Digiday+ Research: Marketers plan to take more of their ad dollars to TikTok, Instagram for their holiday marketing
This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
The holiday season is when brands and retailers really ramp up marketing. Regardless of what they’ve done up until this point in 2022, many have likely saved the best of what they’ve got for last.
To find out what that looks like this year, Digiday+ Research surveyed 56 brand and retail professionals and compiled a ranking of the marketing channels that were most important to them so far this year, and what channels will be most important through the holiday season. We already know that Instagram will play a bigger role than its Meta sibling Facebook in holiday marketing, but now we look at the bigger picture of how marketing channels will shake out through the end of 2022.
Leading up to the holiday season this year, Facebook and Instagram led the marketing channel pack, with more than 90% of brands and retailers telling Digiday they used the channels as part of their marketing strategies. Influencers and Google came next, with more than 80% of respondents to Digiday’s survey saying they used those channels in 2022 leading up to the holiday season, and online display ads rounded out the ranking’s top five, with more than three-quarters of brands and retailers saying the channel played a role in their marketing in 2022.
The ranking of marketing channels adjusted for brands’ and retailers’ holiday marketing plans does look different, though. While Facebook and Instagram have been the dominant marketing channels so far in 2022, Digiday found that TikTok and Instagram will grow in importance more than other marketing channels for the holidays.
Specifically, more than half of brand and retail pros told Digiday that the two social media platforms will become more important to their marketing plans during the holidays, with 55% saying TikTok will become more important and 54% saying Instagram will become more important. Forty-five percent of respondents said Google and influencers will grow in importance to their marketing plans for the holidays, and 41% said other social platforms such as Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube will grow in importance.
Facebook actually came in at the bottom of the list, with only 36% of brands and retailers telling Digiday the social platform will grow in importance for their holiday marketing plans.
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