Execs Worry Over Audience Delivery via Digital, Mobile and Social

There’s no doubt that advertisers are funneling money into digital, mobile and social (DMS). However, recent research suggests they’re still struggling to deliver audience across these channels.

In a May 2015 study by Market Measurement for Active International, more than seven in 10 US media company executives said they were concerned about their ability to deliver audience via DMS channels. C-level and financial execs were slightly above average for this metric, while marketing and “other” respondents came in at 69% each.

In order to ease such concerns, execs were making moves toward technology adoption. When asked about the primary advertising tech challenge on which they were focused, 41% of respondents said they were expanding their mobile revenue model. About a quarter of respondents from each group said they were focused on developing inventory for digital channels (which includes growing nonmobile and nonsocial digital channels). And overall, 24% said expanding their social revenue model was the primary technology challenge on which they were focused.

Further, 52% of media company execs in the Active International study said their companies were likely to increase investments to expand programmatic capabilities—which can boost targeting and improve audience delivery. When May 2015 polling by Strata asked US ad agency professionals about the biggest benefits of using programmatic buying, 46% cited improved audience targeting—the No. 1 response.

May 2015 research by Chango and Rubicon Project supports the idea that investment in programmatic technologies should improve audience delivery. Nearly three-quarters of digital marketers in North America and the UK said the ability to target more effectively than just demographics was very important when using programmatic technologies to amplify branding and better target customers, and six in 10 said the same about reaching their core audience more efficiently via retargeting. Fully 54% said reaching targeted users at scale was very important, and just under half cited targeting viewable impressions and ensuring ads were seen.

Courtesy of eMarketer