Consumers Connecting with Companies and the Power of Brand Affinity [Infographic]

A new infographic reveals the top reasons why consumers feel connectied with brands and the results are telling. Affinity comes when consumers feel that a brand cares about people like themselves, and when the company is run by people like themselves. Social Media Today

Desktop and Mobile Ad Revenue Surpasses TV for the First Time

The IAB reports that in 2016, for the first time, desktop and mobile advertising revenue surpassed TV advertising revenue. Digital revenue grew by 22% year-over-year, with digital video ad revenue growing by 53% and mobile video revenue growing by 145%. Advertising Age

Instagram Dominates Influencer Marketing (Report)

91.9% of influencers surveyed said that their preferred platform is Instagram. Of these social influencers, 12% said that being an influencer was their full time job, which makes sense when you consider that 25% said that their best posts take 1-3 hours to create and many spend nearly 7 hours daily on social media. AdWeek

Facebook pixels get upgrade to track actions & page data

Marketing Land reports: “The engine behind Facebook’s tracking and targeting just got an upgrade. The Facebook pixel helps track conversions, optimize ad spends and retarget users. An upgrade to the pixel was just rolled out that will now capture more information, including actions and page structure and data.” Marketing Land

How Marketers Score Their Firms on 17 Digital Capabilities

A new survey of brand and agency marketers from BCG asked marketers to rate their marketing abilities on a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being the best. Brand marketers rated their firm’s marketing abilities, on average, below 60/100. Agency marketers rated themselves at or above 65/100. Marketing Profs

Search Ad Revenue Up 19%, Now 48% of All Digital Ad Revenue [REPORT]

Search Engine Journal reports: “According to a report from iab, total revenue from search ads has hit a new high which can be attributed in large part to the success of mobile ads. As a result of an unprecedented level of spending on mobile search ads, the search ad format accounted for $35.0 billion in revenue in 2016 — up from $29.5 billion in 2015.” Search Engine Journal

Find your next customer with new audience solutions for Search and Shopping

Google has announced the launch of “similar audiences for Search and Shopping along with Customer Match for Shopping” to help advertisers further target the right customers with your message using your own data. Google

Attribution, integration and replication: The challenges facing advertisers in the digital age

A new report from ClickZ shows that marketers are increasing their budgets significantly in paid search and paid social in 2017. The report also uncovers top challenges — which came down to attribution of marketing success. ClickZ

What were your top digital marketing news stories this week?

We’ll be back next week with more digital marketing news. If you need more in the meantime, follow @toprank on Twitter.