Is Digital Marketing Lucrative?

One of the questions we’re constantly asked is just how lucrative is digital marketing. While we can only speak from our own personal experience, let’s look at some statistics first.

In a recent joint report commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC, digital marketing revenues totaled $107.5 billion in the U.S. alone in 2018, representing a 19.8 percent increase from 2017.
According to the same report, approximately $29 billion of that revenue came from social media. 65 percent of the same figure was attributable to mobile advertising, with mobile digital video being the fastest growing segment at a total revenue of $10.2 billion.
eMarketer magazine predicts that amount will rise by 17.6 percent by the end of 2019, bringing the total global digital marketing revenue to $333.25 billion—approximately half of the global advertising market.
According to Cisco, by the year 2022, approximately 4.8 billion people will have internet access, with some 28.5 networked devices and connections—a figure greater than the amount of the global population who have bank accounts. 82 percent of all internet traffic will come from streaming video.
eMarketer magazine predicts that by 2022, ecommerce will top $5 trillion globally, representing an increase of 20 percent from previous years.
A 2017 report from Econsultancy in association with RedEye revealed that only 22 percent of companies were completely satisfied with their current digital conversion rates. And yet, a 2019 report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau also revealed a monopoly on 75 percent of the digital advertising market by only 10 companies.

Millennials And The Changing Face Of Marketing

Not surprisingly, it’s millennials⁠—who currently represent 35 percent of the U.S. labor force and growing⁠—who are driving this shift towards a digital-centric culture. As early as 2014, it was revealed that individuals aged 18 – 36 were estimated to spend an average of 17.8 hours a day across multiple sources of media, with over three hours a day being spent on mobile. A 2017 survey from HubSpot also indicated that the greatest preference for video and social content came from that same age group.

That doesn’t just reflect media consumption. That reflects consumer shopping habits. Millennials currently spend approximately $600 billion annually on retail shopping, with 60 percent of that amount in the U.S.stemming from ecommerce, And as millennials are poised to become the dominant players in industry, representing 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025, traditional marketing solutions are no longer applicable. It’s a generation shaped by the digital revolution, and the need for more advanced and fluid advertising models has never been greater.

Millennials And The Changing Face Of Marketing

Just how lucrative is digital marketing? In our experience, significantly lucrative. But it’s not just in the sense of financial returns alone.

The real reward comes from being on the cutting edge of an industry that’s still relatively young, but is about to shape the way we view communications as a whole. Last year, agencies spent only $69.8 billion on traditional TV advertising. And those numbers are only expected to drop even further in the coming years. In a medium that’s over 70 years old.

Digital marketing, on the other hand, is still not even 20 years old—in a medium that’s rapidly evolving every week. And as connectivity continues to grow more advanced, our culture will change dramatically as a result. New needs. New demands. New challenges. New opportunities. And new media.