Global study highlights marketer priorities and opinions amid key market challenges in the U.S.

New York, NY –  Nearly half (47%) of U.S. marketers say performance is more important than transparency when it comes to programmatic buying. However, 45% believe performance and transparency matter equally. That’s according to a new survey released today by Adform, a global integrated advertising platform.

“The rapid development and innovation of the digital marketing landscape has always posed challenges for marketers,” said John Piccone, Regional President, Americas at Adform. “Today, we’re not only seeing those challenges proliferate as topics of transparency and performance become critical to success – we’re also seeing overarching pressures like sustainability and economic uncertainty add considerable complexity to decision making.”

Conducted in partnership with YouGov in Q2 2023, the study surveyed over 3,000 global marketing decision makers who buy programmatically to better understand how they perceive market challenges like transparency, performance, third-party cookie deprecation, and sustainability. Of the over 500 U.S. respondents surveyed, key findings include:

• Marketers still value transparency: Although performance takes precedence over transparency when it comes to buying programmatically, 89% of U.S. respondents want to be informed about how their media budget is allocated between media, technology, and other costs.
• But trust varies – and transparency still isn’t fully transparent: Over one quarter (31%) of U.S. respondents do not believe walled gardens are most transparent when it comes to media spending and allocation.
• Solutions to third-party cookie deprecation remain unclear: Sixty-five percent of U.S. respondents reported they have already experienced a negative impact on their online advertising efforts as a result of third-party cookies being blocked. And while 70% of U.S. respondents believe a third-party cookie replacement is critical to success, nearly 40% (38%) are not fully aware of the solutions available, and 36% do not have a clear idea of how abandoning third-party cookies will impact their marketing.
• Cookieless browser market share is misrepresented: Safari and Firefox have a combined market share of 36%, with only 7% of U.S. respondents guessing this market share correctly. Thirty-three percent said they didn’t know, and 16% thought the combined market share was lower.
• Sustainability is split when it comes to planning and process: While 35% of U.S. respondents consider sustainability as part of the marketing production and planning process, 36% do not factor in sustainability at all, noting they either have other priorities (18%) or have yet to find out how to include sustainability in their daily business (18%).

“The results of this survey highlight massive opportunities for marketers to gain understanding and access to the tools they need to navigate the ever-changing media landscape – especially when it comes to transparency over their media investments,” continued Piccone. “In turn, technology partners, walled gardens, and the industry at large have a critical obligation to help their clients navigate these challenges while providing viable solutions that drive success.”

For more information about Adform, visit: www.adform.com

About Adform

Adform is the only global, independent and fully integrated advertising platform built for modern marketing. Its unique enterprise technology – Adform FLOW – harnesses superior user experience and a scalable, modular and open architecture, to enable seamless management of the whole campaign lifecycle. It provides clients with enhanced control and transparency across their advertising operations, including ownership of all data from their campaigns. Since 2002, Adform has developed technology to enhance human/machine collaboration and deliver augmented intelligence, thereby amplifying business results for its clients around the world.