US digital ad spend up 18% YoY, new IAB report says
Digital advertising expenditures in the U.S. increased by 18 percent year-over-over from the first quarter of 2018, hitting $28.4 billion, with paid search comprising some 40%, according to new report data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). ClickZ

B2B Buyers Prefer Email, But That’s Only One Of Their Demands, Study Finds
41 percent of B2B buyers consider email as their preferred channel, with some 57 percent preferring quotes to come via the channel, while 33 percent choose vendors based on reference reviews, according to newly-released survey data. MediaPost

Report: Instagram Story ad share doubles while overall ad growth levels out
Instagram Story ad spending doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent year-over-year from the second quarter of 2018, reaching levels that are now similar to those of Facebook, according to newly-released report data from Kenshoo. Marketing Land

2018 B2B Video Completion Rates and Other Benchmarks
Business videos four minutes or shorter saw the highest completion rates — between between 50 – 68 percent — while those over 20 minutes saw the lowest, around 25 percent, just some of the research of interest to digital marketers in newly-released B2B video study data. MarketingCharts

New Study Looks at the Most Popular YouTube Content, and Highlights Key Trends
YouTube video content was the subject of a new Pew Research study that examined popular channels with 250K or more subscribers. Among them, just 10 percent produced 70 percent of the content, the research showed. Social Media Today

Less is more when it comes to online advertising, research suggests
Brand recall may decrease when ad exposure rises too much, according to newly-released research. Four or more digital ad exposures brought brand awareness rates down by 3 percent, while two and three online ad exposures increased brand awareness by 6 percent, new study data from Sublime has shown. Campaign

Google Makes YouTube Masthead Ads Available to All Advertisers
Google has eased restrictions on YouTube masthead advertisements, making the premium placement ad type — which had only been offered as a part of full-day takeovers — available to all advertisers. Marketers can also now buy on a cost-per-thousand basis, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Journal

B2B Buyers Demand Personalization Above All Else, Study Finds
B2B buyers place the highest value on personalization, according to a newly-released report based on a survey of some 1,000 B2B leaders, which also showed that 30 percent make more than half of their purchases using digital platforms, up significantly from 15 percent in 2017. MediaPost

Influencer marketing spend grows 83%
Influencer marketing spending in the U.S. and Canada has seen 83 percent year-over-year growth, accompanied by second-quarter spending of $442 million, according to newly-released research data of interest to marketers. The Drum

How Will Twitter’s Redesign Impact Social Media Managers?
Twitter recently updated its desktop design to more closely resemble its mobile experience, a change that has affected how and what digital marketers can do on the desktop experience, and presenting both new opportunities and several challenges. Social Media Today

LinkedIn updates Campaign Manager, adds brand awareness, conversion campaign options
LinkedIn has rolled out a number of campaign conversion improvements and new brand awareness additions to its Campaign Manager. The updates are poised to enhance LinkedIn’s (client) objective-based ad platform goals. Marketing Land

Brands ‘Out Of Touch’ With American Women
61 percent see portrayal in advertising as completely out of touch, and 56 percent want brands to stand up for women, according to newly-released data from Kantar’s U.S Monitor survey of Americans’ attitudes, values and motivations. MediaPost

Survey Reports 60% of Marketers Ignore Consumer Expectations; Still Rely on Single-Channel Customer Engagement
Some 60 percent of marketers fail to take into account consumer expectations, while 95 percent see increasing expectations from customers — two of several findings of interest to digital marketers in new report data from Maropost. MarTech Advisor

Facebook brings back reach estimates for Custom Audiences
After a year-plus absence and with new security measures in place, marketers can once again use Facebook’s estimated reach data for Custom Audience campaigns, the social giant recently announced. Marketing Land

Google Maps Launches Place Topics
Google announced that its Google Maps now includes review-based data for a new Place Topics feature. The new local search information from this automated feature could potentially have the greatest impact on B2B firms. Search Engine Roundtable

Social ad spend reached almost $18bn in Q1 2019, but growth has halved in past year
Revenues from advertising on social media and messaging platforms climbed 26.2 percent year-over-year during the first quarter of 2019, but at a slower rate than last year, according to recently-released data from Warc Data. Some platforms are looking to diversify in light of social media usage times that have remained steady. Mobile Marketing Magazine

How Are Businesses Going About Retaining Their Customers?
A recent brand loyalty tactics survey highlighted the differences between B2B and B2C when it comes to customer retention. More than 300 B2B and B2C business leaders were surveyed, with 97 percent having made customer retention a top priority. Some 68 percent of B2B respondents were confident in their firms’ retention prioritization, with 29 percent noting that they could do better, and only 14 percent of B2B respondents noting that customer experience and support was a top priority. MarketingCharts

The podcast industry expected to create $1 billion in annual revenue by 2021
By 2021 podcast advertising is expected to top $1 billion in annual revenue, according to newly-released forecast data. Such a strong projection by IAB could drive even more marketers to explore podcasting options. The Verge

B2C, B2B Purchase Journeys Follow Similar Paths
A newly-released Forrester study shows that 52 percent of marketers have seen more similarities in B2B and B2C customer behavior the past two years, as B2B takes on more of the energy of B2C, just one of several findings of interest to digital marketers in the new research. CMO.com

5 key takeaways from the 2019 Edelman brand trust survey
Edelman has released its 2019 Trust Barometer report, showing that 75 percent of consumers value trust over trendiness, and a wide swatch of other digital marketing insights. AdAge

63% Marketers Struggle To Implementing AR in Advertising Reports, Unity Technologies
55.8 percent of creatives expect to consider an augmented reality (AR) campaign during the upcoming year, and 54.1 percent of those who have already used AR campaigns have been satisfied with the user engagement gained, two of the findings from a new study of AR in advertising. MarTech Advisor

Social Media Usage Statistics for 2019 Reveal Surprising Shifts
A look at the latest Edison Research and Triton Digital Social Habit study shows largely unchanged social media usage over the past four years, growth for Instagram among young Americans, a drop in Facebook’s popularity, and several other statistics of interest to digital marketers. Convince and Convert

Silence is golden: preparing for the sound-off mobile ad ecosystem
A look at optimizing video ad creative for silence, the impact of HAVOC (Human, Audible, Viewable On Completion), and measuring viewability in an age when some 85-90% of branded videos are viewed with audio muted. The Drum

Mary Meeker’s Annual Tech Report Outlines Coming Shifts in Social Media and Digital Marketing
The highly-anticipated Internet Trends report for 2019 has been released, including data of interest to digital marketers. For more than 21 years venture capitalist Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins, has researched and put out the report, this year weighing in at 333 pages. Social Media Today

Voice Search Study: Factors Influencing Search Engine Rankings in 2019
20 percent of Android Google App searches now come from voice, and a new SEMrush study examines ranking factors including the importance of first-page placement and other facets of voice search. SEMrush