Dive Brief:

• Programmatic dominates display advertising for CPG companies despite quality and viewability concerns because of its promise of better targeting and lower CPMs, according to intelligence firm L2's “Home Care: Display Advertising” report, which was made available to Marketing Dive. Eighty percent of L2’s Home Care Index brands buy display ads via programmatic platforms and exchanges.
• Other findings from the report include that 62% of index brands serve display ads on Amazon or Walmart, around 66% link some of those ads to e-commerce sites instead of the brands’ website, and display makes up more than two-thirds of CPG brand advertising budgets.
• The report highlighted challenges with a reliance on display as well, citing 28% of U.S. internet users use ad block technology, and among the index brands only 59% of impressions served on desktops appeared above the fold.

Dive Insight:

The takeaway from the report is marketers should take viewability and layout clutter on publisher websites into consideration and proceed with caution when running display campaigns to ensure ads are placed on relevant websites.

To accomplish these goals, CPG brands should push agency partners for display KPIs like quality and viewability metrics but also verify the results of campaigns. In order to improve viewability, brands should monitor publisher websites and create whitelists and blacklists of preferred sites that offer maximum viewability above the fold. And to push for conversions to sale, marketers should be linking ads to e-commerce sites as well as placing ads directly on e-commerce websites like Amazon and Walmart to catch buyers’ eyes when they are primed to make a purchase.

WPP CEO Martin Sorrell already has gone on record stating Amazon is poised to become a major player in display advertising based on its ability to sell ads to brands on its e-commerce site.