Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s lead marketer with control over its $8 billion ad budget in the U.S., is pressing digital platforms for more openness. Pritchard’s comments have invigorated the debate on transparency in advertising, reigniting discourse within the marketing community. However, whilst the issue regularly receives attention, substantial action towards greater transparency remains scarce. Nonetheless, there is growing evidence of a push for changing this conduct, particularly regarding marketers’ demands for clarity on their ad spend on Google’s ad platform.
Undeniably, discussions about digital ad transparency have occurred frequently, but marketing professionals are now taking proactive steps to address this. They’re confronting the challenges involved, including agency changes, ad tech turmoil, and taking digital ad operations in-house. One marketer has even hired an independent consultant to collaborate with its agency to analyze Google’s advertising ecosystem data for increased transparency. This move reveals both the limitations of the agency’s capabilities and the daunting complexity of transparency.
Marketers are also tasked with making sense of the acquired data to present it to company’s senior executives convincingly. The objective is not just highlighting the possible wastage of ad spend but making the investment yield results. However, in a seeming contradiction, marketers continue to funnel a larger part of their budget into nontransparent, performance-oriented, AI-based ad products from Google. For some, even stumbling steps can lead to progress by teaching valuable lessons, fostering resilience, and suggesting modifications for better advancement.
There has been an evident shift in how marketers address transparency; moving from checking a box to considering it as a competitive advantage. This approach is gradually changing to focus on the specifics rather than just assessing issues such as Made-For-Arbitrages, fraudulent activities, or ad visibility rates. Over time, the advancement in technology and services has allowed marketers more real-time insights and instantaneous alerts about unnoticed advertisements.
However, the confusion still exists, stemming from a lack of understanding. Marketers may find the data results from different verification tools vastly contradicting. The crux of the problem is understanding the complexities involved in digital advertising. However, it’s crucial that marketers realise this as serving ads in the right environments is pivotal in attaining desired business results. Hence, the discussion around transparency doesn’t solely revolve around advertisers being shortchanged, but it’s evolving into understanding marketers’ roles in fostering change.
Source: Inside marketing’s elusive Quixote quest for digital ad transparency.
