Social media ad spend to surpass print for first time
Ad spending in 2019 will for the first time see social media topping print, with global spending growth up 20 percent increasing to $84 billion, according to recently-released forecast data from Zenith. Marketing Land

LinkedIn Launches Events to Facilitate Professional Meet-Ups
LinkedIn (client) has released a robust new tool allowing users to create and manage events pages, the culmination of a program first announced late last year, the professional social networking firm revealed this week. Social Media Today

Facebook testing ads in Groups tab
Facebook has begun allowing certain advertisers to utilize new mobile Facebook Groups ads, as part of an Ads Manager test, the social giant recently announced. Should the option eventually be rolling out to all advertisers, digital marketers will be able to target new audiences with mobile group ads. Marketing Land

LinkedIn takes the top spot for the third straight year in our annual Digital Trust Report — and Facebook remains in dead last
For the third consecutive year LinkedIn (client) has garnered the most-trusted social media platform spot, according to Business Insider Intelligence’s Digital Trust Report, which also saw Facebook ranked at the bottom. Business Insider

Instagram in-stream video ads driving more purchases than Story Ads: Report
Instagram’s in-stream video advertisements have edges out Story ads, according to new report data, with some 12 percent of consumers making a purchase after seeing a story video, while 27 percent did so after watching an in-feed video ad. Marketing Land

B2B Personalization Strategies Pivoting As Buyers Require Confidence, Consensus
A new survey from Gartner reveals that there is plentiful high-quality buying information available to B2B buyers, even to the point where 50 percent view the large amount of trustworthy data at hand as overwhelming. Demand Gen Report

Giphy to partner with Oracle Data Cloud’s Moat to measure viewability
Animated GIF image firm Giphy has partnered with Oracle Data Cloud’s analytics and measurement platform Moat to measure branded GIFs used with in-app and via mobile and desktop landscapes — a move aimed at providing greater validation to branded content on the service. Marketing Land

YouTube starts phasing out exact subscriber numbers
YouTube has begun removing precise subscriber counts for channels with over 1,000 followers, replacing them with rounded overview numbers, the Google-owned video service recently announced. The move has left some brands with subscriber accuracy concerns, especially large ones that could see rounded counts hiding nearly a million subscribers. Campaign US

Now Facebook says it may remove Like counts
Facebook has begun testing the elimination of “like” counts in news-feed posts, the social media giant recently confirmed, in a move echoing a similar shift from tests conducted with its Instagram property — aimed at placing greater focus on content and less on “like” counts. TechCrunch

95% of B2B marketers consider demand creation strategy to be successful
Some 95 percent of B2B marketers view their demand generation tactics as successful, and 60 percent see email marketing as the top-performing demand-gen strategy, according to newly-released study data of interest to digital marketers. ClickZ

PubMatic Reports 26% Increase in Mobile In-App Advertising
Mobile advertising within apps saw impressions increase by 26 percent in the second quarter of 2019 compared to last year, according to new report data, also showing that in-app mobile video is increasingly driving ad spending. MarTech Advisor

LinkedIn Launches New Insights Hub to Provide Additional Audience Insights
LinkedIn has released an expanded version of its SuccessHub marketing data and insights feature, providing additional audience and more finely-tuned LinkedIn (client) market data, the firm recently announced. Social Media Today

Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click
Most Google searches don’t yield subsequent clicks, with 50.33 percent ending on the search giant’s result page, according to newly-released data from Jumpshot, also showing 45.25 percent of searches resulting in organic clicks and 4.42 percent in paid advertisement clicks. SparkToro

Spotify for Podcasters provides data on demographics, listening habits
Now out of beta, a new Spotify podcast analytics dashboard has brought marketers new engagement data and other information on the listening habits of the firms’ users, in an expansion of its targeted podcast advertising system. Marketing Land

Google: Says Dates On Articles Makes It Easier To Recognize High-Quality Evergreen Content
Google has reiterated its admonition that Web articles ought to include date information, which the firm considers a factor when it comes to recognizing high-quality online content, the search giant’s John Mueller recently noted. SEO Roundtable

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