Forrester Research releases with its new display advertising forecast until 2021. The firm claims that mobile, video and social media advertising will increase and that more conventional online advertising will suffer in part visibility and brand security, fraud and other problems.
Forrester also claims that Amazon will "steal market share" from Google and Facebook.
The firm claims that spending on social media advertising will reach $ 40 billion by 2021 and that social networks will capture most of the revenue generated by online display advertising, with most of this growth going back to Facebook. Mobile advertising, with a focus on video-in-application, will be the main driver of non-social display advertising growth during the forecast period.
Source: Forrester data and forecasts (2017)
Forrester claims that the majority of mobile display expenses ("nearly two dollars out of three advertising dollars") will be incorporated into the application. It will also benefit Facebook and Google, which together control eight of the top ten US apps.
The report predicts that Amazon's US advertising revenues will reach about $ 2.5 billion by 2021, a portion of this amount being at the expense of Google and Facebook. However, this figure is low compared to all Google and Facebook earnings.
I suspect Forrester of underestimating the growth of Amazon's advertising revenue, given its place in the market. And a number of other estimates of Amazon ad revenue range from $ 1 billion to over $ 3 billion – for 2017.
Another important trend identified in the report is the flight to private, high-end, brand-protected sites:
Marketers want more visibility on the inventory that they buy and are willing to pay more to appear in a secure brand environment that promotes visibility, controls fraud and makes use of sophisticated data for targeting. The state of advertising fraud and visibility in open programs will push them to put in place stricter rules around their purchases in the media.
This last point is perhaps the most interesting macro observation of the report. Market dynamics, influenced by consumer behavior, suggest healthy and continuous growth. But a series of opposing forces (eg, fraud, brand security) militate against growth or drive it into some neighborhoods and far from others.
About the author
Greg Sterling is a contributing editor to Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about the link between digital media and consumer behavior in the real world. He is also vice president of strategy and ideas for the local research association. Follow him on Twitter or find him on Google+.