A new study by Affinity Solutions highlights a growing distrust in the accuracy of data that marketers receive directly from various advertising and analytical platforms. The research showed that almost 91% of marketing specialists are convinced that the results reported by their platforms are overstated. This discrepancy between reported data and actual business impact leads to inefficient budget spending in the order of billions of dollars.
According to the report, the main problem is that platforms often optimize campaigns based on their “own” metrics, which may not correspond to real sales or customer behavior outside a given ecosystem. This fragmentation means that marketers see successful numbers within individual channels, but this data does not subsequently translate into overall company growth. The study suggests that optimization based on incorrect or incomplete data costs companies billions in wasted investments.
In addition to overstating results, the marketing industry also faces challenges associated with the end of third-party cookies and changing privacy rules. These factors make it difficult to track the customer journey and force brands to look for new ways to measure the effectiveness of their activities. According to Affinity Solutions, a solution appears to be the use of real-time purchasing behavior data, which provides a more objective view of whether a campaign actually led to a transaction.
“Most marketers realize that the numbers they see in platform reports don't correspond to reality. This leads to inefficient allocation of resources and missed opportunities for real growth,” the analysis states.
The report concludes that to remedy this situation, it is essential for companies to move away from relying on individual platform metrics (“walled gardens”) and focus on unified sources of truth. Emphasis on data about actual consumer spending can help identify which channels truly generate value and which merely show high click-through rates or reach on paper without real impact on profitability.