Digital media strategy company Next&Co says an average 37 percent, or around $123.3 million in digital media advertising expenditure was wasted by Australian companies in Q2 2021.
Next&Co’s Digital Media Wastage Report audited 115 brands from the consumer goods, finance, retail, health, insurance and education sectors across ASX-listed, multinational, national and SME companies.
Media budgets for the companies ranged from $500,000 to $27 million.
But the company’s newly launched Prometheus proprietary media auditing tool found almost a third, or $3 billion, in digital ad spend was wasted annually.
Wastage in the insurance sector was largest at $69 million, although this was also the biggest spending sector. It was followed by health with $50.6 million wasted, education, $42 million, retail, $38 million, consumer sector, $26 million and finance, $21 million.
Adds Next&Co: Across digital media channels, the most digital ad spend was wasted on Facebook at $55 million, Google at $48 million, LinkedIn at $11 million and Bing at $8 million.
Common causes of waste were said to include overbidding on things such as search terms, buying the wrong demographic, and buying ineffective search terms.
