• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 26, 2018

Much of the focus during the holiday season turns to the retail industry, but markets including auto and finance saw increases as well.

From the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, several verticals saw an increase in the average amount spent for social media advertising across platforms when compared with the same time period in 2017, according to a joint study from 4C Insights and DialogTech.

The average growth for the amount spent in social media among telecommunications providers rose 287%. Tech rose 241%, while financial rose 105%, restaurants rose 59%, and automotive rose 19%.

The average growth represents the amount spent in advertising across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat for each vertical.

Viji Davis, SVP marketing at DialogTech -- which competes with companies such as Invoca -- estimates that brands will see about 162 billion calls driven by digital marketing this year. She said that on Black Friday, the company tracked 55% of the call volume from paid-search ads, increasing by 5% in November and 13% on Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday had an increased call volume from organic search and search engine optimization traffic, which rose 12% compared with November and 18% on Black Friday.

In 2018, the average Black Friday call duration was three minutes and nine seconds, up 19% when compared to calls throughout the month of November 2018. The average Cyber Monday call duration was three minutes and seven seconds, up 12% when compared to calls throughout November.

For the study, 4C also monitored TV advertising during the holidays, as well as social media engagement following a brand’s TV ads. Brands in the retail, financial services, automotive, technology, telecommunications, and restaurant industries, which led social advertising growth, also made the top 10 advertisers on broadcast and cable in terms of total ad time. These advertisers also saw the greatest lift in social media engagement after their TV ads aired.

Aaron Goldman, CMO at 4C, said, for example, Geico ran 1,176 TV ads on cable between the day before Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday. When looking at the impact from social lift, Walmart was most successful.

Walmart ran 3,492 TV ads running on cable with an increase in engagement on social media during the two minutes following each ad. Macy’s came in at No. 2 by running 2,199 TV ads with a TV social lift impact of 82.2%.