Despite recent media coverage that has played up the trend of brands moving to drop agencies and handle their automated ad buys in-house, a significant majority of Canadian marketers that are familiar with programmatic say they are satisfied with the way their agency handles programmatic buying.
Still, agencies could be giving marketers more information – half (50%) of marketers that work with agencies said they wanted to know more about how programmatic benefits their brand, and 49% wanted more information on how the technology works.
The responses are part of a survey of 522 Canadian marketers performed by Marketing magazine and programmatic company Acuity Ads. The survey covered awareness of programmatic technology and strategy among Canadian brands, typical practices used in the industry, and concerns about risks and limitations of programmatic media. Results from the full groundbreaking research into the Canadian programmatic landscape will be presented at Marketing‘s Audience Intelligence conference in Toronto on November 4.
Overall, marketers that used agencies had a high opinion of their partners. More than two-thirds (71%) said they were satisfied agency handled programmatic, and more than three quarters (79%) said that agency partners did a good job of informing them about the technology they used to buy media programmatically, though only 12% said they strongly agreed.
Rodney Perry, Canadian managing director at Xaxis, a programmatic trading desk owned by WPP, said that despite media coverage of the growth in in-house trading, agencies can help brands navigate the complex and labour-intensive world of programmatic.
“What we do is not easy, it’s labour intensive. There was an early on notion that we’d automate everything and reduce money and manpower. That’s actually not the case,” said Perry.
“Although some clients have taken it in-house, it’s not right for every client. It’s not a skill set they have in-house.” He added that some clients have always performed their own media buying, and the trend isn’t necessarily new in programmatic.
A few pain points did stand out in the study, mostly revolving around agencies’ communication and transparency with marketers: 41% of marketers that worked with agencies said they did not provide clear, easy-to-understand reports about their programmatic campaigns, 32% said agency partners did not share campaign data with the brand, and 44% said they wanted more information on how agencies priced their services.
Of a number of topics that marketers wanted their agency to provide more information on, “How the technology benefits my brand” ranked the highest.
“There’s a clear desire and need for more knowledge around how the changes in digital and programmatic will impact people’s brands,” said Ashley Bast, VP marketing at Acuity Ads, which executes programmatic for both agencies and brands and sponsored the Rogers research.
“We’re seeing brands approach this in two ways. There’s the traditional way with agencies and their partners, and a lot of brands are getting good value, insights and business-building ideas from that model,” he said. “Others have tried to progress that agenda, but haven’t been satisfied with the results, and now have looked at alternatives. We’re all hearing that brands are going direct to different partners outside of the traditional agency model.”
To learn more about how programmatic media is maturing in Canada, be sure to check out Marketing’s Audience Intelligence conference.
