Chinese marketers to raise digital spend but demand more accountability: R3/AdMaster

On average, Chinese marketers intend to increase their digital spend in 2012 by 26.9 per cent, versus 18 per cent in 2011. A quarter of the survey respondents have budgets between RMB 5 and 10 million, and 6 per cent have budgets above RMB 50 million.

Online video will enjoy the biggest chunk of their increased investments, with share of more than 23 per cent, followed by micro blogs (20 per cent) and social networks (16 per cent). “The Youku and Tudou merger should only heighten interest in this sector,” said Greg Paull, principal of R3. Mobile networks and ad alliances remain two of the weaker channels.

"By using KPI metrics such as iGRP, reach and frequency to cross-evaluate digital videos and TVCs, it’s proven that digital video achieves significantly optimised ROI due to better capabilities in frequency control, content, and geo-targeting," added Vincent Yan, AdMaster's chief executive officer.

With this growth comes a greater demand for accountability, benchmarking and measurement of digital media effectiveness. “Marketers will only continue to invest more in digital if they can enjoy the same levels of accuracy they are achieving with other media,” Paull said.

Lack of price transparency, overstated site-traffic statistics and deficiency of data on the actual impact of digital marketing are considered the top three challenges in evaluating effectiveness.

Only 16 per cent of the 150 companies surveyed last month believe they are getting competitive digital media buying rates. Fewer than 40 per cent of respondents are satisfied with the reliability and quality of measurement of their campaigns. 69 per cent are unable to judge the correlation of digital marketing with sales performance and brand health due to a lack of investment-related benchmarks available in China.

Combining AdMaster’s dual cookie technology for online tracking with R3’s experience in media auditing and cost benchmarking in China, the research focuses on collaborating to monitor and analyse marketing outcomes for existing and new clients.