Media and entertainment companies are increasing their digital ad spend at a greater rate than other verticals as revenues surge in the music and film industries and digital video and gaming platforms try to outcompete one another.

Retail ad budgets continue to grow at a steady pace as retail stalwarts battle disruption from Amazon and other digitally savvy companies.

Telecom and consumer electronics companies are increasing their digital ad spend as they adjust to rapidly changing technology developments.

Thanks to rising competition and a strong economy, travel companies are increasing their digital ad budgets.

This report covers key events in the global social media market, new data, trends and business activity in Q2 2019. It also includes our updated forecasts for social network users in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and worldwide.

eMarketer senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu shares our usage numbers for Instagram and what is driving growth in Canada. Watch now.

How will advertising on Facebook evolve at a time when regulators are circling, advertisers are getting restless and consumer attitudes are sliding? This report, informed by extensive conversations with dozens of brand and agency executives, details our expectations over the next 24 months.

Some influencers accept free products as payment for endorsements, others charge thousands of dollars for a single post. While the compensation scale varies by following and content type, some marketers are concerned that teaming up with social media influencers is getting expensive.

eMarketer principal analyst Nicole Perrin and vice president of content studio Paul Verna join host Marcus Johnson to discuss the most interesting stories this week: what makes people nervous about the sharing economy, finding something interesting to watch on streaming platforms and why Marriott got fined $125 million. Plus, they discuss how to protect children online, bring you the game of the week and share unhelpful dinner party facts.

Instagram's new Explore page ads will bring more opportunities for marketers—but they also raise concerns about the limit of organic reach, which some claim has already happened in the Instagram feed. Savvy marketers have established best practices to get their content featured on Explore, but when ads are introduced, it could become more challenging to appear there organically.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson discusses Instagram’s evolution by analyzing some of the most important emerging trends. She also weighs in on why people follow or unfollow brands, the “like” feature and TikTok’s interest-based ad targeting.

eMarketer principal analysts Nicole Perrin and Andrew Lipsman join host Marcus Johnson for our review of the most interesting stories this week, including figuring out the value of your data, paying for a premium email service and Instagram’s new Explore ads. We also discuss the cost of an ad-free internet, bring you the game of the week, useless dinner party data and more!

We forecast that US retail ecommerce sales of health, personal care and beauty products will surpass $53 billion this year, up 18.6% from 2018, making it the second-fastest growing category among those we track—slightly slower than food and beverage.

US advertisers are committing more dollars upfront for linear TV and digital video, however the percentage of digital video ads being sold programmatically continues to increase.

Instagram has introduced a branded content feature that will soon bring sponsored influencer posts to your newsfeed—even if you don't follow their account.

After initially struggling to gain traction, social commerce has finally begun to materialize as platforms, including Instagram and Pinterest, fill the need for discovery in the digital shopping environment.

Facebook users are spending less time on the social platform, and that is leading to a reduction in overall time spent with social networks in the US. Time spent on social networks declined by 1 minute last year, a stark difference from the cumulative 13-minute gain in 2016 and 2017.

Social commerce is on the rise as visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram fill a need for product discovery. By developing an effective social commerce strategy, brands and retailers can drive awareness, affinity, consideration and conversion.

The majority of social commerce in the US takes place on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, though Snapchat is also part of the mix.

As media time reaches a saturation point, consumers in Canada are showing a decided taste for the immediacy of digital.