TORONTO — It may be the most trackable medium out there, but how effective is digital ad advertising really?
If you peek under the hood, maybe not as effective as many advertisers believe, says one executive who runs effectiveness for a global marketing consultancy.
“In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ebiquity head of international effectiveness Mike Campbell says: “We have seen some ROIs coming through from Facebook (and) YouTube but the issue of those channels is the scalability.
“Whereas a lot of companies, they may book guidelines that said, ‘You need to be up 30% digital or 40% digital in the plan’, actually when you do the maths behind it, you’ll say, ‘Actually it should be significantly less than that’. (It) just saturates so quickly.
“I think a lot of marketeers and actually people in media agencies as well, are sometimes surprised by this. They have an overstated view of the importance of some of the digital channels. A lot of people aren’t seeing this stuff.”
Ebiquity says it works with 80 of the world’s leading 100 advertisers, analysing over $50 billion global annual media spend through more than 750 consultants.
That means it helps brands identify, select and manage the right agency and technology partners to run their campaigns.
Why is digital not so effective? Campbell says many people haven’t or heard seen the digital ads that have been paid for and served.
He says he tries to explain this “storyline” to big-brand clients, often met by resistance – but eventual acceptance.
This video was recorded in Toronto at the Future of TV Advertising Forum. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Finecast. For more segments from Toronto, please visit this page.