Exclusive Digital Ad Data Brings Deeper Visibility to Market

Sydney, 07th Oct 2015 – Standard Media Index (SMI) has today announced it will bring deeper visibility to the Australian digital advertising marketplace through its exclusive partnerships with the nation’s largest ad agency groups.

From this month, marketers will be able to obtain the most accurate view of digital advertising spend available in the market through SMI’s new data, which makes it possible to uncover insights about major advertiser categories’ behavior with previously unseen granularity.

The new agreement between the global advertising data company and its agency partners means SMI will deliver digital data for 96 new product sub categories – including mobile communications, cosmetics and wealth management/superannuation – to its subscribers to fill large data gaps in the digital market.

All data is also exclusive to SMI, so the company will make it available directly to advertisers that are keen for accurate data to better understand how their digital plans compare to that of their competitive set.

“This is arguably one of the most significant developments for Australia’s digital media in recent years,” said Jane Schulze, SMI’s Australia/New Zealand Managing Director.

“Unlike all other media, the fact that most digital media is bought on a performance (cost per…) basis means it’s been impossible to get accurate detail on spend by product category. SMI has always provided digital ad spend data for the 37 categories that we report on across all media but for digital we are now almost trebling the number of categories for which we have ad spend detail.”

Ms Schulze said the new digital detail was especially useful for the retail market – where 19 new sub categories such as discount stores, department stores and office/hardware retailers were now available– while the travel category will now feature never-before-seen detail on digital ad spend across sub categories such as airlines, hotels/accommodation and travel agents/websites.

“We’re empowering our subscribers with the most accurate view of digital trends in the market, enabling them to undertake even more advanced analytics of the digital market,” she said.

Example: Travel Sub Category Digital Spend Trends CYTD 2012-15

Apart from providing a new level of sub category detail, SMI can also accurately report which of the sub categories are the highest spending in key digital sectors such as social networking, exchanges and content sites. All this data is also available back to January 2007.

Example: Social Networking Spend

Apart from providing a new level of sub category detail, SMI can also accurately report which of the sub categories are the highest spending in key digital sectors such as social networking, exchanges and content sites. All this data is also available back to January 2007.

The new data is also being made available to SMI’s media subscribers on a premium subscription tier, with key clients now being given trial access to the new digital sub category spend data.

“This latest enhancement means SMI has subscribers can uncover more unique insights around media, industries and category performance to focus sales efforts, influence pricing and strategy, and grow market share,” Ms Schulze said.

“SMI remains firmly focused on innovation, and this is but another example of the great work we’ve undertaken with our agency partners in the past two years to add even more valuable insights into the fast-evolving media landscape.”

SMI captures 99% of total national Australian agency spend exclusively from the booking systems of global media holding groups, as well as leading independents. It reports monthly on actual spend data and is the clearest picture of the flow of dollars across the sector.