If there’s one constant in advertising, it’s that it’s always changing. Because of that, trends are always changing, too. For example, few of the outlets guessing at 2020’s trends could have predicted the ways in which the covid-19 pandemic would have affected the industry.

Some of last year’s predictions included more mobile-forward ads, increased native spend, and more advertisers embracing native technology. In reality, it’s possible that ecommerce had the biggest year of all, which we covered in a different blog post earlier this month. According to data from IBM’s retail index, the shift to ecommerce has advanced by about 5 years in 20 years alone. 

Ecommerce wasn’t the only thing that changed, though. For example, we also noticed traffic itself changed. As people worked from home and stayed in more, they were also spending more time online, which changed the most popular windows for traffic. Audiences also favored images featuring people, perhaps because they were unable to carry on social engagements as usual. 

While it’s impossible to fully know how the events of 2020 will impact 2021 trends, Common Thread Co., which publishes some of the most comprehensive studies on ecommerce, doesn’t expect ecommerce’s popularity to change all that much. Ecommerce will likely keep up the pace and continue to enjoy a five-year compounded growth rate 8.69 times higher than that of brick-and-mortar retail. For advertisers this means there will likely be no shortage of opportunities to draw in online shoppers.

Mobile advertising is another trend that has been on the rise for some time in advertising. With more people working from home, though, it didn’t quite grow as much as experts predicted this year. eMarketer previously predicted mobile ad spending to grow to $105.34 billion in 2020. Instead, mobile ad spending only increased 4.8% to $91.52 billion. Despite that slowdown, eMarketer expects mobile ad spending to return to the same trajectory of rapid growth, predicting $161.49 billion yearly ad spending in 2024. 

Finally, you may recall us talking about ad personalization in the past. Though trends come and go in the advertising industry, The Drum predicts that the personalization trend will endure. In part, this is probably due to the preference of younger demographics, who now hold serious buying power. 

Fortunately, though, most networks give you tons of targeting options so you can take advantage of all of these trends and reach your ideal customer with the perfect message. You can use these options in conjunction with Maximus’s dayparting and extensive reporting features to target success in 2021 and beyond. 

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