Marketers’ ad spend to grow in H2 led by social media and display, report finds

• The sense of optimism felt by the ad industry in the primary half of 2024 is anticipated to endure, with a major variety of advertisers midway through the yr reporting that they again plan to maintain or increase their spending in every channel, per Mediaocean’s 2024 H2 market report.
• When asked to rank a very powerful consumer and technology media trends, 56% of marketers listed connected TV (CTV) and streaming as a top priority, followed by generative artificial intelligence (AI) at 55% and TikTok and social video at 47%. 
• Industry professionals also signaled optimism for the potential of AI to help power research and evaluation, amongst other use cases. Mediaocean’s report reflects input from over 1,200 marketing professionals and was conducted in July. 

As brands proceed to develop integrated promoting programs, omnichannel media investments proceed to expand — a trend also observed in Mediaocean’s November 2023 survey — led by social media, digital display/video and CTV. For the second half of 2024, two-thirds of survey respondents plan to increase social media spending, 64% will increase digital display/video spending and 55% will increase CTV spending. In addition, 30%, 31% and 37% will maintain spending in those channels, respectively.  

Among the findings, greater than half of respondents said CTV was probably the most critical consumer technology and media trend, closely followed by generative AI, for the second half of 2024. According to Nielsen’s The Gauge measurement tool, the period of time spent streaming increased by greater than 40% in June, marking its largest share of TV usage ever recorded.

Still, AI stays critically necessary for the industry, particularly when it comes to data evaluation and market research. Those applications will account for 45% and 40% of use cases, respectively, according to the survey respondents, while copywriting and image generation accounted for 27% and 22% of use cases, respectively.  

When it comes to media investment, performance-driven paid media was considered probably the most critical investment amongst 69% of survey respondents. But many have gotten more concerned about their mastery of first-party data. Thirty-five percent of respondents identified first-party data as a critical capability, up 25% from the survey’s responses from 2023.  

“With Google’s recent announcement that they’ll not deprecate cookies but reasonably provide more distinguished opt-out mechanisms for consumers, collecting and managing first-party data will proceed to be an imperative for advertisers,” the report detailed. “Marketers must proceed to embrace a multi-ID approach that features cookies together with other identities to ensure consumers proceed to receive the personalized brand experiences they’ve come to expect.”  

Finally, as advertisers seek more transparency for his or her media spending, they heavily trust the Media Rating Council accreditation and robust reporting. When queried about which aspect of ad verification was most crucial when choosing partners, measurement topped the list, chosen by 33% of respondents, followed by actionability on real-time decision-making (23%), comprehensive channel coverage (16%) and integration and connectivity to media buying applications (15%).