SYDNEY:  More than half - 60% - of marketers have had a bad experience with digital marketing, according to new research.

According to a survey of 407 marketers released by the Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA), 60% of respondents had experienced a negative outcome in their digital marketing.

Measurement clarity and brand safety issues were the most reported incidences: 36% said they were impacted by misreporting in measurement and 32% had had to make compromises due to brand safety. Wasted investment was the biggest frustration, with 70% of respondents noting poor experiences that affected their budget.

While only 13% of marketers said their brands had been affected by ad fraud, the issue is top of mind for many. 53% considered non-human traffic to be a key concern in the next year, up from 39% last year. Likewise, half of respondents considered ad fraud to be a challenge, compared to 44% the year prior.

The vexed issues of measurement – both proving performance and getting an accurate sense of cross-channel reach – were the top concerns for marketers in the next year. Transparency across the board is a priority: 63% of marketers and agencies believe that to build more industry trust, social media needs more oversight. Programmatic trading is a another target for transparency initiatives, in the view of marketers.

“In terms of what is holding us back, from more robust self-regulation to address the issues, marketers indicated the top two reasons are lack of awareness and complacency,” AMAA CEO Josanne Ryan said.

“The AMAA view is that the industry cannot afford to be complacent, we need to ensure we are approaching the issues from both an individual marketer perspective and at the holistic industry level.”

Sourced from Mumbrella, Audited Media; additional content by WARC staff