Data-driven marketing strategies are front of mind for UK professionals for the year ahead, with almost two-thirds citing first-party data-sets as a key goal for 2025, although most are planning to deploy customer data for retention rather than acquisition, with cutting churn seen as the most pressing issue.
That is one of the key findings of the fifth iteration of AudienceXpress’ Streaming TV Uncovered study, conducted by independent media research firm CoLab Media Consulting, which explores UK marketers’ spending plans and objectives for the year ahead.
Overall, it reveals a positive outlook for marketing budgets, with optimism climbing for the second year in a row, though advertisers show higher levels of confidence than agencies.
The report also shows UK companies are way ahead of their counterparts in France, Germany, Italy and Spain in their quest to gather customer data.
AudienceXpress puts this new drive down to the continuing uncertainty around third-party cookies and the fragmented audience identity ecosystem, and a desire to optimise loyalty through more targeted advertising.
Almost one-third (30%) of UK marketers interviewed also said they were keen to use data “clean rooms” to share aggregated first-party data in 2025; the same percentage is considering the use of automated technology to drive efficiency.
However, investing in campaign effectiveness measurement (33%) was ranked higher, indicating a strong focus on optimising return on marketing spend in the year ahead.
Meanwhile, nearly half of all UK marketers (49%) want their organisations to spend more on streaming and connected TV; another 48% want to maintain levels of investment in these channels.
In addition, some 88% of UK advertisers and 94% of agencies said they expected to spend more on free, ad-supported TV (Fast) channels or ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) over the next year; although their opinions differed when asked where this budget would come from.
Advertisers (32%) were more likely to divert spend from social media budgets than agencies (26%), with the latter being more in favour of reallocating online video budgets (35%).
The quality of the ad experience was seen as the most compelling reason to invest in streaming by UK respondents (46%); ahead of audience reach (45%), real-time analytics (41%) and interactive ad formats (40%). The findings suggest that UK marketers believe streaming’s data-driven capabilities allow it to combine quality viewing with performance.
Even so, half (50%) of advertisers in the UK said the number of streaming and CTV platforms and associated buying tools was a barrier to further investment in these channels, but only 32% of agencies agreed.
The difficulty of managing streaming and CTV campaigns alongside linear campaigns was also cited as an inhibitor by 42% of marketers, while a perceived lack of inventory (44%) and unwillingness to switch from existing channels (43%) were seen as slowing further investments.
Overall, half (50%) of UK marketers believe programmatic and automation will help them better navigate the complex streaming and CTV landscape.
AudienceXpress director of demand sales, UK & EMEA, Stefanie Briec said: “We are already seeing substantial investments from advertisers and media companies in the UK streaming industry.
“Simplified planning and buying processes, and unified access to premium inventories have been identified as areas for improvement; nearly one third of UK marketers would further invest if there was less fragmentation in the ecosystem.
“It’s positive to see acknowledgement of the quality of ad experience as a driver of spending growth; likely this indicates UK marketers are becoming more aware of the brand-safe environment of streaming and the efforts made to preserve and improve the viewer experience on streaming platforms.”
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