In China, 2019 will be the year of mobile... advertising, that is
Marketing budgets are shifting significantly in China, according to the ‘China Digital Marketing Trends 2019’ report by AdMaster. The report discusses the findings of a survey of 110 advertisers and 130 digital marketing industry practitioners in China by the marketing data technology company.
2019 will be the year of mobile advertising in China
As digital marketing continues its growth trajectory in China, most of the momentum will happen in mobile.
The report notes that 79% of advertisers polled plan to increase their digital marketing spend in 2019. Nearly one third of those polled will increase their spending by 30%, but the average increase in spend will be 20%. This is 2% higher than the 2018 increase, despite the forecast of a challenging year for business in 2019.
Mobile will see the biggest gains in spending: 81% of advertisers plan to increase their ad spend on mobile, while only 11% will increase their marketing spend on desktop-based websites. Half of the respondents say search engines are preferred for PC-based advertising.
As some respondents spend more on mobile, digital TV will take a hit. Although 28% of advertisers polled will increase their digital TV spend in 2019, 27% say they are not planning to advertise on digital TV at all next year.
A closer look at the planned spending on mobile shows that most advertisers expect to focus their mobile advertising on social media and video platforms. More than half say they will make social and video the primary focus of their mobile advertising.
Respondents project a 21% increase in spending on social. The top areas for spending on social include influencer marketing (KOL), short-form video and live streaming, and official WeChat accounts. The top areas for increases in ad spend on video include content marketing on web variety shows, original video content and short films, and reality shows. More than one third plan to advertise on e-commerce mobile apps. The biggest drop in spending will be on video websites.
These advertising shifts need intelligence behind them.Not surprisingly, nearly 60% of respondents predict that big-data driven marketing clouds will be the most popular marketing technology in 2019, followed closely by AI (55%) and data management platforms (46%).