)

Employees of socially engaged companies are more likely to stay at their company, feel optimistic about their company's future and believe their company is more competitive. (Prophet)

Companies with a successful employee advocacy program are 58% more likely to attract, and 20% more likely to retain, top talent. (LinkedIn)

Companies with highly engaged teams have a 41% reduction in absenteeism and a 59% reduction in staff turnover. (Forbes)

Employee Advocacy Statistics for Communications

Additionally, employee advocacy also directly impacts internal communications and how employees stay connected with each other and the company leaders.

Below are some employee advocacy stats for communications teams.

More than 80% of Americans say employee communication is key to developing trust with their employers. (Lexicon)

74% of employees feel they are missing out on company information and news. (Trade Press Services)

85% of employees said they're most motivated when management offers regular updates on company news. (Trade Press Services)

Use of social software by employees can improve productivity by 20-25%. (McKinsey)

More informed employees outperform their peers by 77%. (CEB/Gartner)

When companies use social media internally, messages become content; a searchable record of knowledge can reduce, by as much as 35%, the time employees spend searching for company information. (McKinsey)

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, these employee advocacy statistics made you raise your eyebrows in a positive way and helped prove to you how important it is for your company in the digital age.

It's why high-growth organizations like Unity, Okta, T-Mobile, and many others have been investing in a strategy and program.

However, being that employee advocacy is still growing and somewhat new, getting buy-in or understanding why this matters can be challenging.

But if you take these key stats and other research, you'll quickly start to gain support for social initiatives and your company will reap the benefits.

Ready to learn more about employee advocacy and see how a program can amplify marketing, sales, employer brand/recruiting, and internal comms? Schedule your personal demo of EveryoneSocial to learn more or learn more about our plans here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
38 Eye-Popping Employee Advocacy Statistics That Matter Most

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Looking for valuable employee advocacy statistics? Below, you'll find the very best stats that apply to marketing, sales, employer branding, and internal communications. You probably have noticed more publications, companies, and even experts in marketing or sales talking more about the power of employee advocacy.

# data[].attributes.body
Outstream videos are integrated into the content the user is reading. They start playing without volume when the user scrolls over them and pause once they are out of view.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kate Novatska, Marketing expert at Epom

What is the most appealing ad format in 2019? Video ads for sure. 96% of marketers want to have it in their advertising strategy, while 54% of users crave for more video content in their feeds. How to match this demand and get new customers, if most of the pre-rolls are already taken by somebody else? The answer is outstream video ads.

Videos are magnets that stick to your eyes. Even when it comes to crappy clips on Youtube, we usually can't help but click "play". Resisting to watch a video with a clickbait headline is as hard as resisting to steal fries from your friend's Big Mac combo. And if regular videos look so delicious, why can't online video advertising be the same?

Fast Fact: Smaato and Liftoff reported that programmatic video ads receive a 7.5X higher CTR than banners.

Everyone should be insanely happy with their video ad campaign performance, but there's one thing that still frustrates many. In-stream video ads are expensive and need a video player to work. Web pages with video players are rare, let alone the fact that pre-roll or mid-roll ad setup is challenging. Doesn't sound as good as before.

Is there something to make video ads look great again?

Meet the outstream video format. These video ads have nothing to do with video players and just emerge in the middle of any page. They don't require a tiresome setup, as there are ready code templates to copy-and-paste. Outstream videos win over your audience without hijacking an elite ad placement behind the main video content, which eventually takes over all the attention.

Contents:

Definition: What is Outstream Video Advertising?

If you need a simple explanation of what outstream video ads are, here it is. They are all video ads that live outside video players. Nobody has been talking about it, but you've seen them scattered around editorial content. Muted videos that appear out of nowhere when you're reading a cool article on Forbes are exactly what I'm talking about.

Speaking more professionally, outstream video advertising is a form of native advertising that involves a large-format video player that emerges in the middle of the page content and automatically plays a video ad. Outstream can be played anywhere, anytime, and still bring most of the benefits of regular programmatic video.

When to Use Outstream Video Ads?

Outstream video advertising comes to the rescue when you need to expand your video ad campaign beyond the video player. There are several major use cases of the outstream video format:

Absence of the video player. You work with publishers that don't have videos on their websites.

Reach expansion. You already run in-stream campaigns and want to grow further.

Native-like look. You want your ad to be coherent with the website's content.

Customization. You need to spill over the standard requirements of in-stream video ads.

New effective format. You are curious to see if outstream does well for your business.

Let's elaborate on why outstream video ads may perform better than in-stream by looking at specific cases.

Benefits of Outstream Video Ads for Users, Publishers, and Advertisers

Aside from benefits for ad agencies, advertisers, and website users, outstream video advertising also has strengths that can be utilized by publishers. Let's summarize the major gains for each party.

Disadvantages of Outstream Video Format

More freedom also means more responsibility. If implemented the right way, outstream video ads are indeed less intrusive and more effective. But, the customizable nature of these ads has a flip side. Poor optimization and wrong placement of the ad is not uncommon here. So, instead of having a neat native-like look, they may turn into the user's worst nightmare.

The second drawback of outstream is that it's hard to be purchased programmatically via a demand-side platform. Publishers can't list such inventory units in their SSP platform, as this kind of inventory is not intended to be on the website from the start. Those video ads can be placed anywhere and nowhere at the same time, and that's a problem when it comes to automatic media buying: an RTB algorithm is not able to read unlisted units.

Outstream vs. In-Stream Video Advertising

Instream video advertising, as you may have guessed, is the stuff we see before or during the actual video we watch. We usually can't ignore it or skip it and are compelled to endure 10 sec of a loud and often irrelevant message. Video ad units are often traded via the direct method of media buying using an ad server, therefore this message can be the same for each visitor.

Fast fact: 66% of US users hate when they press play and see a pre-roll video ad automatically playing with sound. No wonder: we all get annoyed if something interrupts us from watching, say, our favorite Youtube channel.

Outstream video aims to solve this problem and provide a less disruptive experience to the site visitors. These kind of native video ads utilizes integration rather than interruption. The user can scroll them down or skip them at anytime if they are not interested. Moreover, outstream units are often muted by default. When somebody's curious about the ad's content, they may turn on sound and watch the video.

As I mentioned above, outstream video ads are also easier to set up. All you need is a Javascript code to embed your video on the page. Instream is more tricky, as it requires changes in a video player, which has a certain algorithm of work, unlike the web page that only has a layout.

Ad agencies and advertisers see the future in native video advertising. According to eMarketer, 77% of agencies and 70% of advertisers consider outstream to become a more important ad format in their digital advertising strategies within the upcoming years. Only 60% of both parties say so about instream ads.

Bullet Points:

Instream video ads require a video player to be displayed, outstream video ads can be shown anywhere on the page even if there are no videos on it.

Instream video ads interrupt the main content, outstream video ads can be scrolled or skipped.

Instream video ads always autoplay out loud, outstream video ads are muted by default.

Instream video ads need a substantial change in the video playing algorithm, outstream video ads can be added to the web code in one click.

Instream video ads should meet strict requirements, outstream video ads can be customized on behalf of the advertiser.

Examples of Outstream Video + 3 Templates from Epom Ad Server

The only reliable way to show outstream video ads on the website is to give a well-written piece of JS code to the publisher. And you don't need to come up with it by yourself. We at Epom ad server have already thought ahead and created three outstream video templates to provide the best user experience to hook your target audience.

The following three templates are the most widespread examples of outstream video: in-read, overlay, and slider ad formats. Here we will go over each one in more detail.

In-Feed Outstream Video Ads

In-feed or in-read video ads are also dubbed as native video advertisements. They are called so because they blend-in editorial content and seem like they're meant to be there. In-read ads smoothly appear in the middle of the page surrounded by text or other types of content. It happens when the user scrolls the feed to the designated place, which can be the best spot for displaying such an advertisement.

Outstream in-feed offers benefits to both users and advertisers. It can't go unnoticed and draws the attention, especially if you tailor it to look like the website's design. On the other hand, it doesn't distract the user from reading the article. So, if they're not interested, they may just pass by and ignore this video ad.

Benefits of In-Read Ad Format:

Native-like look;

Non-disruptive user experience;

Can't go unnoticed;

May be placed anywhere on the page;

Draws the attention by its dynamics.

Overlay Outstream Video Ads

An overlay video ad is a good candidate to replace a pre-roll ad, as it works almost the same way but is much simpler to implement. While the user is on the page, overlay covers up an existing video player or another fitting element on the website, auto-playing a muted video. The user can watch it just as a pre-roll video ad, yet it gives you more customization freedom to make it less intrusive for the audience.

Thus, you can allow users to skip overlay whenever they want, setting up a close button. Once they press on it, the ad will disappear and they'll get back access to the main video. I want to also remind you that overlay is not a part of a video player, so it can be installed over it in a matter of seconds using Epom overlay video template.

Benefits of Overlay Ad Format:

Highly customizable;

Can be skipped or muted;

May serve as a pre-roll;

2X cheaper than a pre-roll;

Easy to set up;

Slider Outstream Video Ads

Sliders are the most spectacular among other outstream video ad examples: they drive into the page from the designated corner, ready to impress the user with the compelling message. It's important to carefully select the pages on which to display slider ads, as they may cover up primary content in a way the user may dislike. But if applied properly, sliders are the most engaging and notable video ads.

Benefits of Slider Ad Format:

Spectacular and engaging;

Can be easily skipped;

Extra customizable.

Epom video templates are ready-made pieces of code that will help you serve outstream video ads in the right way. And now, aren't you curious which outstream template will work best for your business? Roll your sleeves up and let's take a quiz:

Which kind of superhero are you in the AD universe?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Outstream Video Ads: Moving Beyond the Limitations of Pre-Roll

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kate Novatska, Marketing expert at Epom What is the most appealing ad format in 2019? Video ads for sure. 96% of marketers want to have it in their advertising strategy, while 54% of users crave for more video content in their feeds.

# data[].attributes.headline
85% of Facebook video is watched without sound

# data[].attributes.subject
85% of Facebook video is watched without sound

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
| By Sahil Patel

Facebook might be hosting upwards of 8 billion views per day on its platform, but a wide majority of that viewership is happening in silence.

As much as 85 percent of video views happen with the sound off, according to multiple publishers. Take, for instance, feel-good site LittleThings, which is averaging 150 million monthly views on Facebook so far this year. Eighty-five percent of its viewership is occurring without users turning the sound on. Similarly, millennial news site Mic, which is also averaging 150 million monthly Facebook views, said 85 percent of its 30-second views are without sound. PopSugar said its silent video views range between 50 and 80 percent.

The news shouldn't come as much of a surprise, as Facebook has built a video ecosystem that does not require users to turn the volume up - and publishers have been more than happy to play ball. Most users' news feeds are now inundated with short videos that feature text or captions narrating what's being shown on screen. While most of these videos feature narration or some form of background music, the intent is to make it easy for people to consume the information presented in the videos without needing to turn the sound on.

"From day one, there pretty much has been the psychology that you have to catch their attention immediately," said Gretchen Tibbits, chief operating officer for LittleThings. Facebook counts a view at three seconds, which means publishers have to find ways to convince users to stick around in order to capture that view. "But while the first three seconds are critical, the video also has to be designed to capture attention without needing sound," said Tibbits.

Tailoring content to the whims of the Facebook news feed has helped publishers scale on the platform. It's also turned news feeds stale as publishers put up countless videos that have the same look and feel. Take, for instance, this NowThis video about a Tylenol ingredient that makes people less empathetic and this Tech Insider video about a futuristic bike. While they focus on completely different topics, the key ingredients are the same: a striking visual or message up front followed by a text-heavy explanation of the content.

But it works, which means publishers will continue to do this type of content.

When it comes to distributing branded content, advertisers for the most part have also come to terms with these quasi-silent videos as the de facto standard - non-live edition - for Facebook. And in these instances, the format works.

According to MEC North America, branded videos from its clients average 85-90 percent silent video views. But that doesn't mean consumers are less engaged. Internal studies conducted by the agency showed that KPIs like brand lift and intent to purchase were not affected by whether the viewer watched the video with the sound on or off, said Noah Mallin, head of social for the agency.

"Sound is still an option [on Facebook], but it's not required," said Rye Clifton, director of experience at GSD&M. "If you can make something compelling without needing people to turn the audio on, you're ahead of people who are not thinking that way."

But that's only if the content is completely made for Facebook. It's different when it's a paid media buy for a video ad that wasn't intended solely for Facebook. When measuring the performance of campaigns on a cost-per-view basis, nine times out of 10, YouTube will come in at a lower price than Facebook, according to Nick Pappas, CEO of SwellShark. (A hurdle here is that Facebook only charges advertisers for three-second or 10-second views, whereas on YouTube, advertisers can pay based on completed views.)

"As a paid advertising channel, [Facebook] works sometimes, but it's so important to have creative that meets the criteria of the platform - otherwise it can be a waste of money," he said.
Download the Digiday Video Dictionary - your guide to the terms and acronyms defining the future of video.

https://digiday.com/?p=178477

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Sahil Patel Facebook might be hosting upwards of 8 billion views per day on its platform, but a wide majority of that viewership is happening in silence. As much as 85 percent of video views happen with the sound off, according to multiple publishers.

# data[].attributes.body
The AI industry was measured at $9.5 billion in 2018, $27 billion in 2019, and is expected to grow to more than $250 billion by 2027.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Working the stock market is a data game. Getting the best information, in a timely way, and knowing how to use it, are keys to success. So, here are some numbers to think about. According to industry market research, artificial intelligence companies and products are on the verge of explosive growth. The AI market was valued at $9.5 billion in 2018, over $27 billion in 2019, and is projected to exceed $250 billion in 2027.

AI refers to the use of data to simulate human intelligence processes including learning, reasoning and self-correction by machines. AI is making its way into almost every industry. Data collection and collation, automation systems from factories to self-driving cars, even online shopping site - they all benefit from AI applications.

And this has not been ignored by Wall Street. Analysts say that plenty of compelling investments can be found within this space. With this in mind, we've opened up TipRanks' database to find two AI stocks that have gotten the seal of approval from 5-star analysts, stock pros rated among the top 3% of their peers. Let's find out why they recommend these two AI plays.

The first AI stock we're looking at is Veritone, a software company whose flagship product, an AI-powered operating system called aiWARE, allows the user to coordinate machine learning models and integrate disparate data sources - including audio and visual - into actionable intelligence results. The system boasts an open architecture, and has been applied in the entertainment, government, legal, and media sectors.

At the beginning of March, Veritone released its 4Q20 earnings, showing record quarterly revenue at $16.8 million - a year-over-year gain of 35%. The increase was driven by yoy sales gains in aiWARE SaaS, which was up 53%, and Advertising, which was up 50%.

However, Veritone stock saw a 49% fall from the peak value it hit in February. Investors liked the strong financials, but there is some worry about the company's future guidance. Management is predicting a non-GAAP net loss in the range of $3.9 million to $4.4 million in 1Q21, and while that represents a 38% improvement at the mid-point from 1Q20, investors do want to see a profit.

Roth Capital's 5-star analyst Darren Aftahi, however, thinks this new, lower stock price could offer new investors an opportunity to get into VERI on the cheap. Aftahi sees this stock as a well-positioned AI growth story.

"VERI put up better 4Q results, but more importantly, accelerating topline growth in both AI SaaS and Advertising (both over 50%). If our assumption about its Content and Licensing business returning to 2019 levels (with modest growth) is correct in 2021, it implies its 2021 guide (which was much better by the way) for advertising and AI SaaS is north of 40% growth (~30% for Advertising and ~low 60%s for AI). Most importantly, its AI SaaS line was guided to 60-65% growth, showing a doubling of growth y/y," Aftahi noted.

In line with his comments, Aftahi rates the stock a Buy, and his $50 price target implies growth of 104% in the year ahead. (To watch Aftahi's track record, click here)

All in all, with a share price of $24.53 and a consensus average price target of $38.75, VERI shares offer investors a chance for 58% share growth this year. The analyst consensus rating, a Moderate Buy, is based on 3 Buy reviews and 1 Sell. ( See VERI stock analysis on TipRanks)
Verint Systems (VRNT)
Verint stock has appreciated 107% over the last 12 months, with a large part of that gain coming in a 31% jump at the beginning of February. That jump came in reaction to the company's split into two entities - Cognyte, the spin-off, took on the parent's intelligence and cyber operations, while Verint continued as a pure-play, AI-powered customer engagement service. The company uses its combination of market experience and AI and analytic products to enable customers to optimize their automation, knowledge, and workforce.

Verint's fiscal year 2021 ended on January 31, the day before the split, and the company reported its Q4 and full year results at the end of March. Those results beat expectations for the quarter, with $349 million in total revenue - a 3% year-over-year gain. For the full year, however, the $1.27 billion in revenue was a shade below the $1.3 billion reported in the previous year.

The Q4 data bodes for the Verint in its pure-play customer engagement incarnation, as those AI cloud sectors grew more than 30% year-over-year in that quarter.

Calling Verint a "unique AI engagement company," Oppenheimer's 5-star analyst Timothy Horan sees the new Verint in a strong position to move forward.

"VRNT reported solid 4Q21 earnings and is now a pure play customer engagement AI company following its split. VRNT is successfully executing its transition to a SaaS/ Cloud model. New perpetual license bookings (PLE) was up 15% this quarter. The transition away from licensed sales is difficult but largely behind it as revenue growth should accelerate from this quarter onward. Cloud demand has seen a healthy 50/50 split between existing and new customers...."

Getting to the bottom line, Horan adds, "It exited the year with strong momentum in cloud and bookings. We think it can continue to sign large cloud deals across contact center and other verticals."

These are upbeat comments, and Horan backs them with an Outperform (i.e., Buy) rating, and a $60 price target indicating room for ~32% growth in the next 12 months. (To watch Horan's track record, click here)

Overall, there is broad agreement on Wall Street that Verint is a stock to Buy, as shown by the unanimous Strong Buy analyst consensus rating. This is based on 6 recent positive reviews. The shares have an average price target of $59.33, suggesting ~30% upside potential from the current trading price of $45.50. ( See VRNT stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for AI stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks' Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks' equity insights.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The AI Revolution Could Send These 2 Stocks Higher

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Working the stock market is a data game. Getting the best information, in a timely way, and knowing how to use it, are keys to success. So, here are some numbers to think about. According to industry market research, artificial intelligence companies and products are on the verge of explosive growth.

# data[].attributes.headline
Case Study- Zomato's deepfake & AI personalized ad

# data[].attributes.subject
Case Study- Zomato's deepfake & AI personalized ad

# data[].attributes.body
The new ad by Zomato ad features Hrithik Roshan ordering food depending on the viewers’ location using deepfake and AI.

AI and ML have a lot of promise in advertising since they improve brand communications by allowing brands to communicate to their audience one-on-one. It’s enabled hyper-personalized, localised brand messaging.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Shortly after Cadbury's AI powered ad - which won big at Cannes Lions 2022, Zomato releases its own hyper-localised deepfake ad, made by the agency Enormous Creative.

YouTube viewers have been seeing a surprising ad from Zomato. The ad, starring Hrithik Roshan features the actor mentioning that he's craving specific dishes from popular restaurants in different cities. The name of the dish, the restaurant and the city and locality changes depending on the ad's viewer - and their phone's GPS. The ad has been created by the agency Enormous Creative.

The ad uses location data to personalise and localise these ads. For example, if a viewer watching the ad in Khanna, Punjab, Roshan will admit that he was craving a burger from OneBite burger - a local restaurant which is popular there.

This ad is made possible thanks to artificial intelligence and deepfake technology. Deepfake technology can be used to modify a video of someone saying something and make it look like they were saying something else instead. Artificial intelligence learns a person's speech patterns and facial expressions to make this possible.

Zomato's ad is similar to Cadbury's 2021 rendition of 'Not Just a Cadbury Ad' - which stars actor Shah Rukh Khan. The ad won multiple awards at the recently concluded Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity - including India's first ever Titanium Lion. Zomato's ad has been made by creative agency Enormous Creative.

Shah Rukh Khan's ad, made by Ogilvy and Wavemaker features AI and deepfake technology, powered by Rephrase.ai. In that ad, Shah Rukh Khan is seen getting ready for a Diwali party and he mentions names of local sweet stores, optician stores, mobile phone stores and so on. Here also the ad uses location targeting to show people ads based on the city they're at - naming stores at their locality, based on their GPS locations.

Ashray Malhotra, the founder of Rephrase.ai who had worked along with Ogilvy for both versions of 'Not Just a Cadbury Ad' recalls that the team took a long time - nearly three years - to perfect the technology used to create the ads.

"Everything is pre-recorded except for the variables. The variables in the Cadbury ad include name of the clothing store, name of the shoe store, name of the optical store, name of the electronic store, name of the sweet store, etc," says Malhotra. In Enormous' Zomato ad, the variables were the name of the dish, the restaurant its popular at and the city where the restaurant is located.

Aalap Desai, chief creative officer, Isobar India and Taproot Dentsu says that creativity in using tech is how and where you use it. "The same concept has been used in the same way by Cadbury's and Symphony. The potential is huge but we will only realise it once we start exploring it in newer ways. When we stop repeating its use and start trying new things is when it'll flourish," he says.

Malhotra says that the level of personalisation that the technology can give is to not just modify existing messages - but to create an entirely new message altogether. Rephrase has also worked on similar ads featuring Tiger Shroff for Castrol and Ranveer Singh for Colors TV.

He adds that AI and ML have a lot of potential in advertising since it helps increase the efficacy of brand communications by giving the brand an opportunity to speak to their audience, one on one. It has made hyper-personalised and localised brand communications possible.

Desai agrees that personalisation makes these ads much more relatable and interesting in a way that appeals to local residents of an idea.

Deepfake technology and personalised videos can also be used to build a better customer journey and relationship. "Imagine after you make a purchase from a brand, you receive a personalised message from the CEO of the company. It's a game changer," says Malhotra.

Desai points out that in Zomato's case, the ad will reinforce the fact that it delivers everywhere. "Apart from that, it's not a unique piece and makes Zomato appear so late to this party that it seems like a mild branding piece. Doesn't excite me at all," he says.
Behind the scenes - execution and challenges
ZigZag Films was the production house that worked on shooting the raw footage for the AI technology to work on. Abhijit Sudhakar, the co-founder of ZigZag Films recalls that initially the team had given Roshan a 20 minute long monologue to read out so that they could capture information about his voice, its tone, the intonation of the words, etc, and the camera kept capturing him.

Anupama Ahluwalia, founder and producer at ZigZag Films mentions that the line they initially had Roshan say was that he was craving paneer butter masala, and didn't mention which restaurant or area it was from. Eventually, the dialogue was recreated for different localised contexts to create the personalised ad films.

Desai calls the execution of the ad good. The ad features one of our superstars and the tech is smooth and clean. "It's been done well but when you are the third or the fourth one doing it, there is no first mover advantage and you are just using the tech that's been developed and perfected by others to add to the clutter," he mentions.

Sudhakar adds that it was a challenging exercise for Roshan as an actor since he had to deliver the line in a certain way to add information when they had to manipulate his voice. "He had to stay in character and deliver the lines with the right expressions to add the three parts of information in that sentence - the name of the dish, the restaurant, and the area. He had to take pauses at certain places to allow the AI tech to add in the information later on," he says.

Desai says that the fact that the Zomato ad is similar to the Cadbury ad is not at all a reflection of the state of creativity in India; it just shows an openness to working with new formats and technology - an indicator that things are moving in the right direction in the Indian ad industry.

During Zomato's ad, Roshan is sitting in a plain black truck, surrounded by people armed with guns and bulletproof vests. They hear a noise outside the van and open the doors to an alarmed Zomato delivery man holding Roshan's order. The ad has two main visual parts - the exterior of the van and the interior, with Roshan and his team.

"Usually when you're working with a celebrity, it's difficult to shoot outdoors. The wide shot at the beginning of the van and the industrial-looking area its parked at was created using a miniature version of the van. The setup for the interior of the van was created in a studio," reveals Sudhakar. The production house had used a similar studio setup while creating PhonePe's ads with Aamir Khan and Alia Bhatt.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Zomato embraces deepfake technology and AI in personalised ads starring Hrithik Roshan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Shortly after Cadbury's AI powered ad - which won big at Cannes Lions 2022, Zomato releases its own hyper-localised deepfake ad, made by the agency Enormous Creative. YouTube viewers have been seeing a surprising ad from Zomato. The ad, starring Hrithik Roshan features the actor mentioning that he's craving specific dishes from popular restaurants in different cities.

# data[].attributes.body
Cadbury’s 2021 rendition of ‘Not Just a Cadbury Ad’ - which stars actor Shah Rukh Khan. The ad won multiple awards at the recently concluded Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity - including India’s first ever Titanium Lion.

Shah Rukh Khan's ad, made by Ogilvy and Wavemaker features AI and deepfake technology, powered by Rephrase.ai.

# data[].attributes.body
Reward ads offer users game points, currency, or another gaming-related benefit for watching the entire video ad.

take up 100% of the users’ screen.

More than 70% of gamers said watching video ads is their preferred way to “pay” for in-game content.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In-Game Advertising & Game Ads | ironSource

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In-game ads are a great way to drive revenue from your non-paying users. Learn how to monetize your game with ironSource's in-game advertising network.

# data[].attributes.headline
Research- more than 25% of adults close out a video after only 10 seconds. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Research- more than 25% of adults close out a video after only 10 seconds. 

# data[].attributes.body
More than half say they’ll close it after 20 seconds.

Recent video marketing campaigns are being designed to encourage users to not click the "skip ad" button on YouTube.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
About RevJet

The RevJet Ad Experience Platform is the first enterprise-grade SaaS platform that orchestrates meaningful, personalized ad creative experiences at scale. RevJet was purpose-built to power all ad creative use cases including DCO, personalization, audience management, creative performance visualization, experimentation, and self-optimizing performance competitions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Infographic - Ad Experience Sentiment Report Q319

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The RevJet Ad Experience Platform is the first enterprise-grade SaaS platform that orchestrates meaningful, personalized ad creative experiences at scale. RevJet was purpose-built to power all ad creative use cases including DCO, personalization, audience management, creative performance visualization, experimentation, and self-optimizing performance competitions.

# data[].attributes.headline
79% of videos on LinkedIn are viewed without sound.

# data[].attributes.subject
79% of videos on LinkedIn are viewed without sound.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note: Enjoy this special encore post, which was one of readers' favorites so far in 2021. It was originally published on March 18.
There's something special about video. Great video ads are agents of delight; they command the audience's attention with sight, sound, and motion. And on LinkedIn, your brand can use video ads to reach a huge, engaged professional audience: around 740 million members with the best mindset to do business where business is done.

So, what does a great video ad actually look like on LinkedIn? Is it short? Long? Does it have captions? To answer these questions, we partnered with independent research agency Digivizer and spent more than 500 hours analyzing more than 3500 ads on our platform. We employed automation and human processing methods to categorize video ads into 38 categories - by type, style and production - and compared it to ad performance: view-through rate (VTR), click-through rate (CTR), and cost per view/click (CPV, CPC).

What We Learned

You can see our findings in a new video ads hub: The Fundamental Strategies for B2B Video on LinkedIn. It's worth a full look - it's filled with data-driven insights, examples, and learnings. Meanwhile, here are some tips from the guide:

Tip 1: Include a Demo and an Offer

Every day, people search LinkedIn to learn about different brands and products, so it's a marvelous opportunity to show off your product. Our research found that demos of products perform extremely well - driving the highest performance in video completion, engagement, and click-through rates.

We also found that it's always best to include an offer. Audiences will keep watching until the end of a video ad more often - regardless of duration - to see an offer. Ads with an offer, promotion, or deal drive 1.2x the average video completion rate. What's more, ads with an offer in the headline achieved an 8% higher completion rate.

Action for you: For your next video ad, record a quick demo of your product. If it's a physical product, you can even show off the unboxing. Next, incentivize with offers like "First month free" or "$100 off with code."

Tip 2: Animate Your Video Ad

We all have our favorite animated movie or show. (A Bug's Life, anyone?) Well, it turns out that animated video ads capture attention just as well on LinkedIn. Audiences across the world respond positively to ads with animation. Use motion graphics to tell your brand story as well as demonstrate your product/service.

Ads with motion graphics have impressive performance gains when compared to benchmarks. They have a 3% increase in CTR compared to our standard CTR benchmarks of video ads.

Action for you: Work with your digital agency or use an online tool (such as Biteable) to add some animated sizzle to your video ads.

Tip 3: Keep Audio Simple, Use Captions

Audio is an important component of your video ad, and our research found some important findings around audio + captions.

One tip is to use a single audio source. That means either a simple narration or a musical track. Multi-track audio (such as voice-over PLUS a track) will reduce your video completion rate and engagement rate. Less is more!

Another finding encourages use of captions/subtitles in your video. Seventy-nine percent of videos in the LinkedIn feed are watched with the sound off. Displaying captions (in the same language as audio) can help drive higher social action from audiences.

Action for you: Think like a silent film director. Does your video ad communicate without relying on having sound? Use captions or type animation to visually communicate your key messages.

Tip 4: Keep Copy Short, Add CTA Button

Let your video do the work for you! Videos with long description or introductory text beyond 4 to 5 lines suffered worse performance metrics. Minimize the amount of copy to around 100 to 150 characters so your video ad can be the engine of growth.

Action for you: Short, snappy copy works best. Keep the copy to three lines or shorter, and get your key point across in the first two lines. After the first two lines of text, the "See more" link will be triggered, which can reduce engagement by 7%.

Additional Resources

For information on the ideal video ad specs, check out our video ads guide.

For examples of great video ads from fantastic brands, check out Customer Stories.

For helpful content on trends, tools and practices, check our more video ads posts on our blog.

We are excited to see the fantastic video ads you create this year. Make some magic! 🎉

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Tips for Better Video Ads on LinkedIn in 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's Note: Enjoy this special encore post, which was one of readers' favorites so far in 2021. It was originally published on March 18. There's something special about video. Great video ads are agents of delight; they command the audience's attention with sight, sound, and motion.

# data[].attributes.headline
Searches for “AI marketing” have exploded, growing 2,550% in the past five years.

# data[].attributes.subject
Searches for “AI marketing” have exploded, growing 2,550% in the past five years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover the Ai marketing topic on Exploding Topics

# data[].attributes.headline
Research- Ideal Video Lengths for FB, IG, Twitter, and YT

# data[].attributes.subject
Research- Ideal Video Lengths for FB, IG, Twitter, and YT

# data[].attributes.body
Instagram videos should be no longer than 30 seconds,

Twitter should be limited to 45 seconds,

Facebook videos should stop at 1 minute,

& for Youtube it is 2 minutes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When a video pops up on your Facebook feed, what do you usually do first? My guess is that you take a peek at its length, ponder whether it's worth your time, and let that thought process influence whether or not you press play.

Once you do actually press play, how many times have you abandoned the video just a few seconds in and scrolled down to the next post? I know I have. I don't finish half the Facebook videos I start.

It seems impossible to hold people's attention nowadays. Phones buzz with distracting notifications and promise instant gratification, tempting people to check their screens every five minutes. This has diminished the human attention span so much, some studies claim it's now shorter than a goldfish's.

Video marketers know we lack patience. So they're starting to tailor content for our dwindling attention spans. In fact, 56% of all videos published in the last year are less than 2 minutes long.

But marketers must innovate further because users expect different video lengths on different platforms. Odds are, they're more willing to watch a 2-minute long video on YouTube than on Twitter.

If you don't customize video length for each platform, then you're not fully catering to your audience. Sooner or later, the attention they give to your brand will wither away.

That's why we decided to create this handy, bookmarkable infographic about the optimal video length for the most popular video channels. To help you better engage your audience on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, we extracted insights from HubSpot's own social and YouTube data, and combined it with existing research in the area.

We also provided a video example for each channel, if you ever need some inspiration.

So check out the infographic below and start creating optimized videos for these four native video platforms!

HubSpot Video Examples for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube

Instagram: State of Inbound (30 Seconds)

There's a lot of speculation around how long Instagram videos can be in general -- especially since the company is known to change the maximum. Currently, they cap out at 60 seconds.

The original State of Inbound video on YouTube is two and half minutes long. How long should the Instagram video be? We cut this one down to 30 seconds for this platform so it would meet our audience's time length expectations.

You might wonder how a video that's one-fifth the length of the original version could successfully promote our annual research report. Well, it's because our audience couldn't keep their eyes off such a clear, concise, and dynamic video.

Viewers who watch the first 3 seconds of a video are most likely to finish it, so we made sure our video hooked them with a vivid first frame.

After that, we held our audience's attention by constantly cutting to new frames and animating the video's graphics. The voiceover and subtitles also conveyed the video's main takeaway well.

Twitter: Summer Startup (~45 Seconds)

Imagine winning $100,000 + mentoring from @JaySimons (@Atlassian), @PattyMccord1 (@netflix), @dharmesh (@HubSpot)? Enter on Facebook now 👉 pic.twitter.com/kI1yF3oUkE
- HubSpot (@HubSpot) June 27, 2017

Our Summer Startup video on Facebook is 1 minute long. But we cut it down to 44 seconds on Twitter -- a tad shorter than the optimal length of Twitter videos, according to our research.

This video resonated with our audience because they felt a personal connection to each of the faces we presented. People respond well to the human face. It captures their attention, builds familiarity and trust, and evokes emotion.

And since enthusiasm is contagious, the thrilled faces we showcased injected a lot of excitement into our viewers.

Facebook: Monthly Social Media Round Up: April Edition (60 Seconds)

When we analyzed our Facebook data, we discovered our audience engages the most with videos right under 1 minute. So we decided to cap most of our Facebook videos at around 60 seconds.

We also discovered that 95% of viewers watch our videos on mute. This meant we needed to ensure they understood each video's key point without hearing a single word.

We crafted a lot of our Facebook videos like the one you just saw because the subtitles clearly communicate the video's insights while the visuals provide context and absorb our viewers' attention.

YouTube: Topic Clusters: The Next Evolution of Content Strategy (2 Minutes)

On YouTube, our audience engages the most with videos right under two minutes. So we try to keep them around 120 seconds.

That might not seem like enough time to dig into a substantial topic, but think about how long YouTube videos should be to cover a concept that would take a blog post 1,000 words to explain.

The 2-minute video above does just that, complimenting an article that might take the average blog visitor 10 minutes to read. This saves our audience time and heaves a mental load off of their shoulders.

Short but potent videos aren't just a recording of yourself reading a script, though. Since the human brain can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text, you need to leverage dynamic graphics and visual storytelling so your audience can quickly grasp your message. If you don't, your video will elapse the optimal length and wilt your viewers' attention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Long Should Your Videos Be? Ideal Lengths for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube [Infographic]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When a video pops up on your Facebook feed, what do you usually do first? My guess is that you take a peek at its length, ponder whether it's worth your time, and let that thought process influence whether or not you press play.