The Performance Media Evaluation Gap: Why we need to shift from retrospective to proactive evaluation
You have carefully planned a campaign meticulously across multiple markets and channels, the team’s done some clever forecasting, you have invested in great creative.
Yet, the campaign underperforms. Why? Performance metrics like CPCs are higher than expected, conversion rates are lower but is that due to market dynamics or inefficiencies in execution? Without proactive evaluation, it’s impossible to tell.
Now, the agency seems to be on edge because the client isn’t happy. All too often, this kicks off a blame game between agencies, media platforms—even the weather gets dragged in! The good news, it doesn’t need to be this way. To understand the solution, let’s first break down the problem.
Retrospective Perspective: The Challenges of Auditing in a Dynamic Media Environment
In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, media campaigns are more dynamic, complex, and global than ever before. Yet, the way campaigns are audited remains slow and retrospective, creating a lag that prevents advertisers from optimising performance in real time.
Why Traditional Auditing Models are no longer viable
Traditional media auditors have struggled to adapt to the nature of biddable media, which operates on an "always-on" basis. Unlike traditional media buys, where placements and costs are fixed in advance, digital advertising is constantly shifting, requiring continuous oversight rather than a one-time post-campaign audit.
The old model of commissioning an external auditor, waiting up to three months to receive results, and then attempting to make changes based on outdated insights is no longer viable. By the time an audit report is available, market conditions have shifted, budgets have been spent, and opportunities for optimisation have been lost. The industry needs an always-on, independent verification approach to auditing, ensuring that advertisers have real-time visibility into their media investments.
The Need for Real-Time Verification
Even in performance media, where results may be available in real-time, advertisers only know what their current results are, not what they could have been. Without independent verification, inefficiencies go unnoticed, wasted spend accumulates and brands are left relying on incomplete information.
Data Asymmetry: Who Controls the Information?
One of the biggest hurdles in achieving transparent and effective media evaluation is data asymmetry.
Agencies often have full access to digital media performance data, while advertisers may struggle to obtain detailed insights.
Even when data is made available, it is often limited in depth and frequency, making it difficult for marketing teams to conduct their own evaluations or make strategic, data-driven decisions.
Without comprehensive, real-time data, brands lack visibility into performance drivers, making it harder to optimise budgets effectively.
Without independent verification, brands are forced to rely on agency-reported results, rather than having full control over their media performance.
Lack of Incentives for Identifying Inefficiency
The current system does not incentivise transparency or efficiency:
Media platforms (Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.) have little reason to highlight inefficiencies in campaigns, as they benefit from continued ad spend. These platforms mark their own homework, providing performance data in ways that obscure inefficiencies rather than highlight them.
Agencies are often reluctant to expose underperformance, as it could raise questions about their management of the campaign.
Auditors, operating under traditional retrospective models, lack the real-time capabilities necessary to point out and address inefficiencies as they occur.
Why Now? The Urgent Need to Change the Model
Digital advertising is evolving apace. Without adapting to these changes, brands risk falling behind. Here’s why proactive media auditing is more critical than ever:
1. Rising CPCs and the Risk of Greater Wastage
Digital advertising costs continue to climb, with cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) rates increasing due to greater competition. Without real-time auditing, brands risk overspending on inefficient placements or failing to capitalise on cost-saving opportunities as they arise.
2. Growing Complexity as AI Generates More Creative Variations
The rapid advancement of AI-driven creative generation has led to an explosion of ad variations across multiple platforms. While this enhances personalisation and engagement, it also increases the challenge of tracking, evaluating, and optimising creative performance. Without real-time oversight, brands may struggle to determine which variations are truly delivering value.
3. The Rise of Automation in Big Ad Platforms
Google, Meta, and other major platforms are increasingly pushing automated campaign management tools such as Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping. While these tools can improve efficiency, they also reduce transparency by consolidating decision-making within the platforms themselves. Real-time media auditing ensures that advertisers retain control and visibility over their spending and performance.
4. Growing Consolidation of Ad Spend
A significant share of digital ad spend is flowing into platforms like Google and Meta (who mark their own homework). Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft combined accounted for approximately 55% of global advertising revenue (excluding China) in 2022. These companies, along with Alibaba and ByteDance, are expected to account for slightly more than half of global ad spend in 2023.
Without adequate oversight in the critical execution stage (where most money is spent), the risk of overspending on inefficient placements increases, as does the opportunity cost of failing to capitalise on cost-saving opportunities. Furthermore, the added complexity and increasing opacity make it harder to determine which variations are truly delivering value.
The Path Forward: A Transparent, Collaborative Approach
By flipping the model to proactive evaluation, brands and agencies can work together more effectively. A unified platform enhances transparency, reduces inefficiencies, and fosters collaboration—eliminating the retrospective blame game.
Key Benefits of Proactive Evaluation:
Better Collaboration – A shared, real-time data platform ensures agencies and brands are aligned, reducing conflict.
Fewer Wasted Ad Dollars – By identifying inefficiencies as they happen, brands can adjust budgets dynamically.
More Accountability for Publishers – A proactive, rather than defensive, approach ensures campaigns are optimized in real-time.
The end of the post-campaign blame game
By bringing in independent best practice guidance, brands can bridge the data asymmetry gap, enabling their agency to perform better while also educating junior team members on key optimisation strategies.
By proactively monitoring and evaluating campaigns during, rather than after, the execution phase, brands can reduce wastage, increase efficiency, and improve relationships with publishers and agencies. When both agency and client have access to the same real-time insights, collaboration improves, leading to better results and stronger partnerships. The finger pointing and defensive digging around for explanations ends. Publishers are kept on their toes, but, by removing the post campaign analysis blame game, relationships are improved across the board.