Digital MarketingKey Insights: The internet landscape, advertising arena, and holiday shopping season is already here

Key Insights: The internet landscape, advertising arena, and holiday shopping season is already here

Bird’s eye view of the internet population, the content and media habits of netizens, what’s working for digital advertising, audience overviews, and holiday season trends.

30-second summary:

  • As of April 2020, there are 4+ billion internet users with unique mobile phone users crossing 5+ billion worldwide.
  • The tea on the devices that people use the most, their digital habits, content types they’re increasingly engaging with, and more.
  • Did you know? A user clicks on a Facebook ad at an average of 13 times and a LinkedIn ad can help brands reach around 676 million people.
  • Pinterest is popular for holiday season shopping and planning as people begin here before any other search engine. Dive in to discover all of the insights!

Although “hand sanitizers” are still one of the top searches, people are already digitally planning their holiday season. This week, we give you a good lay of the internet land topped with a quick run-down of the what, who, and how of digital advertising.

Shape of the global digital landscape

As of April 2020, there are 4+ billion internet users with unique mobile phone users crossing 5+ billion worldwide. Hootsuite compared data of April 2019 vs April 2020 to find an incredible increase in these figures worldwide. 

Internet users grew by 301 million while unique mobile phone users grew by 128 million. A whopping 59% of the global population are internet users. In fact, each internet user spends an average of 6 hours and 39 minutes on the internet every day. To top it all, voice search has risen 45% a month.

There are no brownie points for guessing that these are the leading browsers globally. But some numbers here show surprising growth, especially for feature phones:

  1. Google Chrome – 63.7% with a 1.8% YOY growth
  2. Safari – 18.4% with a 17% YOY growth, the largest leap
  3. Firefox – 4.4% with a drop of user share by -6%

Browsers globally Hootsuite report

The “mobile view”

Mobile internet usage revealed that there are 4.2 billion people who access the internet through their palms. Of these, 91% of internet users are from smartphones while a mere 3.2% of the world’s phone population are feature phone users. The average daily time mobile users spent on the internet was 3 hours and 24 minutes.

Top four devices

Hootsuite’s latest Global Trends report further found a device wise spread of internet users to discover that the top four devices were:

  1. Smartphones
  2. Laptops
  3. Desktops
  4. Smart TVs or media streaming devices

Top four devices Hootsuite report

Screentime surges, media, and content habits

In terms of watching activities, there’s a clear divide in information and entertainment. Netizens between 16 to 64 spent 35% more screen time watching news coverage while 29% more on films, shows, and online streaming services.

The data hints a greater window for brands’ messenger marketing to reach people as they spent 24% more screen time on messenger services.

Media habits more screen time Hootsuite report

Hootsuite also dove into details of what kind of video content 16 to 64-year-olds are spending their time on. YouTube is the clear winner (90%), followed by streaming music (51%), followed by watching Vlogs and listening to online radio stations, and podcasts.

What’s working well for digital advertising?

Ad spends crossed a 26% growth mark as compared to Q1 2019. Socialbakers shared some key findings:

  • Video formats saw more audience engagement 
  • Paid advertising like CPC are growing back to pre-COVID-19 levels
  • Facebook ad boycott hit hardest in North America, where ad spends decreased by 31.6% in the final two weeks of Q2

Audience profile overviews

We further looked into Hootsuite’s report to understand the audience profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn to help marketers get a clearer picture.

Did you know? As of April 2020, a user clicks on a Facebook ad at an average of 13 times. The hot spot for Facebook ranges from 18-year olds to 44 year-olds. Here’s a more specific profile segmentation:

  • 18 to 24-year olds (comprised of 10% females and 14% males)
  • 25 to 34-year olds (comprised of 13% females and 19% males)
  • 35 to 44-year olds (comprised 7.4% females and 9.4% males)

Facebook audience profile

With the right LinkedIn ad targeting, marketers can reach around 676 million people. In fact, LinkedIn ads have seen a 13 million growth in terms of audience reach. However, LinkedIn advertising sees a more mature age range in its advertising audience’s profiling with the ideal age range being 25 to 54 years old.

LinkedIn audience profile

If you notice the trend, males across all the age ranges are targeted more. However, this demographic could vary from case to case, depending on your respective brand and the typical target audience it caters to. For this, we always encourage a deep dive into your business first-party data for a granular view.

Holiday bells ringing in sooner

As for 2020, “social distance” makes the heart grow fond indeed. It has been the toughest year and people have been spending time away from their loved ones. People are planning to ring in the celebration earlier than usual and have already started planning for the holiday season. Pinterest has identified that holiday season shopping is set to start earlier. In fact, Pinterest is popular for holiday season shopping and planning as people begin here before any other search engine.Pinterest on early holiday season shopping trends - People preparing for holidays on the internet in advance

On comparing data of April 2019 vs April 2020, there has been an exciting 77% growth in interest for topics like – Christmas gift ideas, holiday recipes, Christmas decor, and more. 

Pinterest found that 50% of pinners are looking at brands to help them up their celebrations a notch. 

Pinterest search interest - internet stats

Holiday season shopping expectations

Holiday season shopping is going to move online raising a bunch of sales funnel and customer experience expectations from ecommerce businesses. Here are three key takeaways from their holiday season 2020 research:

  • Shoppers will miss the brick and mortar in-store shopping experience
  • They’ll be anxious about logistics like shopping speeds, delivery dates, and customer support
  • Pinners are 30% more likely to shop for a self-gift
  • There’s a 3X increase in ‘Christmas gift ideas’

These insights will inspire marketers to craft ecommerce experiences and hyper-personalized digital advertising.

ClickZ readers’ choice for the week

The topics that piqued reader interest this week were AI, augmented reality, display advertising, and our very own weekly key insights articles.

  1. The role of AI advertising for deep customer experience personalization
  2. A beginner’s guide to display advertising
  3. Key Insights: The CTV boom, everyone prefers ad-supported video streaming, and how to target them
  4. Augmented reality examples: 10 industries using AR to reshape business

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