Experimenting with advertising channels can yield up to 3% better advertising performance, research shows.

During the pandemic, consumers made fewer local searches, and local search advertising dropped dramatically.

In this year’s “Key Digital Trends” report, we examine changes coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2021—including legislation, privacy, entertainment, social media, and more—and why they matter to marketers.

Advances in AI and predictive analytics are using consumer scores to automate business decisions to predict things like risk and fraud. But concerns over fairness mean companies need to make scores transparent to consumers.

A majority share of consumers are now taking to marketplaces first when shopping online. According an August 2020 survey from ecommerce ad agency ChannelAdvisor conducted by Dynata, 53% of US adults said they began product searches at Amazon when planning to make a digital purchase.

Though many companies struggle with diversity and inclusion in their advertising, some are making strides.

Though several of the largest smart speaker developers—including Amazon, Google, and Apple—and other retailers hope to entice more shopping and buying via voice, consumers are not nearly as enthusiastic. As a result, we have downgraded our forecasts for smart speaker shoppers and buyers from previous years.

Today’s sociopolitical events have lit a fire under brands to address social injustice and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in deeper ways than they have in the past. Companies are using marketing and advertising to respond to and support discussions about systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter protests, the fight for LGBTQ rights, the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and issues of immigration reform, to name a few.

Walmart has reported a significant uptick in digital sales over the past six months, and it has likely won business from Amazon as the pandemic affected logistics.

Search ad spending in the US will rise by 5.9% this year, significantly below trend, in the face of the massive disruption to consumer lifestyles. But the pandemic is setting search up for a bigger future.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom, principal analyst Nicole Perrin, and research analyst at Insider Intelligence Mariel Soto Reyes discuss the possible outcomes of the US Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against Google.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom, principal analyst Nicole Perrin and research analyst at Insider Intelligence Mariel Soto Reyes discuss the US Department of Justice's suit against Google. What are Google and the government's cases? What is a monopoly? What constitutes anticompetitive behavior? And is Google inadvertently harming consumers?

The 2020 US holiday season, set amid the backdrop of a pandemic-driven consumer economy, will see an unprecedented shift to ecommerce.

Business Insider Intelligence research associate Hirsch Chitkara and eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Mark Dolliver and Nicole Perrin discuss the latest intelligence report from the US House of Representatives, what it could mean for advertisers, and what its findings might mean for the future of Facebook.

As much as consumer behavior and the wider economic situation influence the app economy, Apple and Google do as well. With their commissions on in-app purchases (IAPs) and subscriptions, and with their rules surrounding data and advertising, they can make or break different monetization strategies. The changes set to take effect in early 2021 under Apple’s iOS 14, especially, have upended app monetization.

One of the unique qualities of retail media advertising is the ability to use closed-loop attribution, tying ad engagements to sales. This is possible because the same company is running the ad and selling the product advertised. Brands often look to Amazon and Walmart.com because those sites facilitate closed-loop attribution—and with the ongoing disruptions to digital identity, this tool will likely provide even greater advantages to those who use it.

Programmatic podcast ad spending, which we are forecasting for the first time this year, is growing at a fast rate from a small base.