Opinion: Digital marketing is a joke

A guy walks into a bar. After a couple of drinks, he’s approached by a likely-looking lass.
‘What do you do, big boy?’
‘I work in digital marketing’, big boy replies.
‘What’s that?’, asks likely-looking lass.
‘I don’t know, but everybody seems to be doing it.’

This is pretty unfunny but I can’t shake the nagging notion that there is some kernel of truth to the joke’s premise. For all the fanfare that has greeted digital marketing, how much has it actually delivered for marketers?

Going by the proportion of marketing budget allocated to digital, maybe not much. There is a lot of variation across markets but let’s take Southeast Asia as a collective example – digital marketing there averages around 2 per cent of total ad spend, and this includes the relatively sophisticated Singapore. If everyone is doing digital marketing, I’m not sure where the money’s going.

The poor penetration figures of Southeast Asia are especially at odds with the sheer number of people that are actually online across these markets.

Take Indonesia, it has around 40 million active internet users – approximately 26 per cent of everyone aged 15-64 – but an internet ad spend of less than 1 per cent.

China provides a different example. In this market, it is estimated that 15 per cent of advertising dollars will be spent online this year (the global average for 2011 has been estimated at 17 per cent).

But the question here is not so much quantity as quality. China is not a mature and sophisticated internet market. Digital buys are, generally, tactically oriented and performance measures can be opaque – click fraud numbers between 50-80 per cent(!) are frequently cited.

This, in a round-about way, brings me back to the premise of the joke. Is it enough just to pump out banner ads loaded with bargains – is this true digital marketing, in the sense the it takes full advantage of the medium, its potential interactivity, and the sheer volume of people who live a large chunk of their lives online?

Digital marketing is an evolving discipline that is attracting increasing focus. A lot of this focus is from agencies trying to tap into the consumer-led zeitgeist, and demonstrate to clients that they know what it means to be digital. Clients, as consumers themselves, are also up on this digital thing and recognise the need to weave their brand into the online space.

The question is, "How?" One way, is better measurement. A purported benefit of online advertising is that is more measurable than traditional media. This has proven to be only partly true. To a large degree, marketers and their agencies have drowned under the data load of digital.  Alternatively, they haven’t had the discipline, attitude or skill-set to actually do the analysis. It has been both a question of appetite and ability.

We have been working in China to overcome the credibility issue that digital marketing can face there – because of murky buying practices and the click fraud already mentioned. Technology has allowed us to measure with greater reliability and accuracy digital media data. Coupling this with a dedicated team of specialist analysts has also meant adequate skills and bandwidth to handle the type and quantity of data that digital yields. The results for clients, in terms of better digital insights and marketing plans, have been excellent.

But better measurement isn’t the only way forward for digital marketing – I’m just talking it because it’s what I know. Marketers and their agencies have a vision for digital marketing. Unfortunately, at the moment, the vision outstrips the actuality. Bad jokes are the result.