This Week's Most Intriguing Digital Marketing Stats

It's been a fascinating five days for social media ads By Christopher Heine
  

Here are this week's 10 most interesting numbers from the digital marketing space, including a surprising dollar figure from Snapchat, as well as a data point that's going to please the likes of CEOs Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Dick Costolo (Twitter).

1. Here's a number: $750,000. That's how much Snapchat is demanding from advertisers to reach the app's huge millennial audience for one day, Adweek sources said. Wow. That rate is higher than a masthead on YouTube, where a day apparently costs about $500,000.

2. Seventy percent of marketers plan to increase social media advertising this year, including mobile promos on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, according to a Salesforce study that surveyed 5,000 practitioners across major brand categories.

If the prediction holds true, social advertising's naysayers—which were out in full force just a few years ago—must be dwindling.

3. College football's inaugural national playoff championship game landed an 18.5 overnight Nielsen rating, making it the most-watched cable program of all time. That number translates to more than 33 million households on ESPN. What does all of this have to do with digital marketing? Few brands engaged in actual real-time marketing during the game, despite the fact that it will likely be the fifth-rated television program of 2015, even ahead of the Grammys. So look for more brands to get in the mix next year to score social points like Butterfinger and Arby's did the other night, when Ohio State beat Oregon 42-20.

4. McDonald's created a lot of chatter on Sunday with its "Signs" TV spot, which ran during the NFL's playoff games and the Golden Globes. In a 24-hour period, a total of 6,000 tweets from 5,600 users mentioned McDonald's new campaign, according to Union Metrics. The tech vendor estimates that the tweets reached an audience of 9.7 million accounts, totaling 16.3 million impressions. Some of the buzz among Twitter users was positive, some negative. But with sales at the Golden Arches hurting, it was probably a welcome change of narrative internally for the brand.

5. A strategy exec for Medium, the latest brainchild of Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, told Adweek that the blogging platform drew 17 million unique visitors in December. Expect to hear more out of Medium in 2015 as the digital platform delves into video, while likely making the interactive ecosystem even more fragmented and competitive.

6. While there is little doubt that search is going mobile, Marin Software's data offers further proof for the few nonbelievers left. The digital vendor this week stated that as much as 49 percent of marketers' paid search budget is being manifested via tablet and smartphone.

7. From the same Marin research: Even though 63 percent of Facebook ad clicks occurred on mobile devices during 2014's fourth quarter, just 34 percent of the social media giant's conversions—either a sale, download or completed lead-generation form—came from portable devices. Facebook, though, would likely contend that the study didn't look at cross-device conversions and other factors. Even so, since Marin looked at $6 billion worth of cross-client purchase data, the 34 percent is an interesting number to ponder.

8. From Digiday: Socialbakers, an analytics vendor, said native Facebook videos accounted for 80 percent of consumer interactions when it came to the social platform's video posts, which leaves only 20 percent for YouTube, Vimeo and other video channels.

9. Universal Pictures' Fifty Shades of Grey doesn't go into theaters until Feb. 13, but advanced tickets went on sale Jan. 11. In just the first few days, per an Adweek source, the erotic thriller sold $1 million in online tickets. Fandango said it's the fastest-selling R-rated flick in the digital ticketing service's 15-year history.

10. Bob Newhart's timing during Monday's college football championship was impeccable, as usual. For much of the game, "Bob Newhart" trended nationally on Twitter thanks to lead referee, Greg Burks, who resembles the comic enough for viewers to have fun with the coincidence in their social streams. The 85-year-old Newhart may have had the night's most popular game tweet, inspiring 27,000 retweets and favorites.  - Originally posted At  Adweek.com