Lane Ellis

LinkedIn Rolls Out Articles for Pages
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) has launched a new feature that gives pages the ability to share long-form content on the professional social platform, an addition that comes amidst an array of other new features including an enhanced LinkedIn Live Events experience for creating more robust virtual events, the company recently announced. Adweek

Instagram is Developing a New ‘Montage’ Feature to Convert Stories to Reels, New ‘Favorites’ Listing
Facebook-owned Instagram has been testing a new option intended to make it easy for digital marketers to convert existing Instagram Stories content into brief Reels video clips, including automatically synced audio. New tool options for signaling favorite audience selections have also recently undergone testing on the platform — both changes that could eventually enhance how marketers use Instagram. Social Media Today

Almost Half of B2B Orgs Say It’s Become More Difficult to Close Deals
Finalizing B2B deals has become more difficult since the pandemic began, with some 46 percent of B2B organizations citing buying decisions being placed on hold as the primary cause, while 43 percent said that their organization viewed buyer re-prioritization as the top reason, followed by budget cutting, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts

Marketing’s Tech-tonic Shift: 90% Have Changed Their Digital Strategies [Salesforce Study]
66 percent of marketing leaders expect revenue growth in the coming 12 to 18 months, with the top portions of B2B marketing budgets being spent on advertising, tools and technology, account based marketing (ABM), content, and staffing, according to newly-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

B2B US Digital Ad Spend Forecast for 2021-2023
Digital advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to nearly triple from 2018 levels, to some $14.57 billion by 2023, with $5.09 billion expected to be spend on display adverting in 2021 — a 32.6 percent increase from 2020, according to newly-released forecast data. MarketingProfs

Zoom Initiates $14.7B Acquisition Of Five9
Zoom has agreed to purchase Five9, with the $14.7 billion addition of the contact center as a service (CCaaS) firm poised to augment Zoom’s enterprise offerings, the firms recently announced. Demand Gen Report

Spotify ties Nielsen demos to audience measurement on podcasts
Spotify has released a new podcast measurement tool utilizing Nielsen audience demographic data, in an expanded collaboration that is set to provide additional insights to podcast marketers through Spotify’s Megaphone advertising unit, the firm recently announced. Campaign US

LinkedIn Acquires Tutorial Video App Jumprope as it Looks to Expand its Creator Tools
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn (client) has acquired video tutorial creation app firm Jumprope, with the array of creator tools from the acquisition set to help enhance LinkedIn Learning and other areas of the professional social media platform, the company recently announced. Social Media Today

Google parent Alphabet reaches record quarterly revenue, profit in ad boom
Google and its parent firm Alphabet saw an especially strong 70 percent increase in advertising revenue during the second quarter of 2021, the company recently disclosed. That equates to some $560 million is advertising revenue per day during the quarter, and a year-over-year increase of 62 percent, rebounding from the firm’s only revenue decline a year ago due to the global health crisis. Reuters

US B2B ad spend set to pass $30b in 2023, nearly half the dollars will go to digital
In the U.S. alone B2B advertising spending is expected to top $30 billion by 2023, with almost half going to digital, while display advertising spending is expected to surpass that of search advertising by 2023 — two of several insights of interest to digital marketers in newly-released forecast data. The Drum

Salesforce completes $27.7B Slack acquisition
Salesforce has put finishing touches on its $27.7 billion acquisition of business communication platform Slack, with the now-official purchase set to combine Salesforce’s data platform Customer 360 with Slack, Salesforce recently announced. Venture Beat