Based on PwC's Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2024-2028, digital advertising revenue in South Africa is expected to increase from R26.3-billion in 2023 to a resounding R38.1-billion in 2028. 

While it remains a multibillion Rand industry, the world of digital advertising is a complex ecosystem. It seamlessly connects users, publishers, advertisers and technology platforms, while serving as an intricate system that aims to deliver relevant ads to users and maximise value for brands.

However, the journey from a user's browsing activity to seeing a targeted ad on their screen involves numerous steps and technologies. This means that the efficacy of advertising campaigns needs to be assessed more stringently to ensure you are getting the maximum benefit from your investment. 

Despite the sophistication of modern paid media, the industry is revealing significant gaps between client expectations and campaign delivery.

The intricacies of digital performance and ad spend can lead to substantial inefficiencies within the media advertising ecosystem, with our in-house experience indicating that between 30% to 90% of digital campaign impressions are not delivered fully as intended. This highlights the challenges that businesses are facing in achieving optimal results. 

Some of these common challenges may be due to:

  • a misalignment of campaign objectives
  • inadequate or incorrect audience targeting
  • suboptimal ad placements
  • insufficient viewability rates, or
  • misallocated budgets. 

To ensure your campaigns are hitting the mark as effectively as possible, a few key elements must be considered. 

1. Taking a Comprehensive Approach to the Digital Advertising Ecosystem

Understanding the intricate process of ad delivery and management is crucial for effectively executing campaigns. Several key steps are involved in this process and it is imperative to understand their interconnectedness. 

By using the above model to examine your campaign plan, it could help eliminate frequent mistakes that businesses encounter and offer effective strategies to optimise your return on investment in this evolving domain. 

2. Strategic Oversight on Traditional and Digital Campaigns

Robust strategies are needed to maximise the effectiveness of campaigns in both digital and traditional landscapes. Focusing on key areas of oversight and optimisation allows advertisers to enhance their return on investment and ensure their messages are effectively reaching their intended audience.

To do this, a multi-faceted approach is needed. This begins with a thorough examination of contractual obligations and financial reconciliations — and by meticulously reviewing agency commitments versus delivery, advertisers can uncover delivery discrepancies and spend inefficiencies.

Secondly, performance monitoring is needed to ensure that contractually promised key performance indicators are met throughout the campaign lifecycle (this includes specific, measurable targets such as video views or engagement rates, which should be clearly defined and regularly evaluated).

Lastly, and perhaps most critically, advertisers must prioritise the integrity and visibility of their ad placements to track viewability, combat ad fraud and ensure brand safety — a non-negotiable in today's digital landscape. 

3. Benchmarking Excellence: Driving Strategic Insights and Cost Efficiency

Benchmarking is also crucial as it serves as a vital tool for cost optimisation and strategic improvement in advertising. By comparing a company's advertising practices against those of industry leaders, benchmarking helps identify areas for improvement and cost reduction.

In the case of digital advertising, benchmarking can reveal how top performers are managing viewability rates, combating ad fraud and ensuring brand safety, while in traditional media, typical benchmarks comprise circulation, viewership impressions and reach to ensure the campaigns are optimally placed for the best results. 

4. Unveiling Digital Campaign Realities Through a Digital Performance Review

Performing a Digital Performance Review (DPR) is the game changing factor being used by forward-thinking companies to ensure they're achieving the maximum impact from their advertising campaigns. A DPR addresses a crucial question in digital advertising: Is my agency / in-house team bidding for the right audience, in the right context, at the right time? 

Some common gaps we are seeing in advertising campaigns today are as follows:

Inconsistent Process Application
While agencies and in-house teams often have well-designed processes for digital campaigns, our reviews frequently reveal inconsistencies in their application across different campaigns.

Widespread Impression Errors
A consistent and alarming finding across all clients, including top global advertisers, is that 30% to 90% of digital ad impressions contain errors. 

Technology Utilisation Gaps
Many organisations are not fully leveraging their adtech tools, leading to missed opportunities in campaign optimisation and performance tracking.

Transparency Issues
There are often discrepancies between what's reported in media booking and financial systems versus what's actually delivered in campaigns.

Considering that every rand needs to be accounted for in today's business operating environment, performing a rigorous, independent assessment of digital advertising efforts is imperative.

It is crucial to identify whether there are significant gaps in campaign execution, while at the same time remembering that these challenges present opportunities for substantial improvements in performance and efficiency.

By addressing these areas, advertisers can enhance their digital marketing effectiveness, aligning more closely with best practices and maximising return on investment in the complex digital advertising landscape.

For more information, visit www.pwc.com. You can also follow PwC on LinkedIn or on X. 

*Image courtesy of contributor