From the explosion of generative AI technology to predictions of a recession to the infamous social media drama between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, 2023 has been a year of upheaval. What can we expect in the digital marketing world in 2024?
Whether you’re a B2C brand or an agency that services clients in the B2C space, we’ve got your back. Use these top digital marketing trends to guide your planning, budgeting and forecasting for 2024.
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Video Advertising Trends
The video advertising industry shows no signs of slowing down, with projections signaling remarkable growth in 2024 and the years to come.
Here are some video advertising trends to watch out for in 2024.
1. Video Advertising Will Continue To Grow
According to eMarketer, all video advertising (including long-form video, short-form video, ad-based videos on-demand/connected TV, national TV networks and local TV) will grow by 4.7% in 2024.
Source: eMarketer, 2023
By 2025, it is projected to reach $91.95 billion, and by 2027, it will surpass $100 billion for the first time, reaching $105.9 billion.
2. Short-Form Video & UGC Will Continue in Their Popularity
Per Avatar Studios, two popular video formats — short-form, TikTok-style B2C videos and user-generated videos — will remain popular in 2024, reflecting the dominance of TikTok and user-generated content (UGC) in consumer video consumption.
As a result, many companies will focus on using both formats in their advertising efforts. B2C brands that have capitalized on this trend have reported more ROI from short-form videos, which brands may likely continue seeing in 2024.
3. Connected TV (CTV) Is Here To Stay
With linear TV viewership predicted to continue to decline, CTV is showing no signs of stopping in its growth. eMarketer anticipates that CTV households will more than double traditional pay TV households in 2024, reaching 115.1 billion.
CTV advertising will follow suit. According to GroupM’s mid-year forecast, CTV global advertising will have an annual compounded growth rate of 10.4% from now to 2028. Its growth will be driven by several factors per eMarketer including:
- Access to real-time, data-driven insights.
- More precise audience segmentation capabilities.
- Higher ad recall and engagement rates because you can’t skip CTV ads.
The significant surge in CTV advertising is impacting advertising strategies and budgets as CTV emerges as the ideal channel to reach specific target audiences.
4. YouTube Viewership & Ad Spending Will Increase
An analysis conducted by Tinuiti in Q2 2023 revealed a significant surge in ad spending on YouTube, outpacing its streaming competitors. Tinuiti’s clients witnessed a remarkable 31% increase in YouTube CTV spending during this time, while streaming services like Max and Netflix experienced more modest growth of just 6%.
Notably, viewership of YouTube on TV screens has been steadily rising, reaching a level on par with mobile viewing at 15 minutes. YouTube has harnessed this growing viewership by introducing user-friendly features and expanding its offerings, including bringing Shorts to TV screens.
Overall, eMarketer forecasts that YouTube’s growth will reach double digits in 2024 and 2025 and will exceed Hulu by 2025, making it #1 in terms of U.S. CTV ad revenues by company — surpassing other competitors like Roku, Pluto TV, Peacock and Tubi.
Social Media Trends
Social media has become a huge driver in brand discovery and online shopping, with 78% of internet users using social media as their primary source when looking for more information on brands. Use these trends to shape your social advertising strategy in 2024.
5. TikTok Will Reign Supreme for Gen Z
It’s no secret that Gen Z loves social media — they spend the most time per day on social media of any generation, heavily using video-based platforms. After all, Gen Z is the first generation to grow up entirely in the digital social age. According to GWI Survey Data pulled on July 25, 2023, Instagram was the #1 service Gen Z respondents reported using, followed by TikTok (#2) and Snapchat (#3).
Source: GWI, 2023
Despite the popularity of Instagram, however, TikTok will offer several advantages to advertisers over this Meta platform in 2024. eMarketer explains that Gen Z remains hard to reach outside of TikTok because TikTok offers many more ad formats than Instagram Reels. Also, it’s harder to use creators in Instagram Reels ads.
Source: eMarketer, 2023
Moreover, Snapchat daily user time is predicted to also plateau in 2024.
Why is TikTok so popular with Gen Z? It not only provides Gen Z viewers with instant gratification in the form of short-form, “snackable” video content, but also individualized entertainment and content that is based on the algorithm’s interpretation of their digital footprint.
6. Reach Millennials on Instagram, TikTok & Facebook
Per the aforementioned GWI Survey, millennials reported spending the most time using Facebook (54.5%) and Instagram (44.8%) in July 2023. This trend will likely continue in 2024, though Facebook usage is predicted to plateau, while the number of Instagram users will continue to grow.
Also, don’t forget about TikTok. At 28.2%, TikTok was the third-most-used service millennials reported that they used.
Looking into 2026, TikTok is expected to continue increasing the number of users within the platform. While Gen Z spends the most time on video-based platforms, short-form videos are increasing in popularity across all demographics and platforms — including with millennials.
Source: eMarketer, 2023
7. TikTok’s Main Competitor Will Be the U.S. Government
Even though TikTok usage is predicted to grow, there’s one caveat to keep in mind for your 2024 advertising strategy: TikTok bans. Their largest competitor in the coming year(s) will not be another platform, but the U.S. government.
With more states fully or partially banning TikTok and the U.S. Congress approving a motion to ban TikTok, audiences in your target markets may have more limited access to TikTok, if even at all.
Therefore, it’s important to keep tabs on current legislation and adjust your strategy, looking at diversifying to other social media platforms — whether existing or up-and-coming ones like Threads — as more bans take place.
Measurement Trends
Channel and platform measurement are top of mind for many advertisers — especially as they’re tasked with analyzing multichannel attribution and proving how marketing metrics align with revenue-based KPIs to non-marketing, C-Suite executives.
Check out these 2024 measurement trends as you outline your measurement plans.
8. KPIs Businesses Should Track in 2024
The following KPIs have proved successful for advertisers in 2023 and will continue to demonstrate the efficacy of your marketing campaigns in 2024:
- Conversion rate
- Customer lifetime value (CLV)
- Customer retention rate and quality
- Lead quality
- ROI
- Sales revenue
- Social media engagement (likes, shares, comments and follower growth)
- Website traffic
Upper-Funnel Metrics
If you’re working on an upper-funnel campaign for a new brand launch in 2024, focus on measuring your email subscription rate as well since it provides insight into how many visitors want to receive offers and updates. In addition, consider using brand awareness surveys to measure the level of brand recognition and recall among your target audience.
Lower-Funnel Metrics
Doing a lower-funnel marketing campaign? Add these metrics to your mix to ensure you’re capturing all the data you can about prospects who are closer to making a purchase decision:
- Average order value (AOV)
- Churn rate
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Lead-to-customer conversion rate
- Repeat purchase rate
- Return on advertising spend (ROAS)
- Shopping cart abandonment rate
9. Watch Out for These Key Benchmarks in Your Reporting
Though benchmarks for the KPIs listed above aren’t available for every industry, here are some B2C-specific benchmarks commonly used you can expect see carry over into 2024:
- CLV: This can vary significantly depending on the industry and business model. However, a healthy CLV is typically several times higher than the cost of customer acquisition (CAC).
- Churn rate: The average annual churn rate for B2C businesses is around 20% to 30%.
- Ecommerce conversion rate: The average conversion rate for ecommerce websites is around 2% to 4%. This means that out of every 100 visitors to the website, 2 to 4 of them make a purchase.
- ROAS: For B2C businesses, a ROAS of 4:1 or higher is often considered a good benchmark. This means that for every $1 spent on advertising, the business generates $4 in revenue.
- Social media engagement rate: On social media platforms, a 1% to 5% engagement rate (likes, shares and comments) is considered reasonable for B2C brands.
10. B2C Marketers Will Favor MTA and Incrementality
In 2024, B2C brands will be pushed more than ever to leverage person-level data to measure the impact of marketing attribution. Since media mix modeling (MMM) doesn’t show user-level engagements such as clicks and impressions, marketers instead will use multi-touch attribution (MTA) models and incrementality testing to gain the right insights to prove the value of their efforts on revenue.
However, if evaluating larger, more holistic questions such as where to invest additional funds and how best to budget for these online and offline channels, marketers will rely on MMM in 2024.
Commerce & Retail Media Trends
Here are some major commerce and retail media network (RMN) trends to anticipate in 2024.
11. Omnichannel Digital Experiences Are on the Horizon
To cater to changing consumer behavior, commerce brands and retailers will continue investing in and creating omnichannel digital experiences both in-store and online. Stores will become more like their online counterparts, leveraging technology to produce seamless end-to-end customer experiences. Retailers and manufacturers will also continually favor a direct-to-consumer model.
12. Sustainability Will Retain Its Importance
Sustainability isn’t just a fad — it will continue to remain a priority for brands and consumers in 2024, impacting all aspects of commerce including brand loyalty. Generations with large buying power and influence such as Gen Z will increasingly value brands that demonstrate a commitment to sustainability.
Pressure from regulators and boardrooms to focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) will continue to intensify. According to a spring 2023 study by Diligent Institute and Spencer, 47% of respondents anticipate a more concentrated effort or continuation of their current ESG strategy in the future.
An embrace of sustainability initiatives will be essential to long-term value creation. Regulation to spur stronger action on ESG issues is possible. Companies will have to embed ESG goals and ideals into the corporate culture and daily operating behaviors.
13. Ecommerce Revenue Will Continue Growing
eMarketer predicts that ecommerce sales will top $1T in 2024 and account for nearly 20% of all retail sales. Its ascent will be driven by mobile sales as consumers shift to buying more on mobile than on desktops and laptops.
Source: eMarketer, 2022
To drive ecommerce success, brands should consider using technology such as AI, video and virtual reality (VR) to deliver more personalized experiences that appeal to consumer preferences.
14. U.S. Buyers Will Purchase Overseas Products
eMarketer also estimates that nearly one third of all U.S. digital buyers will buy internationally in 2024. Cross-border buying will increase to 71.8 million U.S. consumers — a 19% growth since 2019.
This will give B2C companies with a global presence an advantage and could prove to increase the competitor pool for U.S. brands with national locations only.
15. Retail Media Networks Will Continue To Expand
RMNs will grow about $10 billion to a market of $55 billion in 2024, driven by factors such as:
- The potential for omnichannel sales attribution.
- In-store retail media becoming more prominent.
- RMNs moving further up the funnel by expanding into new formats such as social, web and streaming.
Brands will want to capitalize on this growth and the many benefits that advertising on RMNs offers including better targeting capabilities, cross-selling and upselling opportunities, and access to retailer first-party data.
Finally, Amazon is predicted to maintain its dominance in the RMN world, with Walmart and Instacart nipping at its heels.
More Resources To Power Your 2024 Planning
With this information, you should have a good starting point to begin planning your 2024 marketing campaigns and initiatives. For more insights, check out the following resources:
- Grab a copy of our modern marketing tool kit to prepare for a cookieless future.
- With cookies being phased out, contextual targeting is back in vogue. Find out more in our complete contextual targeting guide for digital marketers.
- Discover ways to future-proof your marketing efforts for the four key trends that will transform the media landscape over the next five years.
Larissa Franklin is a strategic insights analyst at Goodway Group based in Phoenix, Ariz. Previously, she served in a few other roles at Goodway, including as a media product coordinator and a research specialist. Prior to joining Goodway, Larissa worked in account management, project management and account executive positions at organizations such as Getty Images and Sq1. She brings expertise in the inner workings of the creation of commercial media as well as both digital and traditional advertising and is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago, where she earned her BFA in Film & Audio.
Emily Gray got her start in the advertising and marketing world in client services, where she spent a good amount of time managing deliverables, timelines and client requests. She really fell in love with strategy and planning when, as an account manager, she had the opportunity to work on Funko, Boeing and PATH. After a few years away from the industry, where she managed a rock band and worked at a Dallas PR firm, Emily’s very happy to be back in the strategy and research world. At Goodway, she focuses on the B2B vertical and covers tech, finance and telecom spaces. Emily lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband and a golden retriever named Po.
Caitlyn Monse is a research analyst at Goodway who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Before transitioning to a research and strategy-related role, Caitlyn worked at Goodway as a media solutions manager. She also has prior account management, sales and customer service experience. Caitlyn graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Radio, Television & Film from the University of North Texas and knows American Sign Language.
Christa Murphy is a senior strategic insights analyst at Goodway Group. Her research focuses on uncovering trends and understanding consumer behavior — particularly in the healthcare, agriculture and education sectors. Outside the realm of research, you can find her on an adventure with her yorkie, Bella, or Googling “world’s most mouth-watering pizza.”