In August, ad spending dropped for the third month in a row. But the outlook for spending isn’t so cut and dry. “If you start at that pre-pandemic point and you plot a curve to where we are now, we're actually not doing so badly,” our analyst Paul Verna said on a recent “Behind the Numbers” podcast.

It can be challenging to keep up with all the things that have changed over the past few years. But don’t worry, we’re here to help.

Are Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Discovery+, and Peacock on their way from five to two? Our analyst Jeremy Goldman thinks it could happen by 2025. He shared his thoughts on a recent “Behind the Numbers” podcast.

YouTube is toying with its ad strategy. The platform is beefing up Shorts by including ads; it tested users’ ad tolerance by running as many as 10 unskippable ads before videos. The experiment has been a headache for users, but the central question isn't new: How many ads and ad breaks will users put up with?

As Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram chase TikTok’s success in cornering short-form video, the race underscores just how important video has become as a marketing channel.

High-end luxury is having a moment. Consumers in this category haven’t been hurt by inflation the same way the average US consumer has, so brands need to elevate to hold onto them.

We’ve increased our forecast for US influencer marketing spend for next year from $4.6 billion to over $6 billion, following TikTok’s explosion.

This week on Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail, analysts Yory Wurmser and Sky Canaves discussed mcommerce trends with host Sara Lebow.

Among US podcast ads, pre-roll spots generated about 5% more website visits during Q2 than those in the middle of an episode. While that margin is fairly slim, both placements produced better results than post-roll, likely because earlier spots catch listeners before they drop off.

This week, our Reimagining Retail podcast crew gave their predictions on what will drive the next phase of ecommerce growth, ranked from least “spicy” to four-alarm fire.

Who took home the trophy and who went home with a consolation prize? We asked our Retail Reimagined team to give us the lowdown.

This week, our Reimagining Retail podcast crew talked about which retailers had the biggest opportunity in terms of sustainability as a follow up to our newly released “US Retail Sustainability Perceptions Benchmark 2022.”

We talked with our Reimagining Retail team to see if they could provide a little insight.

Digital audio has been taking up more than an hour per day of US adults’ time since 2016, and 2022 will be another year of solid growth. They will consume an additional 3 minutes per day of digital audio this year, to reach 1:40. Among active digital audio listeners, the daily figure will be a robust 2:17.

Spotify is the No. 1 digital audio service among US teens and adults, with 35% digital audio listeners ages 12 and older using that platform the most. YouTube Music comes in at No. 2, with 18%, while Pandora rounds out the top three at 15%.

About two-thirds of the US population ages 12 and older listens to digital audio at least once per week, up 5 percentage points from 2021. Over the past decade, that share has grown by 38 percentage points, making the weekly listenership now 192 million strong.

Podcasting finds favor with brand advertisers: US ad spending on podcasts is growing at double-digit rates and will pass $2 billion in 2023.

We forecast that US podcast ad spending will surpass $2 billion next year and $3 billion by 2026. Podcasts will account for over a quarter of digital audio services ad spending in 2022 and will be more than a third of spending by the end of 2026.

Podcasts have Spotify seeing dollar signs. The company’s US podcast ad revenues will hit $191.9 million in 2022 and cross the $400 billion mark in 2024, with growth well into the double-digit percentages. The format will also make up an increasing share of Spotify’s overall ad revenues: 16.7% of its $1.15 billion in US ad revenues this year, before growing to 19.4% in 2024.

Canada’s digital audio audience is growing faster than any other digital medium we track in the country, including digital video viewers and social media users. This year, digital audio will match terrestrial radio in listenership and exceed it in engagement, according to our forecasts.