蘑菇AV

The UK鈥檚 digital ad spending will be constrained by a tough economy. Only travel will see significant growth, but that鈥檚 from a particularly low starting point. Retail digital ad spend will continue to lead in absolute terms.

SoFi-owned Galileo launched a debit card earlier this month with Wyndham Rewards to let users earn travel rewards and points on their everyday spending. PayPal gave its debit card rewards program a makeover in the fall to boost the card鈥檚 adoption and usage. It now offers 5% cash back on up to $1,000 in spending in a category of the cardholder's choosing each month.

Amex also partnered with streaming platform Max to offer exclusive travel experiences in honor of season three of HBO鈥檚 鈥淭he White Lotus.鈥�. Efforts like these are paying off: Amex added 3.4 million new cards during the quarter, with millennials and Gen Zers making up more than 60% of its new accounts globally. What鈥檚 next?

The bottom line: Despite current friction, the direction of travel is clear: incrementality is becoming a mainstream expectation.

Chase rolled out Travel Now, Pay Later in July, an installment offering linked to the Marriott Bonvoy Bold card. And in September, Citi made Flex Pay available on its travel booking platform, without its usual fees or interest. Synchrony also made its Pay Later option available directly in Apple Pay in January, making it more accessible and easier to use.

Structure rewards and perks around high-value Gen Z spending categories (e.g., food delivery, subscriptions, and travel) to compete with fintechs and challenger banks. Introduce engaging, intuitive interfaces, savings challenges, and interactive budgeting tools that encourage financial literacy and responsible spending habits. And banks must continue to build trust with Gen Zers.

Push notification trends highlight industry differences: Retail and media excel with tailored strategies, while travel struggles with lower engagement.

Most ad buyers show strong interest in working with nonretail commerce media networks (e.g., travel) with access to first-party data.

The travel booking site partnered with Stripe and Klarna to offer BNPL and smoother bank transfers.

Travel is one such category: This year, Klarna partnered with Airbnb, and Affirm linked up with Hotels.com, among many other travel tie-ups. The popularity of card-linked installments is slowing overall BNPL payment value growth. While BNPL payment value will maintain a robust 20.8% growth rate this year, it marks a sharp decline from previous years.

For example, Citi linked its installment offering to its travel booking platform in September 2024. And Chase launched a Travel Now, Pay Later program in July. Consumers tend to use these in addition to fintech-based plans, which could tamp down BNPL spend per user. Read the full report.

Amex also sponsored behind-the-scenes content for Max subscribers and created a White Lotus-inspired travel guide for Thailand. Why this can work: Amex has been leaning on exclusive experiences at events like Coachella and the US Open Golf Championship to attract younger consumers.

The travel industry will spend nearly $6.8 billion on digital advertising this year, but it will only account for 2.6% of total US digital ad spending. Among the 10 industries we track, travel is by far the smallest, but it鈥檚 set to lead the pack in growth for the third year in a row.

Despite rising prices, demand for travel continues to grow after years of pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions. Our research team takes a look at loyalty program users by generation and how to keep them booking.

Inflation hasn鈥檛 made a dent in travel demand: Airbnb, Marriott, and United all reported strong Q4 earnings despite higher prices for airfare and lodging.

Digital ad spend by the US travel industry will grow by 14.3% this year for a total of $6.79 billion, according to our forecast.

Travelers may want to let loose on vacation, but they want their premium travel credit cards to be locked down tight. The most in-demand feature of these cards is free identity theft insurance, with 53% of prospective users in the US saying it was 鈥渆xtremely valuable鈥� to them, according to our 鈥淯S Premium Travel Credit Card Emerging Features Benchmark 2022鈥� report.

Airlines and card issuers are raising redemption thresholds on loyalty perks as travel demand roars back.

Nearly half of US millennials are members of a travel loyalty or rewards program, the highest among all generations, according to a Morning Consult survey. The higher their income, the more likely US adults are to belong to such a program鈥攎ore than three-quarters of those earning $100,000 or more hold a membership.

Luxury spending in the US is returning to historical norms: Shoppers are increasingly focused on saving money and travel.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the travel rebound and how tech is helping it out, how Black Friday football (with a side of online shopping) performed this year, will X (formerly Twitter) go bankrupt next year, a new way to stream NBA games post-cable, what to expect from ChatGPT next year, why your passport is the color it is, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our forecasting writer Ethan Cramer-Flood, forecasting analyst Zach Goldner, and director of forecasting Oscar Orozco.

On today's episode, we discuss whether we're finally back to pre-pandemic travel levels, the most interesting parts of the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show, how best to support LGBT+ causes, if the future of sports is actually streaming, what to make of new state-level data privacy rules, what the best universities in the US are, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Blake Droesch, director of forecasting Oscar Orozco, and vice president of Briefings Stephanie Taglianetti.

On today's episode, we discuss if Twitter is actually getting worse, whether folks will want to become "Meta Verified," what it looks like to digitally insert yourself as a player into a live basketball game, whether Airbnb's recent performance is reflective of the overall travel market, what paid family leave looks like in the US and in different countries, and more. Tune in to the discussion with our director of reports editing Rahul Chadha, director of forecasting Oscar Orozco, and analyst Max Willens.