蘑菇AV

Once a staid B2B platform, LinkedIn is increasingly becoming a destination for creators, short-form video, and personal branding. This has made the platform more mainstream, and has opened additional opportunities for advertisers, particularly on the B2C side. We expect LinkedIn to surpass $5 billion in US ad revenues next year. Reddit is capturing more interest.

Respondents were from companies with fewer than 50 employees (48%), 50 to 500 employees (29%), or more than 500 employees (23%) in a job role of owner/partner/C-level (55%), vice president/director/manager (28%), or nonmanagement professional (17%) at companies with a business focus of B2B (22%), B2C (51%), or both (27%).

For searches in categories where subject area expertise is valued鈥攕uch as healthcare, education, and B2B technology鈥擥oogle has added AIO to most result pages. In May, only healthcare-related search had AIO in the majority of results. Even when an AIO result includes a link, a May report by the Growth Memo found that it produced 8.9% fewer clicks.

On the advertising front, Instacart鈥檚 Carrot Ads is growing its B2B reach by partnering with food service ecommerce platform Cut+Dry. What it means: The new partnerships signal Instacart鈥檚 priorities in 2025 as it contends with slower growth.

Home Depot made a bid for GMS, a building products and tool supplier for both consumers and contractors, per The Wall Street Journal. Our take: Home Depot sees a significant opportunity to consolidate the fragmented construction supply and tool market鈥攁nd it's moving at a moment when the US housing shortfall could drive sustained demand for new construction and renovation.

This is the first installment of our biannual 鈥淯K Ad Spending Benchmarks鈥� series, which helps ad buyers and sellers calibrate their spending and revenue mix against the market.

Respondents identified their company's business focus as B2B product (30.1%), B2B services (28.2%), B2C product (29.7%), or B2C services (12.0%) with sales revenues of less than $25 million (18.7%) or more than $26 million (81.3%) with number of employees of fewer than 100 (19.6%) or more than 100 (80.4%) from various industries.

Ad pitch: LinkedIn is also incorporating AI into its ad business with tools to help B2B marketers optimize campaigns and ad targeting. The black box AI tool, called Accelerate, analyzes factors like user behavior, website visits, and video views, then automatically adjusts campaigns to increase conversion rates.

For searches in categories where subject area expertise is valued鈥攕uch as healthcare, education, and B2B technology鈥擥oogle has added AIO to most result pages. In May, only healthcare-related search had AIO in the majority of results. Even when an AIO result includes a link, a May report by the Growth Memo found that it produced 8.9% fewer clicks.

Agencies that can carve out a niche (like B2B influencer marketing) or specialize in a creative, truly differentiated offering will remain important. But agencies in the 鈥渕issing middle鈥� that lack the scale and sophistication of larger agencies鈥攐r the specialization and unique expertise of smaller ones鈥攚ill struggle to compete, suggested Jamie Gutfreund, founder of Creator Vision.

Our take: LinkedIn is positioning itself as a hub for both B2B and high-consideration B2C marketing, targeting decision-makers involved in longer purchase processes. The platform already ranks as the third most effective channel for driving high-quality leads, according to B2B marketers worldwide, with 26% of respondents citing it as a top channel.

Risk tolerance varies from business to business. Many companies would rather risk financial penalties for noncompliance instead of eating the cost of privacy mitigation and less effective targeting and measurement. Brands that violate state privacy laws may face a nominal fine. For example, Sephora paid $1.2 million in 2022 to settle allegations that it violated the California Consumer Privacy Act.

Disruption could be greatest for healthcare and B2B tech. On May 30, 2024, AI Overviews were shown for almost two-thirds (63%) of healthcare-related queries and nearly a third (32%) of B2B tech searches, according to BrightEdge. But they were shown in virtually none of the restaurant- and travel-related queries.