Below, we have collected some of the latest industry headlines that will have a huge impact on ad networks and digital marketing as a whole.

#1 Blockchain Marketing Rises

You can argue that the proliferation of smart devices is the latest wave of disruptive technology to impact the marketing industry as a whole.

Back in September 2017, Never Stop Marketing released the first Blockchain Marketing Technology Landscape. 6 months later, the technology has proved it’s here to stay. While blockchain is mostly known for its impact on the financial industry, it can be used for an array of purposes. This, of course, includes marketing and advertising technology.

Just to put it in perspective, digital marketing solutions as a whole took more than 3 years to achieve a significant growth rate. So, you should definitely keep an eye out for what blockchain-powered adtech and martech solutions have to offer as well as what goes next.

#2 Mobile Benchmarks 2018 by Adjust

In 2014, mobile internet usage surpassed that of desktop devices with more than 1.6 billion global users. But, even since before mobile devices surpassed their desktop counterparts, marketers have been looking for a benchmark that lets them understand industry trends in order to make the right adjustments.

The guys from Adjust have recently released their Mobile Benchmarks 2018 report to help you do exactly that. By using a combination of reliable metrics, creating a series of well-defined categories, and dividing them into the most important industries, they developed a full report you can use as a reference point for your own campaign.

While the report itself is packed with powerful information, we have summarized the biggest takeaways:

• iOS consistently retained more users in 2017 than Android by a minimal margin
• Entertainment apps that feature rich media tend to retain more users than other verticals
• User engagement is increasing steadily across the board, regardless of source

• People that use Google tend to convert more than Facebook and Twitter users
• The number of sessions usually doesn’t change over time, except in a certain industries
• Gaming applications are the ones that are affected by digital fraud the most
• About ⅔ of all mobile fraud incidents occur to Android users

#3 SOOMLA Monetization Benchmark Report

SOOMLA has been one of the leading monetization measurement platforms for more than 5 years. They have recently released a report named Q1 2018 Monetization Benchmarks, which compares the eCPM for 1st impressions and all other impressions.

Marketers are paying top dollar in order to guarantee that their ad will appear first. Because of this, monetization providers and ad networks need to adjust properly in order to benefit all parties involved.

Besides comparing prices, the report also brought forth some interesting insights, such as:

• In order to consistently appear in the top 10 impressions list across all platforms, you’ll need a huge amount of content
• Games is the industry that has the most interest in securing 1st impressions
• The cost of a 1st impression can be up to 100% the cost of the average eCPM
• Different advertising and monetization providers implement distinct bidding techniques

#4 Connecting Internet Giants: Who Owns Who On the Web

It’s not uncommon for companies to purchase their smaller competitors before they become a threat. If you start to inquire about who owns who on the internet, you’ll quickly realize that it happens way more than anyone could ever predict.

This infographic by 16Best is an awesome way to visualize this phenomenon. While we can cover the list one-by-one, we’ve compiled the most impressive and unusual finds below. Keep in mind that most renowned companies that purchase competitors or similar businesses do so for two reasons: either to eliminate competitors or as a tactical move.

For instance, if a platform that specializes on social media wants to enter other spaces, such as visual reality, the easiest thing to do is to purchase a company that automatically allows them to compete in this field. Companies such as Alphabet (the company that owns Google) and Facebook have specialized in acquiring competitors that help them maintain their position at the throne of the digital realm and give them the ability to compete in emerging fields as well.

Notable large companies and who they own:

• TripAdvisor – Viator, Dimmi, Holiday Lettings, GateGuru

• Amazon – Whole Foods, IMBd, Alexa, AbeBooks.com, Goodreads, SOUQ

• Microsoft – LinkedIn, Yammer, Bing, MSN, Navision, X-Box

• Facebook – Messenger, Atlas, Instagram, Whatsapp, Onavo, Oculus

• Apple – Beats Electronics, Shazam, Next, SIRI, HopStop

#5 Here to Stay: WordPress Now Powers 30% of All Websites

We’ve all heard the claims that WordPress is the best and most popular website building platform, but how true are these claims? A recent study by W3Techs has recently revealed that WordPress powers 30% of all total websites, making it the most popular content management system (CMS) used today.

While this platform hit the 25% mark less than 3 years ago, keep in mind that the study includes both websites that have CMSs and those that don’t. On the other hand, the same study concluded that WordPress actually claims more than 60% of the total market share. In other words, WordPress powers well over half of all CMS-enabled sites.

By the way, here you can read about our own WordPress plugin.

To give you an idea of the dominance of WordPress, according to W3Techs, the top five most used CMSs look like this:

1. WordPress – 30%
2. Joomla – 3.1%
3. Drupal – 2.2%
4. Magento – 1.2%
5. Shopify – 1.0%

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