A total of 12% of marketers have high trust in the digital advertising ecosystem and social media is now the least trusted digital media channel of digital, overtaking programmatic trading, a new study commissioned by the Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA) has found.
The study, which polled 407 marketers and media agency professionals, found 60% had recalled a negative experience with digital marketing, including misreporting of metrics, brand safety compromises and ad fraud. Of those impacted, 70% of marketers said it results in wasted ad dollars.
This has eroded trust with only 12% confident of digital ads and 34% possessing a neutral or low trust. The channel that caused the biggest trust issue was social media, noted by 63% (72% of media agency professionals and 40% of marketers). This was followed by programmatic trading at 56% and online video at 45%.
Three-quarters of marketers said that poor industry transparency will lead to more marketers taking their media buying in-house.
Seven in ten respondents said that greater trust could be delivered by more robust self-regulation with trading partners certified for best practice. This was also seen as reducing the risk for marketers (55%), delivering better advertising performance (50%) and a cleaner digital supply chain (48%).
“Each year with this pulse of industry trust in the digital trading ecosystem, we see the concern over issues increasing,” AMAA CEO Josanne Ryan said.
“This year, 60% of industry respondents reported experiencing digital marketing issues with the majority of these wasting marketers’ funds. In terms of what is holding us back, from more robust self-regulation to address the issues, marketers indicated the top two reasons are lack of awareness and complacency.”
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