A significant number of Canadian marketers surveyed by Montreal ad tech firm AdGear feel consumers are being alienated by how much of their data is used for ad targeting purposes, and the majority of marketers feel the Digital Advertising Alliance’s AdChoices program isn’t sufficient to protect consumers’ privacy.
Working with Ad Hoc Research, AdGear conducted a targeted telephone survey of 74 marketers at the director level or higher, designed to suss out industry trends going into 2016. Among other questions asked about attitudes toward technology and media agency expertise, the survey asked marketers whether they agree “Advertisers are already alienating consumers through liberal use and collection of data.” Though the majority said they did not agree, 42% said they at least somewhat agree with the statement.
David Thomas, AdGear’s director of business development, connected concerns about online ad targeting to the recent surge in ad blocking. “People are more sensitive to what’s happening [with their data], which may be part of why they’re adopting ad blocking,” he said. “There’s absolutely a debate happening on that [among marketers].”
Asked whether they think the industry’s self-regulation program, AdChoices, is sufficient to deal with privacy issues, the majority of marketers said no. Eighteen per cent said they “completely disagree” that AdChoices was sufficient, and a further 35% said they “somewhat disagree.” AdChoices, administered through a joint venture by the ACA, CMA, IAB and other trade organizations, is the primary means for Canadian consumers to opt out of data collection and targeted online advertising.
Despite concerns about consumer privacy, however, marketers don’t feel they have enough audience data to target online ads effectively. Three quarters of marketers disagreed with the statement “There is sufficient audience data available for targeting in Canada.” Lack of quality audience data has been an ongoing struggle for Canadian advertisers, who commonly complain that third-party data on Canadian audiences tends to be spotty, outdated and unreliable.
The survey also suggested many marketers haven’t effectively operationalized their own data for ad targeting, as less than half (43%) use a data management platform to aggregate customer data and segment audiences. Only a third (32%) use a conversion attribution provider to tie their online ads to ecommerce sales and other desired customer actions.
Other topics that clearly concerned Canadian marketers were the prevalence of fraud in online advertising and the potential for “walled garden” media empires. Half of marketers (51%) said they were dissatisfied with their DSP’s ability to screen for fraudulent ad impressions, while a clear majority (82%) said they would be concerned about media concentration “if some media platforms such as Google and Facebook gain too much power.”
Marketers had mixed feelings about their media agencies. More than half of those surveyed (54%) said they did not leverage an agency for media buying, citing improved flexibility and cost savings as the main reasons for buying media in-house.
Those that did work with an agency said the main benefit they looked for was access to better expertise and a greater perspective than they possessed internally. However, when clients were asked to score how satisfied they were with their agency’s actual performance, more than a third (38%) gave their agency a “dissatisfied” score of between 1 and 6.
“What we’re starting to see among clients and prospects is people are getting more interested and confident in programmatic in-house media buying,” said Ivan Roubtsov, AdGear director of product marketing. “The big component they’re still lacking is expertise, but people are less scared of it now.”
Thomas added that improved self-service tools for search and social, where a lot of direct marketers are concentrating their budgets, may also be a factor in fewer advertisers seeking external partners.
