Blinkered CMOs wasting months on failing campaigns

Chief marketing officers are operating under an “efficiency illusion” when it comes to their advertising, with more than nine out of ten insisting they are “satifisfied” with the process despite the average campaign taking more than five months and significant resources to execute and nearly half (48%) failing to meet KPIs.

That is the worrying conclusion of a new report by AdSapiens, an ad design, optimisation, and tracking platform, which quizzed 400 marketing and advertising decision-makers at brands with more than 500 employees and an annual revenue of between $100m and $500m.

The study reveals that a fear of embracing automation – and specifically the use of artificial intelligence tools – means that many senior marketers are wasting weeks and months on tasks that could easily be performed by technology.

AdSapiens maintains this is having a direct knock-on effect on the success of all ad campaigns. Marketers cite quality assurance (29%), format adaptation (27%), and language translation to be the three main limitations that stifle progress, while the main barriers to optimisation and improvement include a lack of resources (46%), a lack of technology (46%), and an absence of benchmark data (44%).

Despite marketers citing a “lack of resources” as a barrier to improving their campaigns, they also reported an average of 19 people involved in each ad campaign they run. This is evidence of a dynamic whereby marketers feel restricted despite having more than enough time and resources dedicated to each campaign, the study claims.

Adding to their challenges, nearly half of marketers (47%) report spending a “moderate” amount of time on scaling campaigns across different formats and languages, while more than a quarter (27%) admit to this taking a “significant” amount of time – this is despite the fact that ad formatting adaptation can now be easily automated.

Yet even despite the challenges and frustrations of marketers, the vast majority (92%) claim to be “satisfied” with the efficiency of their creative advertising process, revealing a significant misalignment between how marketers think they are performing compared to how they are in reality.

Chris Allan, CEO of Adludio, the firm behind the AdSapiens platform, said: “Our research has revealed some alarming truths about the way ad campaigns are being resourced and executed.

“It’s immediately apparent that marketers are operating under an efficiency illusion, seemingly satisfied with their own and their team’s output, despite spending a disproportionate amount of time and team resources on every campaign they deliver.

“It’s time senior marketers woke up to the realisation that this is not a sustainable approach, particularly when lengthy processes like ad formatting adaptation can now be automated at the click of a button. We’re calling on brands and their marketing teams to reconsider the way they resource and execute their campaigns – it’s time to embrace automation to free up valuable time, set a new standard for the industry, and unlock a huge competitive advantage.”