WFA global position on advertiser access to data in the digital advertising market

Approximately $235 billion of advertising spend is channelled through the digital advertising market globally every year, representing just over 50% of global advertising spend in 2020.

However, as pointed out by both regulators and advertisers, the digital advertising market today is notoriously complex and opaque. Three years ago, the digital media supply chain was described by the Chief Brand Officer of the biggest global advertiser as “murky at best, fraudulent at worst”.

This lack of transparency means that advertisers and businesses can often struggled to access accurate and reliable data about their advertising from the companies that process and deliver it.

In fact, according to a recent WFA survey, 79% of large global advertisers said they encounter a lack of data sharing when working with large online advertising platforms, which impacts their ability to:
1) Measure how many people saw an ad and whether a campaign on a particular platform was successful
2) Audit advertising spend to ensure their marketing budgets are being spent effectively
3) Ensure that ad spend isn’t indirectly funding the spread of illegal and harmful content online
4) Understand trends and consumer preferences in order to compete fairly with platforms that hold large amounts of consumer data.

This can have direct repercussions on advertisers, consumers and the competitiveness and wellbeing of the wider digital economy.

WFA has therefore developed a position paper on advertiser access to data in the digital advertising market which deep-dives into how a lack of data sharing impacts advertisers’ key activities, and puts forward recommendations on how both regulation and industry efforts can help address these.

The document can be downloaded below.