More Than Three-Quarters Of Newsrooms Using AI In ‘News Value Chain’

Earlier this summer, when Google gave The New York Times a sneak preview of its news-story-generating AI product, the presentation went over like a lead balloon.

Perhaps that reaction had more to do with the reported tone-deafness of Google’s “unsettling” pitch than it did the receptiveness of newsrooms to AI technologies, however, as more than 75% of news organizations are using AI in “at least one of the areas across the news value chain of news gathering, production, and distribution,” according to a new survey.

 

Gen AI Powers Content Marketing Advantage For Early Adopters

Great content generates powerful business results — and marketing leaders know it. Across B2C and B2B industries, 8 in 10 surveyed leaders say that content marketing is very or extremely important to their company’s overall digital marketing strategy — and 9 in 10 say that importance grew between 2022–2023.

 

More Than 2 In 5 U.S. Marketers Most Commonly Transact On First-Party Data

43% of US marketers and agencies use proprietary identifiers like first-party data when transacting with media sellers, per Advertiser Perceptions. A quarter of US marketers and agencies are still using third-party cookies, even though Google says it will deprecate them in 2024.

 

Flush With Emails: A Third Of Consumers Say They’re Overwhelmed

A recent study by Sequel Response is being publicized because it shows that a majority of companies have increased their email marketing budgets in the past 12 months — more than any other channel. That’s a great vote of confidence in email. But these accounts overlook the next set of charts in the study. Consumers themselves were asked how overwhelmed they are by the amount of advertising they receive. Guess which channel fared the worst? 

New Study Links Subscription Rates To Cost Of Living

More than a fifth (21%) of Americans pay for their online news, compared to an average of 17% worldwide. That’s according to new research from Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford, which analyzed sample groups from 20 countries worldwide and found that, for most, “payment for online news is leveling off with high levels of cancellation strongly linked to the cost-of-living crisis.”

 

U.S. Ad Revenue At Musk’s X Declined Each Month Since Takeover

Monthly U.S. ad revenue at social media platform X has declined at least 55% year-over-year each month since billionaire Elon Musk bought the company formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, according to third-party data provided to Reuters.

 

Amid Budget Cuts, Email Prevails As Preferred Brand Communications According To New Study

New research from Exclaimer, the leading email signature management software, reveals that 68% of marketers have experienced a reduction in their budgets by at least 5% for the second half of 2023.

 

Which AI Tools Are Most Useful To Local SEO And Marketing Professionals?

92% of local marketing and SEO professionals worldwide experimented most with ChatGPT in their work in July 2023, according to an August survey by SurveyMonkey.

Getting With The Program: Programmatic Advertising In A Cookieless World

At some point, the necessity of having a cookie alternative will hit advertisers of all industries. If the latest numbers from 33Across are any indication, the impact of that hit may surprise and even broadside most.

In looking at the programmatic transactions on its exchange, 33Across found that most still use cookies during the process. And while most industries are incorporating alternatives somewhat — for instance, retailers have increased their non-cookie inventory investments by 77% — only insurance has a sizable start in embracing the cookieless future, with only half of its buys coming from cookies.

 

Deals Drive US Adults To Sign Up For Subscription Services

43% of US adults say discounts are the main reason they sign up for subscription services, per May data from SurveyMonkey. The most popular category of subscriptions among all consumers is digital media, followed by delivery services, gaming, and food and groceries, according to SurveyMonkey.

 

New Wave DM: Direct Mail Now Seen As Part Of Omnichannel Strategy

It’s time to look in on email’s sister medium — the one fondly known as junk mail and snail mail: direct mail. It has a lustrous heritage, having been sent in one form or another since colonial times. But now it is being seen as a performance-marketing channel in the modern sense, according to Delivering Performance: Direct Mail In The United States 2023, a study by Winterberry Group, presented by the U.S. Postal Service.

Instagram Forecast To Hit $71bn Revenue By 2024

Instagram is set to recover faster than other social media rivals following Apple’s ATT and a wider weakening of the digital ad market to reach $71bn by 2024, as consumers and brands look to the image-sharing site’s social commerce future.

Subscriptions See Boost When Audiences Are Involved With Engaged Journalism (New Study)

It’s not just lip service to say that successful publishers listen to their audiences. That input can obviously lead to a better overall product, but, as recent research has also found, it can help boost subscriptions as well.

That’s the latest from two researchers investigating “engaged journalism as a strategy for affecting news organizations’ revenue streams and improving news audience evaluations.” 

 

The 2024 State of CRM Report

The ability to track individual customer interactions and analyze that data is a game-changer, especially in an age where customers crave a personalized experience. This sort of data-driven approach to business relationships is still relatively new, though. In just the last few years alone, CRM has evolved far beyond being just a tool for contact management. 

The Price Of Privacy: Shoppers Are Willing To Trade Data For AI Deals

Consumers may be concerned about artificial intelligence (AI) and their personal privacy. But they are not quite as concerned when bargains [are] on the table. For instance, 87% of consumers will trade personal data for savings, according to U.S. Consumer Perceptions of AI in Retail and Ecommerce, a study by UserTesting, conducted by OnePoll. Moreover, 73% of consumers believe AI enhances their shopper experience, and an equal number say it saves them time. This is true despite the finding that 72% of consumers are concerned about privacy when interacting with AI. 

When It Comes To Where Ads Show Up, Marketers And Consumers Have Different Preferences
Marketers and the people they want to reach aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye when it comes to where ads show up, according to Kantar’s latest Media Reactions report. The study is based on research conducted among about 16,000 consumers and 900 senior marketers around the world. This year, it revealed a “significant contrast” between the ad channels and platforms preferred by marketers and those favored by consumers, according to Kantar.