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In partnership with WARC, DoubleVerify (DV) recently published a report, “Raising the Bar in APAC,” which sheds light on how media quality and attention metrics affect ad performance. The findings also reveal how evolutions in the advertising industry affect business practices in the APAC region, specifically.
WARC surveyed 329 brand marketers responsible for media buying across Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines on their perceptions of media quality and performance and conducted in-depth interviews with many of these industry experts. This study further leveraged global data collected by WARC and DV to paint an extensive overview of the region’s nuanced advertising ecosystem.
Although APAC marketers overwhelmingly agree that media quality drives effectiveness, DV and WARC ultimately found there is a significant intent-action gap.
Mind the gap
Out of the marketers surveyed for the report, 98 percent said they use ad verification tools. However, a significant portion of marketers are not evaluating their digital media buys against core quality metrics, with only 17% evaluating critical effectiveness indicators like brand suitability, viewability, fraud, or if the ad was served in the intended geography. Many also do not practise the “always on” approach, which gives advertisers complete coverage across their campaigns. One in three respondents said that they only use verification tools on an ad hoc basis.
“Brand safety in itself is reason enough why advertisers should prioritise media quality,” opined Rhea Teves, director of digital channels and media at Colgate-Palmolive. “We, as a company, recognise the importance of prioritising media impact and quality and we are continuously adapting our approach in the region.”
Taking a proactive approach to guarding media spending is especially important in APAC as a whole, and in particular Southeast Asia, given what’s at stake. Already a vital region for marketers — commanding 60% of the world’s population — APAC is poised to become even more important as Southeast Asian consumers steadily gain purchasing power. Accelerated by the post-pandemic digital commerce revolution, homegrown superapps like Grab, along with e-commerce marketplaces like Lazada and Tokopedia, have become major search engines and discovery channels for APAC consumers. And Southeast Asia is now on track to become the fourth-largest economy in the world on the back of rapid digitalisation, with markets like the Philippines topping in e-commerce retail growth.
“While the potential for digital ad spending growth in APAC is huge, advertisers must safeguard their investments by ensuring always-on verification across all channels or risk wasting media dollars,” said Conrad Tallariti, DoubleVerify’s regional vice president of sales for Asia. “Media quality should be the foundation of every media campaign, and marketers need education on verification.”
The fight for attention is evolving
Many marketers are asking how they can accurately identify touch points and quantify attention in a post-cookie world. DV and WARC’s findings show that the metrics used to measure attention can vary widely based on channel, format, and KPIs. By employing such disparate methods, marketers risk missing out on richer data around campaign performance and, ultimately, opportunities to optimise performance.
With so much at stake, education on attention is crucial in a region as fractured and nuanced as APAC. Marketers can better illustrate the effectiveness of their creatives and content and inform optimisation strategies by integrating a full complement of both quality and performance metrics. This best practice is essential to crafting and optimising superior campaigns and strategies.
The APAC market has arrived at a pivotal juncture. This mature market comprising digitally savvy audiences eager for new platforms and experiences is ripe with opportunity. However, quality and attention should be key priorities for marketers looking to power up their brand performance in this digital age.
To discover more insights, download the full research report from DoubleVerify.
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