Online Ordering Grows: Food delivery is growing, both in sales and in usage. Over the past five years, delivery sales have grown 20% and visits by 10%, according to The NPD Group. These increases were driven by online ordering, which now makes up over half of all delivery orders (phone orders still represent 49% of the total). In terms of individual meals, growth of dinner deliveries has been flat, while increases have occurred for meals that used to be less commonly delivered: breakfast and lunch.
Marketers Still Love Influencers: Over half of marketers use influencers to drive purchases, according to an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey, though there are higher-ranking objectives—brand awareness (86%), content creation and distribution (69%), and improving brand perception (56%). Three-fourths of marketers surveyed were using influencers, and 43% planned to increase spending over the next 12 months. Of respondents who weren't using influencers, 27% planned to do so. Both Facebook (86%) and Instagram (84%) were popular social platforms used for influencer marketing.