Commentary

The Easy Growth Is Behind Us

Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report came out on Wednesday this week, and one section of it has a simple statement that sums up the mobile space: The easy growth is behind us.

In developed countries, companies battle over existing users as market penetration nears 100%. In developing countries, poor Internet infrastructure, slowing growth and an uphill battle to “connect the next billion” means that reaching new users is harder than ever.

On the other hand, advertising technology has seen tremendous growth driven primarily by mobile. With a 20% growth rate, up from 16% year-over-year, there is still plenty of room for growth. Most likely that growth will happen for Facebook and Google, but a rising tide lifts all boats.

Meeker points out that advertisers are still spending too much on legacy media, and still haven’t capitalized on the opportunity mobile affords.

Much of that problem lies at the feet of advertisers, who’ve done such a bad job that 93% of mobile users consider getting ad blockers. Google has proved that effective advertising can exist, and that the problems advertisers face are mostly of their own devising.

A vast amount of the ad blocker users of the world are in Asia, the same region that many will look to connect new Internet users.

Advertisers in the future will have to be able to retain and attract new customers, as well as reach new first-time audience members beyond the pale of the already-established marketplaces if they want to remain competitive.

1 comment about "The Easy Growth Is Behind Us".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, June 2, 2016 at 1:22 p.m.

    I waded through Mary's 2015 report and did so again with the latest presentation. I must say that it contains practically nothing that would interest most TV-style branding advertisers---though they certainly should take a gander at it in case I'm wrong. Moreover, it gives me some insight on why the digital media advocates are so lost at sea when they try to infuse their evolving disciplines into "legacy media" as with the ongoing attempt to automate TV time buying via "programmatic". If this is mostly what they see and hear at digital media gatherings---heavily weighted to technology, "data", etc. but little or no insights about the practise and art of branding advertising, let alone how traditional media work and what lessons can be learned from them--- it's small small wonder why there is such a huge communications gap in our conversations. One "side" comes from Mars, the other from Pluto.

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