More than $A100 million in digital media advertising expenditure was wasted over the past six months, according to the half-yearly Digital Media Wastage Report conducted by Melbourne-based media agency, Next&Co.
The figure represents an average ad wastage of 38 per cent between July and December 2021 from more than 130 businesses audited over that time.
The data was compiled from Next&Co’s Prometheus proprietary media auditing tool and found almost a third – or $3 billion – of digital ad spend was wasted annually, failing to be effective towards digital advertising commercial objectives.
The 1 July to 31 December 2021 report audited 133 brands from the pharmaceutical, real estate, finance, retail, insurance, and education sectors, across ASX-listed, multinational, national and SME companies.
Wastage in the retail sector was largest, at nearly $30 million. It was followed by finance, with $27 million wasted, real estate ($15 million), insurance ($15 million), pharmaceuticals ($13 million) and education ($3 million).
Across digital media channels, the most digital ad spend was wasted on Facebook at $37 million, then Google at $34 million, LinkedIn at $21 million and Bing at $9 million.
“Brands really need to invest time in auditing their budgeting process to focus on spending smarter, not harder,” said Next&Co co-founder, John Vlasakakis.
“Having now audited more than 600 brands, we have seen tens of millions of dollars wasted across campaigns that are driving zero value in terms of commercial objectives, by bidding on terms that drive no sales or enquiries or buying against the wrong demographic and audiences.
“Brands need to treat their marketing spend as their own money and livelihood. With this attitude, people will take wasted media spend more seriously.”
