That’s a mere 1.0% of total digital ad spending in the country, according to IAB Canada—a mismatch when considering the amount of time consumers spend with audio formats. Spotify’s recent expansion efforts will help advertisers reach its growing audience of 10.7 million Canadian listeners in 2022. The company announced additional hiring in Canada to bolster its ad sales team in September 2021.

Episode 2: Global Digital Ad Spending 2019. Episode 3: How Consumers Spend Time with Media. Episode 4: Global Ecommerce. Episode 5: Digital Ad Spending by Industry. Episode 6: Consumer Attitudes on Marketing. Episode 7: Digital Video. Episode 8: Global Mobile Payments. Episode 9: Programmatic Digital Display Ad Spending.

The US has been relatively late in introducing contactless cards, which are credit or debit cards that include a near field communication (NFC) chip that can complete a transaction simply by tapping on a reader. But those cards are starting to arrive in the US now that most point-of-sale (POS) systems in the US have the NFC capabilities to accept them.

The coronavirus has upended the US travel industry. Fears of infection, governmental measures restricting travel and access to public places, and the economic downturn will depress bookings, sales and ad spending in 2020 and beyond.

While China and the US have signed Phase 1 of their trade deal, the pandemic has thrown both economies into uncertainty. The whirlwind of challenges has dimmed marketers’ confidence in spending on advertising overall. But programmatic remains a bright spot for struggling ad markets at this time, which stand to benefit from the streamlined, nonhuman processes inherent to automated ad buying.

On the bright side, 2020 digital advertising spend is expected to grow, albeit at a slower pace. TV advertising activity, however, was less resilient than digital, although its outlook for Q4 2020 and Q1 2021 is a bit more optimistic. In general, the future of advertising investments, including TV, will be heavily tied to the pandemic.

That was supercharged during the lockdown and was illustrated by the drop in ad spending overall while digital ad spending rose. Social platforms and video placements will become increasingly important channels to consumers. Shallow “cause marketing” is never a good look.

Such pressure can already be evidenced by the fact that digital ad spend in this industry will grow by 8.1% in 2020, below the 10.1% growth rate for UK digital ad spending across all industries. This will result in the automotive industry accounting for a diminished proportion of total digital ad spending in the country—12.9%, down from 13.2% in 2019.

About four in 10 US and UK adults surveyed in February 2020 by Adobe said cookies, along with pop-up ads and alerts, were the most frustrating part of engaging with a brand’s content. Almost two-thirds (63%) of US adults surveyed in June 2019 by the Pew Research Center correctly understood that cookies allow websites to track user visits and site activity.

One of the top pieces of advice to inhibit the spread of the coronavirus being passed along to the US public by health organizations is to limit time spent in public settings. And so, the US government is encouraging consumers to turn to virtual consultations with docs in nonurgent situations in lieu of making trips to the hospital.