Of the US companies polled by Constellation Research in Q2 and Q3 2018, 48% said they planned to increase their budgets for big data by more than 10% in the next year; 53% said the same for upping investment in cloud and SaaS data solutions.

According to a Q3 2018 survey by management consultant Globis Consulting of consumers in Germany and Austria who take at least one holiday per year, “online offerings have become the dominant information source for travel. Most people go direct to booking websites, and less often to pure information sites.

When social media marketing management platform Hootsuite surveyed its clients in Q3 2018, 48% said they either used or planned to use influencer marketing with well-known or celebrity influencers, while 45% used or planned to use microinfluencers who have smaller, highly engaged audiences.

They grew rapidly over the next 18 months before peaking in Q3 2017. According to Merkle, roughly 6% of Google text ads for branded queries now come from “Get location details” clicks, which are all coming from map ads. “Part of that might be that they’re looking ahead and thinking about how Maps ads will work in the future,” Merkle’s Taylor said.

Media buyers interviewed in Q3 2017 for our previous “Amazon Advertising” report frequently called out rising prices on the platform, especially within AMS, and that story continues into 2018 as more advertisers than ever are active on Amazon.

PubMatic’s Swanson made the same point with respect to OTT digital video delivery and connected TV (CTV)—but highlighted difficulties in the short term. “Given the penetration of smart TVs and streaming devices … publishers and app developers have created a deluge of content for them.