Marketers trust programmatic more than agencies, AMAA survey reveals
Australia’s marketers are more trusting of programmatic systems than their agency counterparts – but the majority of the industry still believes there is a major trust issue with digital platforms.
Josanne Ryan says there is a major gap between agencies and marketers in trust perceptions
A survey of more than 300 marketers and agency executives by the Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA) highlighted a growing gap between the level oversight platforms such as programmatic, social, video and mobile receive, and the expectations of the industry.
Just a year ago 21% of respondents said there needed to be more oversight of social media, but the figure ballooned to 53% in the latest survey on the back of major questions being raised about platforms such as Facebook.
AMAA CEO Josanne Ryan said marketers needed to be seen to be pushing for more oversight with more than half of online advertising predicted to be bought programmatically within three years.
The survey took place before YouTube’s brand safety controversies earlier this year, but the number of marketers concerned about brand safety still climbed from 23% in 2016 to 30% in 2017.
Ryan said the concerns over brand safety are expected to be much higher in next year’s survey and noted that trust increasingly had a tangible economic value.
“It’s not surprising that programmatic has jumped up and also social media, given all of the issues with Facebook measurement, and yet again today with another one the industry is now becoming a lot more aware of the issues,” Ryan said.
“One of the things that you would have expected is the brand safety, it’s still too low. But we did this before the Google YouTube issues.”
She said some 72% of respondents agreed the digital trading ecosphere “is not as transparent, accountable and trustworthy as it should be”.
“Trust is the invisible thread of influence with regard to media buying decisions. The industry confirmed that advertising trading doesn’t run purely on money and analytics, it also runs on trust.”
The survey found 75% people agreed that the issues the industry faces in transparency and accountability will only get fixed if marketers push for it.
At the same time, Ryan said more than 70% agreed that poor industry transparency will lead to more marketers taking their media buying in-house.
“There are a range of large clients that have made that choice, but it’s not just about trust, its about control,” she said.
“But the industry is saying there are things that are not working as well as they could.”
