CPMs—the cost of a thousand impressions—on core Facebook grew a whopping 66% from Q4 2020 to Q4 2021, even as impressions decreased 22% over the same period, according to data provided by performance marketing agency Tinuiti. Apple itself is a beneficiary.

Mobile dominates the digital ad market, and Apple dominates the smartphone market. We estimate that mobile ad spending will reach $162.68 billion this year, accounting for more than two-thirds (67.8%) of US digital ad spending.

We estimate that US adults will spend 23 extra minutes a day on smartphones in 2020, totaling 3 hours, 6 minutes. The smartphone has become a major portal to the digital sites that have most benefited from people staying at home. “The dominant access point for all those things across the attention stack is a mobile device,” Thompson said.

The rise of smartphone-driven “couch commerce.” Gathering on the couch to shop Black Friday deals on mobile devices has become an unofficial post-Thanksgiving meal tradition in recent years. Unlike the desktop ecommerce era when Thursday shopping meant scurrying off into another room, smartphones have given family members license to get a jump on Thanksgiving weekend shopping without being antisocial.

An InMobi survey of US consumers in mid-March found that 73% reported spending more time on their smartphones. A Morning Consult survey found that 58% of US adults reported spending more time on the smartphones since the start of the coronavirus crisis.

Under iOS 13, iPhone users already have the ability to opt out of IDFA, but this Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) option exists in the operating system settings. According to marketing analytics firm Singular in March this year, over 30% of iPhone users in the US had signed up for LAT. But iOS 14 will eventually force all users to make a choice on whether to limit ad tracking or allow it.

This week, YouTube has rolled out an audio-first ad unit in beta, available via auction on Google platforms, including Google Ads and Digital & Video 360, on a CPM basis. Previously, ads running during music content on YouTube were supported by programmatic video ad buys on YouTube. YouTube US Ad Spending.

Trend No. 5: iPhone 12 Will Supercharge Mobile AR. The iPhone 12 Pro became the first phone to have a back-facing Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) camera, which enables more sophisticated augmented reality (AR). (Top-end Android phones use a similar Time-of-Flight, or ToF sensor.)

It’s a given that marketers are interested in uncovering ways to smartly invest national linear TV ad spend to compensate for price inflation, although 2020 CPMs have dramatically declined. According Philip Inghelbrecht, CEO and co-founder of TV ad agency Tatari, there was about a 40% drop in CPMs among the networks it bought inventory from.

Social media advertising will remain vulnerable in Q2 and possibly longer. CPMs will stay low, spending cuts will persist, and ad creative will be tricky to get right.

Daily internet access via smartphones made substantial gains since 2016, according to Cefrio. In 2019, 79% of smartphone owners in Quebec indicated daily usage via their devices, up from 67% in 2016. Daily smartphone internet access among 18- to 24-year-olds was 95%, and it was slightly lower for those ages 25 to 34, at 93%.