Forecast: US Social Network Ad Spending.

Virtual product placements are about to become big business: Both Amazon and NBCUniversal touted new ad units during the NewFronts.

Google, Meta to get boost from Western Europe digital ad spending: Total category expenditures to exceed $90 billion this year, fueled by appeal of search and display formats.

Despite uncertainty stemming from ongoing challenges in identity resolution, programmatic display ad spending is steadily taking on an ever-greater share of total US digital display ad spending.

Podcasts attract diverse audiences, but room for improvement is seen: Racial breakdown of podcast listeners nearly mirrors that of the US as a whole.

The number of US users watching ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) will surpass 140 million in 2022, up 8.6% YoY. In all, we project two-thirds of the US population will watch CTV content in 2022. That figure is about 14 percentage points higher than it was five years ago. We project a 33.1% increase in connected TV (CTV) ad revenues for 2022, to $18.89 billion.

The news: China’s advertising industry is softening, but the world’s second-largest ad market behind the US will still produce growth, per our updated forecast. The country’s total media ad spending and digital media ad spending will expand this year by 9.2% and 11.5%, respectively, their lowest growth rates on record. Traditional channels continue to fall out of vogue.

Digital ad revenues are on the rise overall—US revenues jumped 35% to $189 billion last year, and we forecast that US spending will jump from $248.8 billion in 2022 to 284.1 billion in 2023—but the uncertain state of the economy and fears of a recession could cause advertisers to reel in spending. Snap’s news dragged down other social stocks. Meta, Pinterest, Twitter, and more all fell Tuesday.

On today's episode, in our "Retail Me This, Retail Me That" segment, we discuss direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands: where they started, what they’re up to now, and where they’re headed. Then for "Pop-Up Rankings," we rank the top five D2Cs that are going to endure in the digital age. Join our analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts analyst Andrew Lipsman.

On today's episode, we discuss how many people are cryptocurrency owners, which direct-to-consumer companies are leading the category, and what Meta's overall ad revenues total up to. "In Other News," we talk about the number of people who aren't using the internet and whether consumer enthusiasm for DoorDash will remain high. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Whitney Birdsall and Nazmul Islam.

Two years in, Meta’s latest ecommerce effort fails to resonate: Retailers are frustrated by the lack of basic elements, such as the ability to display products in multiple colors.