Measuring the effect of their messages is one of marketers' most vital tasks. Anne Hunter, vice president of product marketing at panel-based insights company DISQO, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to talk about some of marketers' longstanding challenges with measuring ad effectiveness and understanding consumer journeys—and how a consumer-first approach can help.

Instagram Reels will limit the spread of TikTok reposts: That could hamper the feature, as a good chunk of its content is still recycled from TikTok. But Reels' popularity with influencers could incentivize them to follow Instagram's wishes to post more original content.

YouTube's brand safety strides have paid off: It became the first company to be accredited under the Media Rating Council's brand safety guidelines, the culmination of years of work to make its platform safer for advertisers.

Facebook and Shopify team up to boost social shopping: Shopify's checkout system is now available on Facebook and Instagram shops. That could help attract ecommerce merchants that already use Shopify and also make it easier for customers to shop on the social platforms.

This year, China will take a step in its digital transformation that once may have seemed almost unthinkable. We forecast that 52.1% of the country’s retail sales will come from ecommerce in 2021, up from 44.8% a year prior. That means that for the first time anywhere, a majority of retail sales for an entire country will transact online.

Twitter works to become as customizable as possible: The platform closed out 2020 strong with solid user and revenue growth, which it attributed to its personalization efforts as it builds out new features.