Adobe: Best digital channels for advertisers may be changing

By

Jennifer Braun

Published
Mar 23, 2017

Emerging channels for digital advertisers are promising, while tried and true channels may be loosing their effectiveness, according to insights from the 2017 Digital Advertising Report by Adobe Digital Insights.  
 
Released this week, the report is based on over 1.7 trillion visits to over 16,000 websites from January 2014 to January 2017, and is centered around the state of digital advertising.
 
The report found that usual advertising channels may be loosing their effectiveness. Advertisers increased spending on search driven traffic by 42 percent over the 36-month period, but actual site visits driven by search traffic only increased by 11.

 
The competition to acquire new traffic is fierce. Total visits to U.S websites declined by 0.4 percent over the 36 month-period, while consumers continue to spend less time on web sites. Retail sites saw total time spent on sites decrease by 25.6 seconds.  
 
Still, the report found that new customer traffic is coming more and more from emerging channels. In retail, social media is 2.5 times more likely to drive non-customer traffic.

The marketing mix must also differ for current customers and non-customers. According to Adobe, non-customers reach sites through search or direct access, while current customers rely on marketing communications like email newsletters.
 
The report also found that digital advertising costs are rising 5 times faster than inflation. A trend that can however, be traced back to the late 1990’s when the cost of reaching consumers on traditional TV began outpacing inflation.
 
Adobe launched a platform called Advertising Cloud this week, which will allow its customers to manage and buy its digital and TV ads.