Business Insider Intelligence research analyst Daniel Keyes and eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Andrew Lipsman discuss how Amazon tripled its revenues during an economic recession. They then talk about how Pinterest posted such strong Q3 growth, Walmart converting some stores into ecommerce labs, and Under Armour selling its smartphone app MyFitnessPal.

Last year, China was the only market to see overall ad spending growth, although digital ad spending performed well almost everywhere. This year, every country will see growth in almost every category.

Social commerce accelerated in the US in 2020 amid the pandemic-driven ecommerce boom as key platforms advanced their shopping and checkout capabilities.

On today's episode, we discuss Pinterest's unique advertising challenges, how its user growth compares with the other digital advertising giants, and the balance between shopping and buying on the platform. We then talk about what is most important to customers using curbside pickup, how Target capped off an exceptional 2020, and how to fairly measure in-store retail's performance going forward as stores reopen with limited capacity. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer analyst at Insider Intelligence Daniel Keyes.

In the beginning of her tenure as Pinterest’s first-ever CMO, Andréa Mallard established the company’s mission and core brand principles, reorganizing her team prior to the successful IPO. Now she’s focused on an aggressive global growth plan.

For example, a June 2019 report from mobile attribution technology company Singular showed that only 14% of companies worldwide had a chief growth officer. The survey defined the role as a “growth catalyst who leads growth with an emphasis on performance marketing with a heavy reliance on marketing technology.”.

This year, growth will accelerate to 26.9% as social networks account for more than one in five US ad dollars. The fastest-growing social networks last year among those we break out included Snapchat (up 42.8% in 2020, an acceleration over 31.4% growth in 2019), Pinterest (38.9%, down from 43.5% in 2019), and reddit (which grew 71.7% last year from a much smaller base than the other companies).

eMarketer junior forecasting analyst Nazmul Islam breaks down our latest US Pinterest user forecast and the impact of new features like “Shop the Look.”

The increased activity led Pinterest to prioritize developing new features such as the “Today” tab, a curated section with regularly updated content. A feature like this could help keep its new users engaged. We expect Pinterest will have 88.0 million users in 2020, up by 7.4% year over year (YoY). Previously, we had expected 4.5% growth this year.

Pinterest surpassed Snapchat as the third-biggest social media platform in the US in 2019, and it will continue to stay ahead in the coming years, according to our latest social user estimates.

An expected economic recovery in 2021 bodes well for Canada’s advertising market.

While the number of US marketers that use Pinterest continues to steadily rise, the platform is trying to increase advertisers’ interest by expanding its search products and diversifying its audience by adding more male users.