Over 2 in 5 (41%) of marketers find mobile programmatic more confusing than on desktop, but over 60% plan to increase their ad spend in mobile programmatic over the next year, according to new research.
The study, from transparent media buying platform, iotec, addresses some of the rising concerns within mobile programmatic advertising through their latest findings, highlighted in their recently fielded research, The Mobile Transparency Report.
According to eMarketer, it’s anticipated that by 2019 mobile media time (29.6%) will surpass TV activity (30.4%). As a result, the increasing use of mobile is an area through which advertisers must pay close attention to, but an emphasis beyond just digital advertising spend is crucial.
In 2016, mobile activity accounted for over 50% of the UK’s digital advertising, amounting to £3.86 billion. With this leap to mobile, advertisers and tech vendors need to think critically about the issues plaguing the ecosystem and how this translates across multiple devices. Therefore, the debates around transparency, ad fraud, viewability, verification and brand safety should be no exception to the increased adoption of mobile.
With this in mind, iotec conducted a survey of 500 UK based marketers to get to the root of the industry’s transparency issues and better understand the challenges and opportunities of mobile programmatic. The survey uncovered that 41% of marketers are intimidated by mobile programmatic, setting the stage for an increased narrative around what the move to programmatic for mobile means within the industry.
Some key findings of the survey include:
- Growing demand for mobile programmatic: Over 60% of marketers plan to increase their ad spend in mobile programmatic over the next year.
- Greater complexity in mobile advertising: A third of all those who responded found mobile programmatic just as confusing as on desktop, while 41% found it to be more complicated on mobile.
- Fraud at the forefront of transparency concerns: Of those surveyed, advertisers felt that the top three transparency concerns within the industry include: (i) fraud (32.8%); (ii) viewability (28.7%); (iii) targeting (22%).
- Transparent pricing is the greatest concern for marketers: More than half of marketers (50.4%) identified transparent pricing as their primary focus due to growing industry concern.
- Fully transparency supply chain a top priority for marketers: The data revealed that the most important piece of a marketer’s relationship with their vendor is a fully transparent supply chain (27.2%). Similarly, the top reason for changing ad-tech providers was transparency (20.2%), even above performance.
Paul Wright, CEO of iotec, says: “Our findings have made it incredibly clear that brand advertisers and tech vendors all need to improve the way our industry works. An open and honest ecosystem with an active commitment to ad fraud prevention stands to benefit us all.” “That’s why we wanted to conduct this research – we now know that marketers perceive the mobile programmatic landscape to be complex, further exacerbating the issue of transparent actions. After all, how can you work effectively within a system you don’t understand? Therefore, we hope these results and recommendations serve as benchmarks for industry leaders to sign up to and use for themselves and their clients in the future.”
To read more of the findings, or to download the report, click here.
Methodology
iotec’s survey was conducted between August 10 and August 22, 2017 by OnePoll, targeting 500 decision makers within the UK marketing industry.
