50% of digital ‘working’ dollars aren’t ‘working’

New research from ISBA finds that half — HALF — of programmatic media spend never gets to publishers, and is instead eaten up by middlemen. This gives new meaning to the term ‘non-working’. 

Some details: 

ISBA is the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers. They hired PwC to do an end-to-end tracking of dollars in the programmatic world.

What they studied: 

  • 15 advertisers, 8 agencies, 5 DSPs, 6 SSPs, and 12 publishers.

  • Tracked roughly £100 million in programmatic media spend in the UK.

  • Tracked it for 15 months.

What they found:

  • They could match 290 chains end to end, covering 31MM impressions.

  • The 15 advertisers used 300 distinct routes to reach their 12 publishers. Oy.

  • On average, 49% of spend doesn’t reach publishers. Oy!

  • 15% of spend is unaccounted for. OY VEY!

  • A broken, tangled rat's nest of a system.

The options are limited to avoid this hot mess. But until it’s cleaned up, do what you can to do so. 

And caveat emptor.

Read the report here.


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