3 growth areas marketers should keep an eye on in 2023

Though it’s a new year, we’re still facing the same challenges from 2022. Ad spending is slowing, inflation is top of mind for consumers, and a “retailpocalypse” could be on the horizon.

Here are three silver linings of where we forecast growth in 2023.

1. Mobile app install advertising spend is on the rise

US mobile app install advertising spend increased nearly 25% last year and will increase another 15.5% this year, our analyst Zach Goldner said on our “Behind the Numbers: The Daily” podcast.

This also outpaces total category growth (digital ad spending in the US will only grow 12.0% this year).

This is good news for Apple, said Goldner, which is increasingly becoming an ad publishing behemoth. But it’s also welcome news for Google and Meta, which are competing with Apple for mobile app ad spend.

2. Video content boosts time spent on social media

This year, we expect US social network users to spend an average of 1 hour and 46 minutes across all the platforms they use, up from 1 hour and 23 minutes in 2019 (before the pandemic spike in social media activity).

This growth is being driven by an increase in users across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and TikTok, said our forecaster Oscar Orozco. Only one social media platform—Tumblr—will lose users this year (compared to 2019).

Increased video content is also boosting time spent. And not just on TikTok and Instagram, but also on platforms like Pinterest, which aren’t traditionally known for videos.

We predict that by 2024, nearly 60% of time on social platforms will be spent watching video, accounting for 9% of all digital time spent.

“I think social has the advantage of being something you can always do simultaneously with something else, which probably enables it to hold onto its gains,” said Orozco.

3. Click-and-collect ecommerce grocery sales outpace total ecommerce growth

In 2023, we forecast that total US grocery click-and-collect ecommerce sales will grow 15.1% to reach $56.48 billion, outpacing total retail ecommerce sales growth of 10.5%, said our forecaster Ethan Cramer-Flood.

Though many consumers are flocking back to the store to buy apparel and electronics, click and collect remains a popular option for grocery buyers. Interestingly, this upward trend is being driven by in-store pickup (rather than curbside pickup), according to Goldner.

In addition, ecommerce grocery’s share of total click-and-collect sales is increasing, rising from 54.5% of sales last year to 56.8% of sales in 2023. By 2026, 63.4% of total click-and-collect sales will be from grocery ecommerce.

Listen to the full episode.

This was originally featured in the eMarketer Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.

"Behind the Numbers" Podcast