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.