Digital advertisers are forecast to waste more than $134.3 million in the March quarter, according to the latest Next&Co Digital Media Wastage Report.
The latest data eclipses the digital ad spend wastage figure of $104.3 million for the six months to December last year.
Next & Co audited 81 companies with digital ad budgets of between $500,000 to $39 million across a mix of ASX-listed, multinational, national and SME companies.
The data, compiled from Next&Co’s Prometheus proprietary media auditing tool, found that brands in the retail sector will report the most digital ad spend wastage, of almost $31 million.
This was followed by insurance at $28 million, finance ($25.5 million), real estate ($18.8 million), education ($16 million), and health ($14.7 million).
Across media channels, the most digital ad spend will be wasted on Facebook at $52 million, followed by Google at $43 million, LinkedIn at $28 million, and Bing at 10.7 million.
During 2021 Next&Co reported that $3 billion of digital ad spend was wasted annually, failing to be effective in achieving digital advertising commercial objectives.
Next&Co Co-founder, John Vlasakakis: “It’s alarming to see higher levels of digital ad spend wastage this year, especially as digital spend soared to new highs in 2021, surging by 35% to reach almost $13 billion.
“Prometheus has now audited more than 500 brands, with all showing varying levels of wastage across industry categories - brands need to become more aware of the dangers complacency breeds.
"Spending smarter and not harder needs to be the attitude amongst brands of all sizes as this is how scale and company growth can be achieved.
“Procurement also needs to provide more negotiating power to marketing. For example, the fact that one financial services provider had procurement negotiate the cheapest rate but allowed for a clause for the agency to never be audited during their three-year term gobsmacked me, if that isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is. Digital marketing activity isn’t occurring above board, and they are now powerless to take action.”
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