Nearly 60% of digital FMCG adspend is wasted

An overview of the effectiveness of global FMCG digital advertising and trade spend.

Nearly 60% of digital FMCG advertising spend is wasted, according to the latest research from AlixPartners. In a survey of over one thousand global executives, 58.3% said their digital ad investment has a negative ROI or the ROI is unknown, equal to $35bn. Only 41.7% believe digital adspend generated a positive ROI.

While digital trade spend aims to increase demand for consumer products, only 40% had a positive impact. Instead, nearly one-half (45%) has a negative ROI, worth $12bn.

Part of this waste is a result of the continued issues of online ad fraud and brand safety...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands