Amazon VS Walmart

🍨Soaring CPMs and TikTok's Legal Battle

April 29, 2024

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MARKETPLACE RACE

📈 Q1 2024 Digital Ads Benchmark Report: Marketplace Trends

The Q1 2024 Digital Ads Benchmark Report provides a comprehensive look into the advertising dynamics at major online marketplaces, notably Amazon and Walmart. This report covers the evolving landscape of ad spend, cost-per-click (CPC) dynamics, and emerging ad formats, offering critical insights for advertisers navigating these platforms.

The Scoop:

Amazon

  • Sponsored Products: This category saw a robust 17% increase in ad spend year-over-year, bolstered by a 6% rise in clicks despite CPC growth slowing to 11%.

  • Sponsored Brands: Ad spending surged by 23%, the highest rate since Q3 2021, with clicks up 14% and CPC increasing by 8%. Sales from Sponsored Brands mirrored the growth in clicks, also rising by 14%.

  • Sponsored Display: Experienced a downturn, with a 19% decrease in CPC year-over-year leading to a 10% drop in ad spend.

  • Ad Spend Distribution: Sponsored Products dominated, accounting for 82% of total Amazon Ad Console spend, with Sponsored Brands at 15%, and Sponsored Display at 3%.

  • CPC Trends: Both Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products saw significant CPC increases in March, a pricing trend not observed since November 2021.

Walmart

  • Sponsored Products: Advertisers increased spending by 35% year-over-year, with a modest 3% increase in clicks but a substantial 31% rise in CPC, reflecting the lingering impacts of Walmart’s shift to a second-price auction model.

  • CPC Evolution: For ten consecutive months, CPC for Sponsored Products has risen by at least 25%, marking a consistent upward trend.

  • Sponsored Videos: Now represent 2% of all Walmart search ad spend, highlighting the adoption of newer ad formats.

  • Mobile Dominance: The Walmart app now drives over 75% of search ad clicks, with mobile web contributing another 15%, underscoring the shift towards mobile-first advertising strategies.

This analysis of Q1 2024 highlights significant growth and shifts in marketplace advertising, particularly in the dominance and efficiency of Sponsored Products on both Amazon and Walmart amidst changing CPC and click dynamics.

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SYNTHESIA AI

👀 Nvidia-Supported Synthesia Unveils Expressive AI Avatars
Insights from CNBC

In a significant leap for AI, Nvidia-supported Synthesia has unveiled a new series of AI-generated digital avatars capable of expressing human emotions based on text inputs. This innovation could revolutionize how we interact with digital content.

Image Via: Synthesia

The Scoop:

  • Technological Advancement: Synthesia's "Expressive Avatars" are a technological breakthrough, enabling avatars to express emotions like happiness, sadness, and frustration, thus mimicking human interaction more closely than ever before.

  • Adoption and Impact: Over 55,000 businesses, including half of the Fortune 100, have adopted Synthesia's technology, utilizing it for dynamic corporate presentations, training videos, and other communications that benefit from personalized and cost-effective video production.

  • Security and Ethics: Synthesia is proactive in addressing the potential for misuse. The company ensures that all content produced with its avatars is moderated, and it requires enterprise customers to undergo a rigorous "Know Your Customer" process, which helps prevent the creation of deceptive content.

  • Commitment to Authenticity: As part of its commitment to authenticity, Synthesia has joined the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity. This participation highlights its efforts to implement safeguards like content watermarking to ensure users can distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content.

Synthesia's latest advancements not only enhance the capability of digital avatars but also promise to reshape digital interactions, making them more engaging and realistic.

MEDIA BUYER IINDEX

📈Soaring CPMs and TikTok's Legal Battle
Insights from Northbeam

As we navigate through the bustling spring season, CPMs are on the rise, and the performance of platforms like TikTok presents mixed results, influenced by legal challenges and market dynamics.

The Scoop:

  • CPM Increases: Increased and consolidated ad budgets on Meta platforms are pushing CPMs higher, impacting even the largest advertisers. This trend underscores the competitive nature of digital advertising as brands strive for greater visibility and engagement in a crowded market.

  • TikTok’s Performance Concerns: Despite stable metrics in Cost of Acquisition (CAC), Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and Average Order Value (AOV), TikTok’s conversion rate (CvR) is unexpectedly dropping. This downturn is perplexing and suggests a deeper dive into platform-specific engagement strategies and audience behaviors.

  • TikTok’s Legal Battle: The potential ban of TikTok introduces significant uncertainties and opportunities. ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, plans to legally challenge the ban. This action could mean TikTok will remain accessible in app stores for a prolonged period, delaying any immediate effects of the ban.

Despite the legal turmoil, TikTok’s substantial economic impact makes it a valuable channel for marketers. Advertisers are advised to maintain and closely monitor their TikTok campaigns, adjusting their strategies in response to CPM trends and preparing for any changes that may arise from the platform’s legal situation.

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💒 The Media Rating Council's out-of-home working group unveiled the final version of "Phase 1" for measuring ad exposure in the U.S. market focusing solely on impressions leaving audience exposure measurement for "phase 2.


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