New research from the IPA has underlined that proprietary data from walled-garden platforms is no substitute for joint-industry standards when assessing campaign effectiveness.

The white paper warns that the industry’s increasing dependence on proprietary data from ‘walled-garden platforms’ is undermining informed decision-making about media budgets, by leaving advertisers and agencies with a mosaic of incomparable and opaque datasets. 

Published today (Tuesday 21st April) and co-authored by Work Research Partner, Tony Regan and Barb Chief Executive, Justin Sampson make the case for objective measurement.

The Signals in the Noise 2: Doing the right things whitepaper builds on the 2023 publication Signals in the Noise. A landmark publication which made the case for the role of joint-industry audience measurement in the era of data abundance.

The second iteration of the whitepaper takes that argument further, arguing that while the advertising industry has never had a better scientific understanding of how advertising works, the data environment in which it exists is actively working against that science. 

This disconnect, the paper argues, has resulted in an industry that is less well-equipped to make the comparable, objective measurements that would allow those scientific principles to be applied with confidence.

The gap between measurement and effectiveness

In addition to the issue of the industry’s dependence on proprietary data from ‘walled-garden platforms’, further contributing factors to this include short-termism and the abundance of performance data that drives advertisers towards the platforms most measurable and attributable, but not necessarily the most effective.

The whitepaper makes the case for a joint industry solution, outlining that what effectiveness experts need is consistent audience data, which allows comparable evaluation across different media. This data can then act as the foundation of marketing-mix modelling and allow for informed media investment decisions.

This solution, according to Regan and Sampson, is provided via the UK's well-established model of independent, joint-industry governance. However, the data science community needs these joint-industry sources to be more accessible and more readily integrated into the modelling and analytics which sit at the heart of effectiveness measurement.

Tony Regan, Managing Partner at Work Research and Co-Author of Signals in the Noise, explains: "The principles of joint-industry governance for which the UK is recognised around the world has always been based on independent audience measurement. As well as allowing media markets to operate transparently and fairly, joint-industry data sources have provided advertisers and media agencies with informed choice on how to optimise their investment in media advertising. We have never had a better scientific understanding of how advertising works, yet the data environment makes the measurable the enemy of the meaningful.”

Dan Flynn, Joint Research Director at the IPA, added: “Signals in the Noise is a response to the conundrum that the profusion of data about media audiences has not led to an equivalent increase in knowledge. With ongoing pressure on marketing accountability, the industry’s ambition to account rigorously for the investment in media advertising is being clouded by the noise that comes from a variety of proprietary definitions of audience exposure. This new paper is a call to action for all sides of the industry to prioritise the use of trusted, joint-industry sources as a foundation stone for strategic planning and campaign evaluation.”