For digital-ad sellers, 2021 was always going to be a hard act to follow. As work, play and shopping shifted online during the covid-19 pandemic, internet advertising boomed. In America spending rose by 38%, to $211bn, compared with average annual growth of 21% in the preceding five years, according to eMarketer, a research firm. Smaller social-media firms such as Pinterest and Snap at times hit triple-digit year-on-year quarterly revenue growth. Even giants such as Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Meta (Facebook’s and Instagram’s), which receive a third and a fifth of the world’s digital-ad dollars, respectively, clocked rates of 50%.?

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對于數(shù)字廣告銷售商來說，2021年永遠(yuǎn)是一個望塵莫及的一年。在新冠期間，隨著工作、娛樂和購物轉(zhuǎn)移到網(wǎng)上，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)廣告蓬勃發(fā)展。根據(jù)研究公司eMarketer的數(shù)據(jù)，美國的消費增長了38%，達到2110億美元，而在之前的五年里，美國的消費年均增長為21%。Pinterest和Snap等規(guī)模較小的社交媒體公司的季度收入同比增長有時會達到三位數(shù)。即使是Alphabet(谷歌的母公司)和Meta (Facebook和Instagram的母公司)這樣的巨頭，它們分別獲得了全球數(shù)字廣告收入的三分之一和五分之一，其廣告收入也達到了50%。

The contrast with 2022 is stark. On July 21st Snap reported that its sales grew by 13%, year on year, in the second quarter, its most anaemic ever. In a letter to investors, the firm confessed that so far this quarter revenue was “Approximately flat”. The market was spooked, and the company’s share price fell by almost 40%. The next day Twitter, which also depends on advertising, reported that its revenue had fallen slightly in the three months to June, compared with last year.?

這與2022年形成了鮮明的對比。7月21日，Snap發(fā)布報告稱其第二季度的銷售額同比增長了13%，是其有史以來最疲軟的一次。該公司在致投資者的一封信中承認(rèn)，本季度到目前為止，收入“大致持平”。市場受到了驚嚇，該公司的股價下跌了近40%。第二天，同樣依賴廣告業(yè)務(wù)的Twitter報告稱，與去年相比，其截至6月的三個月的收入略有下降。

That triggered concern about the health of online advertising, dragging down the share prices of the industry’s titans. On July 26th Alphabet duly disclosed Snap-like quarterly sales growth of 13%, down from 62% in the same period last year. That was less terrible than expected (its market value rose by 8% on the news) but still pretty bad (it remains a bit below what it had been before the Snap bombshell). A day later Meta said that its revenue declined for the first time, by 1% year on year.?

這引發(fā)了人們對在線廣告狀況的擔(dān)憂，這拖累了該行業(yè)巨頭的股價。7月26日，Alphabet正式公布了與snap類似的季度銷售額增長13%，低于去年同期的62%。這并沒有預(yù)期的那么糟糕(消息傳出后，其市值上漲了8%)，但仍然相當(dāng)糟糕(仍略低于Snap爆炸新聞前的水平)。一天后，Meta表示其收入首次下降，同比下降1%。

Upstart challengers like Snap are the most exposed. When marketing budgets get trimmed, advertisers tend to stick to what they know, says Mark Shmulik of Bernstein, a broker. And they know Google search much better than they do Snap’s experiments with augmented reality. The big firms also boast larger and more diverse sets of customers; Meta serves 10m advertisers globally, compared with Snap’s estimated 1m or less. That insulates them somewhat from softening demand.?

Snap這樣的新貴挑戰(zhàn)者更容易收到攻擊。伯恩斯坦的經(jīng)紀(jì)人馬克?什穆里克說，當(dāng)營銷預(yù)算被削減時，廣告商傾向于繼續(xù)使用他們所了解的產(chǎn)品。他們對谷歌搜索的了解比Snap的增強現(xiàn)實實驗要更多。大公司還擁有更大、更多樣化的客戶群體；Meta在全球為1000萬廣告商服務(wù)，而Snap估計為100萬甚至更少。這在一定程度上使它們可以在一定程度上免受需求疲軟的影響。

Somewhat, but not fully. Last year’s covid-boosted baseline is not the only thing weighing on the digital-ad market. Ad-sellers are feeling the delayed effect of Apple’s change last year to the privacy settings on iPhones, which stops advertisers from tracking people’s behaviour on its devices, and thus from measuring the effectiveness of digital ads. Snap cited the Apple policy as a reason for recent weak results. Meta estimates that the change will shave $10bn, or 8%, from its revenue this year.?

只是一定程度上，并不是全部。去年受新冠影響的基線并不是拖累數(shù)字廣告市場的唯一因素。去年，蘋果改變了iPhone上的隱私設(shè)置，讓廣告客戶無法追蹤用戶在其設(shè)備上的行為，從而無法衡量數(shù)字廣告的有效性。廣告銷售商感受到了這一改變的延遲效應(yīng)。Snap將蘋果的這一政策列為近期業(yè)績疲弱的原因之一。Meta估計，這一變化將使其今年的收入減少100億美元，即降幅為8%。

Both Alphabet and Meta are also facing fiercer competition. TikTok, a Chinese-owned short-video platform beloved of Western teenagers, is taking eyeballs from American social media, and ad revenue with them. Perhaps more concerning, previously ad-incurious tech titans are also getting in on the action. In the past couple of years Amazon has built the world’s fourth-biggest online-ad business. Apple has a small but growing ad operation. And Microsoft has just been named as Netflix’s partner in the video-streaming giant’s new ad-supported offering.?

Alphabet和Meta也面臨著更加激烈的競爭。TikTok是一家深受西方青少年喜愛的中國短視頻平臺，它正在從美國社交媒體平臺上“吸引”大家的眼球，并從中獲得廣告收入?；蛟S更令人擔(dān)憂的是，以前對廣告不感興趣的科技巨頭們也開始參與進來。在過去的幾年里，亞馬遜建立了世界第四大在線廣告業(yè)務(wù)。蘋果的廣告業(yè)務(wù)規(guī)模雖小，但在不斷增長。微軟剛剛被任命為Netflix的合作伙伴，并為這家視頻流媒體巨頭提供新的廣告支持服務(wù)。

Another reason for the big ad-sellers’ slowdown is similarly structural. For years they shrugged off blips in the broader economy, as many customers came to see online ads as a virtual shopfront that needed to be maintained even in tough times—often at the expense of other ad spending. That has left ever fewer non-digital ad dollars available to be diverted online. In a pinch, advertisers may now therefore need to take an axe to their digital billboards.

大型廣告銷售商增長放緩的另一個原因是類似的結(jié)構(gòu)性原因。多年來，他們對整體經(jīng)濟的波動不以為然，因為許多客戶開始將在線廣告視為即使在困難時期也需要維持的虛擬店面，通常是以犧牲其他廣告支出為代價的。這使得原本就很少的非數(shù)字廣告支出轉(zhuǎn)向了在線廣告。因此，在緊要關(guān)頭，廣告商現(xiàn)在可能需要砍掉他們的數(shù)字廣告牌。

The pain isn’t felt equally. Google, whose search ads rely less on the sort of tracking Apple has curbed, may have benefited from Meta’s misery, helping offset some of the slowdown. On July 27th Spotify bucked the trend among challenger platforms, reporting unexpectedly healthy ad revenues from its music-streaming service, which helped buoy its share price by 12%. Even so, the business cycle may be catching up with big tech.?

痛苦并不相通。谷歌的搜索廣告較少依賴于蘋果所限制的追蹤，它可能從Meta的不幸中受益，從而幫助抵消了部分放緩。7月27日，Spotify在挑戰(zhàn)者平臺中逆勢而上，報告了其音樂流媒體服務(wù)的廣告收入出人意料地“健康”狀況，這幫助其股價上漲了12%。即便如此，商業(yè)周期可能會困擾大型科技公司。