As more podcast and digital audio advertising is sold through programmatic ad exchanges, a familiar concern remains. Brand safety and suitability issues continue to the biggest doubt in ad buyers mind according to a new survey by WARC. It finds six in ten advertisers and agencies say brand safety and suitability is their biggest cause for concern, outranking worries about the loss of advertising cookies or measurement accuracy. Not only do more than half of the advertisers and agencies surveyed highlight brand safety as one of their biggest causes for concern, but 56% see improving advertising verification capabilities as a top priority.
“Declining addressability, brand safety and ad fraud, continue to concern marketers, and addressing these concerns becomes even more important as increasing volumes of spend are transacted programmatically each year,” said Paul Stringer, Managing Editor of Research and Insights at WARC.
Despite the widespread use of programmatic advertising – it accounts for 70% of digital ad spending and placement overall – dissatisfaction persists due to issues with brand safety, as many advertisers are finding their ads placed in low-quality, inappropriate environments. Improving ad verification is now a top priority for over half of those surveyed.
“Advertisers and agencies need to take a more proactive and comprehensive approach to brand safety, expanding their placement criteria to make better decisions and ensure their ads appear in appropriate and relevant environments,” said Hannah Rook, Head of Intelligence and Insights at MAGNA.
The survey findings are based on a survey of 100 programmatic experts, conducted in July 2024 by WARC in partnership with B2B market research company, NewtonX, and complemented by expert commentary and external research.
Its findings are fewer than half (49%) of advertisers and agencies have established direct contracts or taken the necessary steps to verify or audit the quality of ad impressions. That is despite a report released by Association of National Advertisers that found only 36-cents of every dollar spent on programmatic advertising reaches the consumer, and a quarter of the $88 billion spent on open web programmatic is wasted on low-quality and fraudulent ad impressions.
The result is 56% of those surveyed said they consider improved ad verification capabilities one of their top priorities, along with access to better quality data (55%). But just as important is how the ads are delivered. WARC says 54% of those surveyed say improving ad targeting is one of their top priorities.
Google will no longer be withdrawing cookies from the digital advertising ecosystem, but WARC says it will nonetheless play a diminished role in the future. At the same time, many advertisers are still struggling to adapt. The survey finds only a quarter (25%) of survey respondents agree that advertisers are making adequate progress. Consistent with other research the data shows advertisers are doubling down on the collection of first-party data. More than three quarters (76%) of respondents are implementing first-party data strategies, with more than half (57%) highlighting this as the most promising solution.
“Our Future of Programmatic report arrives in the wake of the announcement from Google that third-party cookies will no longer be fully phased out from the advertising ecosystem,” Stringer said. “While it represents a reversal of sorts, this should not encourage complacency. The industry still needs to evolve to meet the demands of a privacy-first ecosystem.”
Download the WARC’s Future of Programmatic report HERE.
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