2018 Marketing Trends Report and The 4 Year Rise of 14 Marketing Services


The marketing services landscape continued to grow in size and complexity for the fourth year of Agency Spotter’s 2018 Marketing Trends Report.

This report builds on trends in marketing service seasonality and continues to show the rise of 14 services over the last four years along with the stability of others. All service areas on Agency Spotter have grown, but some continue to capture a much larger share of attention year over year.

By identifying what services professionals are searching for and looking at across four year macro trends, seasonal trends, and year over year trends, the marketing and advertising industry can be more responsive about its offering and positioning.

You can download the 2018 marketing trends report at: agencyspotter.com/trends-report

Marketing Trends Report Download 2018

Throughout 2017, Agency Spotter helped a quarter of a million marketers and subject matter experts at companies begin their agency searches. Agencies on the platform had more than 3.1 million views and our inventory of verified client reviews grew by more than 50%.

We have heard the call for alignment and transparency from CMOs and other executives in advertising, digital and many other corners of the industry. Agency Spotter was founded on and remains focused on bringing transparency to the marketing and advertising services industry.

Decision makers looking to search for marketing services may find these trends reassuring or may use them to see how their own company’s marketing services stack up.

Key insights revealed in the Marketing Trends Report include:

  • Marketing Spend: Brands continue to search for more agencies, more frequently. CMOs and Agencies of Record both change about every 3 to 3.5 years.
  • Demographics: Almost a quarter of a million professionals from 160 countries searching for agencies with 29% Director level or higher.
  • 14 services trending up over four years, including direct marketing, search (SEO/PPC) and inbound marketing.
  • 6 services were stable during the four years, including advertising, digital strategy, and social media
  • Marketing services including social media, e-commerce, media planning and strategy, user experience design, and email marketing are all searched more frequently during different times of the year.
  • Year over year changes to the top 25 marketing services had lots of movement and seem to align with large company advertising channel spend. The highest climbs of 2017 were seen by direct marketing, branding, search, innovation, email marketing, influencer marketing, healthcare marketing, multicultural marketing, word of mouth marketing (WOMM), and gaming.

“Advertising remains the number 1 most searched service out of the 40 that we track,” said Brian Regienczuk, chief executive officer and co-founder at Agency Spotter.

Top 15 Countries Searching for Marketing Agencies

Marketing Spend Trends Report 2018 Jan Top 25 Most Searched Marketing Services of 2017 Four Year Macro Marketing Services Trends Seasonal Marketing Trends 2018

“This report underscores the importance of looking at macro and seasonal marketing services behavioral trends that publishers, advertisers and agencies need in order to effectively prepare as the marketing industry evolves. We’re excited to expand this measurement to include even more markets throughout 2018 as we help map the future of marketing.”

Download a free copy of the 2018 marketing trends report at: agencyspotter.com/trends-report

It is our goal at Agency Spotter to continually innovate to meet the demands of marketers and subject matter experts with 40 marketing service areas, including the recent addition of AR VR, Affiliate Marketing, Multicultural Marketing, and Marketing Automation.

In the last twelve months, we launched 8 Top Agency Reports which are published throughout the year, and we created 103 Brand Pages to showcase agencies working for some of the largest companies on the planet whose employees use our platform, including Google, Nike, Adidas, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Verizon, Dell, and Disney.

I hope that 2018 is an amazing year for each of you and your companies. If you are focused on marketing alignment and transparency, I would love to speak with you about how we can help bring partner data and work to life for you.

Brian Regienczuk
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