The competition to acquire new traffic is fierce. Total visits to U.S websites declined by 0.4 percent over the 36 month-period, while consumers continue to spend less time on web sites. Retail sites saw total time spent on sites decrease by 25.6 seconds.   Still, the report found that new customer traffic is coming more and more from emerging channels. In retail, social media is 2.5 times more likely to drive non-customer traffic.

The marketing mix must also differ for current customers and non-customers. According to Adobe, non-customers reach sites through search or direct access, while current customers rely on marketing communications like email newsletters. The report also found that digital advertising costs are rising 5 times faster than inflation. A trend that can however, be traced back to the late 1990’s when the cost of reaching consumers on traditional TV began outpacing inflation. Adobe launched a platform called Advertising Cloud this week, which will allow its customers to manage and buy its digital and TV ads.