But Instagram Stories ad spending is growing faster than Feed and will gain a couple percentage points in share over the next two years, reaching 26.7% by 2023. We estimate that Stories will contribute $11.43 billion to Instagram net worldwide ad revenues in 2021, up 65.6% YoY. Ad spending in the Instagram Feed will increase 46.1% YoY this year, to $32.35 billion.

With US digital ad spend projected to increase nearly 15% this year, brand partnerships can be a valuable component of the marketing mix. Transformational partnerships, in particular, power growth opportunities with many distinctive benefits.

International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. Motion Picture Association. Themed Entertainment Association.

Meta’s lawsuits, settlements, and consumer sentiment are a mounting problem: The company can’t acquire its way out of this one.

Data on the number of users that have opted in to app tracking on iOS varies, but a recent report from app analytics provider Flurry places it at around 23% of iOS users worldwide. For more on how Facebook advertisers can navigate the changes from Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, look out for our upcoming report, “Facebook Advertising 2021,” publishing in Q4. Product Updates.

Last year, while much of the industry predicted a resurgence of ad spend and a connected TV (CTV) market boom, among other things—a few commonly-repeated predictions simply didn’t pan out. Here are three big predictions for 2021 that never came to be, and the learnings we can draw from them. 1. Ad tech fervor would die down.

As retail’s digital dominance grows, Google successfully captures retail ad dollars: Its investments in social commerce on YouTube and improvements to Google Shopping appear to have paid off.

Regulators worldwide are also closely watching AWS to ensure it complies with an increasingly complex patchwork of local laws governing international data transfers. Margin pressures: Even venture capitalists are starting to question the true costs of operating in the cloud.

Long-time Olympics advertisers face controversy, waning viewership: Brands sponsoring the event are staying hushed to avoid upsetting domestic and international consumers.

While #CancelSpotify was trending on Twitter on Friday, most advertisers are not currently pulling their Spotify advertising spend or speaking out on the issue. Similarly, most advertisers haven’t pulled their advertising spend from Meta over controversies on its platforms, though brands did boycott Facebook for a month over hate speech and disinformation concerns.

—Riikka Söderlund, Global Director of Marketing, Smartly.io.