Mary Meeker delivers her Internet Trends report every year.
One of the most-watched digital reports of the year is out—Mary Meeker's Internet Trends—and it shows just how much room mobile advertising has to grow. Meeker runs digital investments for top Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and every year she releases a comprehensive breakdownof the entire Web landscape.
Meeker looks at how people around the world use the Internet, how many are on mobile, how they spend their time online, and which companies and industries stand to gain the most.
Here's what you should be focused on this year in digital and on mobile:
Mobile Internet use is growing faster than Internet usage in general: There are 2.8 billion Internet users, up 8 percent from 2014, and 2.1 billion mobile Internet users, an increase of 23 percent.
Mobile data usage rose 69 percent last year, and 55 percent of mobile data traffic is from video.
In 2008, Americans spent 20 minutes a day on average with the mobile Web. This year, they spend close to three hours, more time than they spend on laptops.
The mobile ad industry is still short $25 billion. Mobile commands 24 percent of time spent with media but accounts for only 8 percent of ad dollars spent.
Facebook and Twitter are growing but not like they used to. Revenue per user and monthly user growth is slowing. Facebook revenue per user is at $9.36, up 29 percent over last year, but growth neared 60 percent last year. Year-over-year user growth was 13 percent last quarter, the slowest growth ever.
Twitter revenue per user was $5.14, an increase of 45 percent over last year, whereas growth was 80 percent last year at this time. User growth was 18 percent, down from 25 percent a year ago.
The mobile ad industry as a whole grew 34 percent year over year, while desktop digital advertising only grew 11 percent.
Mobile ads are getting more motion but in short bursts. There are four new styles of ad: Pinterest's Cinematic Pins, Vessel 5-second video ads, Facebook Carousel ads, Google Local Inventory Ads.
Buy buttons equal optimized for mobile, and they have popped up across Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Vertical screens and vertical content are a big deal now with 29 percent of people's daily screen time spent looking at smartphones. Five years ago, time spent in front of such vertical-oriented screens was only 5 percent of overall viewing time.
Snapchat is all about vertical ads and says users watch them until the end nine times more frequently than they watch horizontal ads in its app.
Snapchat now has 100 million daily active users, and the app generates 2 billion video views a day. One event like Coachella can draw 40 million video views to Snapchat Live Stories.
Facebook gets 4 billion video views a day, 75 percent of which are from phones.
Pinterest is getting manlier with the number of men's fashion pins up almost 100 percent over a year ago—car and motorcycle pins were up 120 percent.
Watching video games like it's TV is becoming a top entertainment choice. Video game streaming site Twitch has 100 million monthly users now, an increase of or 122 percent.
Twitch can draw 1 million viewers at the same time.
Teens continue to be trendsetters. The five most important social networks for U.S. teens, in order, are Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Tumblr.
E-commerce is starting to pick up, with $300 billion in spending last year representing 9 percent of retail sales. E-sales accounted for less than 1 percent of retail revenue in 1998.
Alibaba, China's e-commerce giant, has more than $350 billion worth of merchandise on its platform. Amazon has closer to $100 billion worth.
Online, on-demand platforms are growing. Airbnb, for instance, has booked 35 million guests—25 million of those were in the last year. Uber drivers are up sixfold to more than 1 million. Etsy has 1.4 million sellers, up 26 percent.
The average Etsy seller makes $1,400 a year. The average Airbnb host makes $7,700 a year in New York.
China is huge and can be big for content. A documentary about smog, Under the Dome, got 200 million views in three days, and 41 percent came from the messaging app WeChat.
WeChat can be used for government services, too, in China, where it has 550 million users.
India will be the next frontier, opening opportunities for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Amazon.
Google I/O gave developers and marketers a look at the next-generation of services.
The future of marketing on Google devices is Now. The search giant held its annual developers conference today, providing a look at the future of its mobile operating system, the next iteration of what is tentatively called M—the next letter in the alphabet after the current OS, Lollipop.
At Google I/O, there were plenty of new features for developers and marketers to consider with an upgrade to Google Now, the hub of user activity that manages calendars, commutes, reservations and other daily tasks by integrating with apps.
Google is taking all the user habits it can learn, making suggestions and offering immediate choices like which restaurants to visit, reminders and offerings.
"This is the future of how we interact," said Michael Facemire, a principal analyst at Forrester. "It could come off as a little scary, or it can come off as very convenient."
In addition to the Google Now update, there were new features enabling offline use of Maps and YouTube, and there was a new operating system—Brillo, for the Internet of Things—that connects homes, cars and screens.
Here's what marketers should look for:
Google Now on Tap On Tap was the biggest improvement to Google Now. It's all about deeper integration of the service with the rest of Google. Google Now on Tap is immediately accessible when consumers are on the Web or in apps. The service also deep-links directly into apps, right to the spot users need, without having to navigate from the homepage. There are no ads yet in Google Now, but Facemire said they are not hard to imagine.
"It could be awfully similar to how you can bid for ad space on search pages," he said.
For instance, if a person is asking Google Now for a pizza or for a retailer, promoted options could be served up, as well.
"Google can set up an environment so that there can be an auction," Facemire said. "Brands could get their content to the top of that list."
Push notifications Another small but helpful new offering from Google involved notifications, which are among the most important ways apps and brands get their messages to users. Google Cloud Messaging, the system for managing push notifications, gives developers one place from which to send their messages to any contact, whether that user is on a Google or an Apple device.
"Before today you had to use two sets of pipes," Facemire said. It should be interesting to see how Apple responds to Google's attempts to insert itself into this process on iPhones, Facemire said.
Notifications are increasingly important for getting users back to apps and engaging with services, according to Urban Airship, a digital marketing firm that specializes in targeting pop-up messages based on the location and interests of users.
The more targeted the notifications, the more likely users are to appreciate them. To that end, Google also is giving apps the capability to customize notifications based on topics users say they want to hear about—and avoid sending ones that don't interest them.
App ads Google is doing more with app-install ads, introducing Universal App Campaigns that run through AdWords. This hub is a one-stop shop, mostly for smaller developers and advertising newcomers, to run app ads all over Google—Search, Play Store, YouTube and more.
Buy button This was discussed before Google I/O at the Code Conference put on by re/code. Google's chief business officer Omid Kordestani said shopping ads that appear in search and offer a direct line to inventory will feature a buy button. It's an important link for retailers that are finding success with shopping ads but need a hook to close the sale.
Get a sense of the scope of Mary Meeker's much-anticipated yearly State of the Internet. Learn how improved Twitter Analytics will help you better target buyers. We'll also share which social networks are most effective for marketing, and we'll surprise you with music that can be listened to only in the woods. Skim for the latest!
Unlike the universe, Internet growth won't expand forever. Venture capitalist Mary Meeker of KPCBdropped her always-anticipated Internet trends report, a must-read to understand where we're headed digitally.
Big takeaways: Internet user growth has begun to slow. It grew 8% in 2014, versus 10% the year before. Smartphone adoption is also slowing: 23% growth last year versus 27% the year prior. Video made up 64% of Internet traffic and 55% of mobile traffic in '14, which is huge—and Facebook specifically enjoys 4 billion video views per day.
Mobile viewing on its own accounts for 29% of our total time spent on screens this year, and Meeker predicts that messaging apps, like WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger, will transform into global communication hubs. Read the full deck:
To help advertisers better target and produce effective messages, Twitter's launched Audience Insights, which provides deeper details on your followers and people who've previously engaged with your organic tweets.
It will also help you identify new and relevant audiences for campaign targeting. Insights include demographics, interests, purchasing behavior, trends they like, and even their TV viewing behavior.
It'll launch in the US first, then in other markets in months to come. To access it, log in to ads.twitter.com and select "Audience Insights" under "Followers." (Or you can log in to analytics.twitter.com and choose "Followers.")
2. Because some things just shouldn't go viral
Here's some creative inspiration. MedExpress wanted to get people thinking about them whenever they have a virus, so it decided to declare war on anything that could go viral—including viral videos.
The company purchased a bunch of unskippable pre-roll ads that pop up whenever you're trying to watch content that is currently going viral. To stop the virality, an awkward medic proceeds to do the most annoying things he can think of. (Think terrible accordion- and harmonica-playing.)
How can you take advantage of online norms (like the "Skip Ad" feature) to create content that captivates?
3. Which socnets are most effective for marketing a business?
Half of marketers call Facebook the most important social network for growing and marketing their businesses (using the metrics of increased exposure and higher traffic), a cording to Social Media Examiner's 2015 industry report. (Of those surveyed, 61% were B2C; 39% were B2B.)
Some 21% of respondents called LinkedIn the most important socnet for them (although it was the top one among B2B marketers, at 41%); Twitter scored a distant third (12%), followed by—surprise—YouTube and Google, both at 4%.
If you look at use, however, figures vary: Facebook is the most-used network for marketers at 93%, Twitter comes in second (73%), and LinkedIn comes in third (71%). Guess we won't be quitting the 'Book anytime soon.
4. Salespeople favor Twitter over LinkedIn
Marketing's one kind of animal, sales is another. A Forbes sales survey found that salespeople consider Twitter more valuable than LinkedIn for prospecting! Several pros weighed in on why.
Vanessa Di Mauro of Leader Networks called Twitter "the bar after work," where relationships truly begin, whereas LinkedIn is more like a conference room. And John Barrows of Sales from the Streets called Twitter a powerful search engine, citing the ease of searching by hashtags to find out what people discuss most. He also said it's easier to connect with people on Twitter—you can follow them without permission, whereas to see LinkedIn updates, people must validate your connection.
So, for research and engagement, Twitter: 1; LinkedIn: 0. (At least for salesfolk.)
5. To invest in YouTube, brands want ad viewability transparency
You'd think that with video exploding, YouTube would be king right now—but that's not the case.
Per AdAge, Google announced this month that YouTube video ads have a 91% chance of being seen—but it won't let advertisers use third-party viewability companies to check that figure, so means big brands like Kellogg are pulling their budgets.
Many are concerned that despite big investments and charming promises, their ads aren't actually being seen. And if the numbers are as good as Google claims, the say, there shouldn't be an issue with permitting brands to hire independent companies to check viewability numbers and compare rates on their own.
We'll see whether big publishers let up. If they want to follow the money, they'll have to.
6. Facebook updates Messenger payments and extends them to NYC
In March, Facebook launched the ability to send money to others via Messenger. The option's now been extended to New York, and usability's also improved: In Messenger conversations, dollar amounts are hyperlinked automatically. When the link is tapped, Messenger will start the process of transferring payment to the person you're messaging. Senders must confirm the payment before sending.
This feature is especially handy for party planning, for one, where a group of people in Messenger can quickly pay one person to buy a gift without having to leave their chat. They'll also be able to see who paid whom, and how much.
This is just one more simple and intuitive effort to incorporate higher-quality, value-adding content to the socnet that consumes most of our online time anyway.
The reviews will appear as short summaries and are optimized for mobile. When clicked on, they'll drive people to the full reviews on publishers' sites. All the way from here, we can feel Yelp trembling.
8. Social media: Your prime partner for events
A Maximillion infographic provides tips and stats for using social media to power up your events. Advice includes creating a visual countdown: "share photos, infographics, or any other kind of interesting imagery to gently remind your audience about upcoming events."
And one piece of low-hanging fruit: "Invite a social media celebrity" with a big following to speak at your event. The fans that follow him or her will likely also boost event discussion on social. There's more where that came from.
9. Snapchat hires a programming head for better original content
As part of its ongoing effort to be more than just a pretty sext, ephemeral content platform Snapchat's hired Marcus Wiley as Head of Program Planning and Development. He'll be running Snap Channel, an original programming vertical on Snapchat's Discover section.
Part of his job will lie in building short-form narrative series in scripted, musical,and experimental formats, made to appeal to users age 13-34. That's a big margin, but it also means brands will be expected to come with higher production values and richer storytelling if they want to compete or make a mark on this coveted group.
Per Snapchat, users currently watch 2 billion videos a day on its app.
10. Who reads social networking ToS agreements?
Too few people, which should surprise... just as many. A Scoopshot report finds that over 30% of people surveyed never read the Terms of Service agreement when they join a socnet; 50% read them "sometimes"; and 18% "always" do.
Of those who do read the agreements, their top concern (43%) is how companies will use the content after they've uploaded it; 27% read them because "you always should"; and 24% read them because they want to protect their personal info.
As for trust: Facebook is trusted least of all in terms of how people perceive it as protecting their digital rights; Foap was trusted most.
The Swedish band feels its music is best appreciated when listeners are surrounded by nature… so they created an app that would let people listen to all the tracks before the album was released. The catch? The app is outfitted with GPS technology—and the music will play only when you're in the forest.
We love it for taking advantage of longtime technology in a new way... and cultivating a rich, multisensory and compulsively shareable experience for fans.
For a sense of what kind of music John Moose makes, listen to Flower.
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