This week’s three #AdvertisingInsights dive into how the retail industry continues to dominate digital advertising, but the way that consumers expect to engage with retail ads is shifting.

A new report by the IAB shows digital advertising spend within the United States “surged 19% to $27.5 billion during the first six months of 2015”. The retail, financial services, and auto industries continue to lead all other industries in mobile ad spend. Retail increased an additional percentage point from last year, to 22% of all internet ad revenue and the financial services industry stayed constant at 13%. These three verticals account for almost half of all digital ad revenue today.

Retail remains the largest advertising vertical, but how consumers engage with retail brands is changing. Atlas by Facebook just looked at how the buying habits of Facebook users are undergoing a major transformation; 62% of Facebook users say they shop differently this year than last year, and 65% shop across multiple channels, such as beginning a purchase journey on their phone and finishing it on their computer. Advertisers and marketers need to measure advertise based on a single view of the customer, because if you measure your campaigns based on user devices instead of named customers, you can’t track how effective your ads are. 

Finally, Kahuna examined how marketers, especially in the retail industry, are working on building more personalized campaigns, because, as they said in an infographic, “customers expect personalized, tailored messaging no matter what channel or device.” Today, just 10% of marketers at top retailers believe that they are highly effective at personalization, while 85% of brands’ segmentation strategies is based on just broad segments. At Salesforce, we believe that advertising should be executed with a clear view of where a customer is in their journey with the brand, and we want to help retailers achieve that goal.

Stay ahead of the shift to mobile video in “Advertising Trends: Video Takes Over Digital, Mobile Advertising.” Download the whitepaper.