“Women hold up half the sky,” former Chinese leader Mao Zedong famously said. More than fifty years on, women in China are doing so online, driving digital trends and fast becoming a cohort that marketers ignore at their peril.
For digitally native brands, 2020 was a hard year, especially as the pandemic shifted shopping priorities to essential goods. Even so, collectively, these brands saw increased growth—and more than we expected.
Should free apps cost users their privacy?
Many mobile app categories saw a boost last year as more consumers spent time with their devices during quarantines. According to our estimates for smartphone app user growth, grocery apps, food delivery apps, and health/fitness apps were the three fastest-growing categories in 2020.
Traditionally, travel advertisers including online travel agencies are among the biggest search ad spenders on Google. That business tanked last year, but ecommerce-related search advertising outperformed thanks to the supercharged digital retail environment.
Mobile games to stop targeting ads to kids: Some major developers and ad tech companies will need to stop tracking children under 13 after settling a lawsuit, limiting their targeting abilities.
Most gamers play on their phone: Mobile gaming is now a commonplace behavior that has likely accelerated during the pandemic and is here to stay.
Procter & Gamble tried to find an IDFA workaround: Several US companies helped build a way to track iPhone users without consent—a testament to marketers’ despair amid the deprecation of identifiers, and a source of ethical concern.
As a disruptor in the wireless provider category, Mint Mobile’s marketing culture encourages risk-taking, whether that’s choosing not to advertise in the Super Bowl or having company owner and actor Ryan Reynolds leave voicemails for customers. Watch Industry Voices, with CMO Aron North, to learn what drives its viral marketing successes and more.
IDFA isn’t dead yet: New AppsFlyer data suggests that tracking opt-in rates could be much higher than the industry’s expectations, a spot of optimism that could make it worthwhile to keep collecting Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA).