Miaozhen Systems: 31.9% of digital ad traffic was invalid in China 2019, costing the industry 28 billion RMB

A new report by Miaozhen Systems, China's leading omni measurement and business intelligence analytics solutions provider, has found that 31.9% of all online advertising traffic in China was invalid in 2019, costing the China brand marketing industry an estimated 28 billion RMB.

The report, "China Digital Advertising Invalid Traffic Report in 2019", is the first of its kind to examine invalid traffic in new advertising formats and media. In addition to PC and mobile ads, this report analyzed the state of invalid data in NEW TV ads, offline and outdoor ads, online consumer leads, social media ads, KOL marketing, and more. With data collected from 65,000 campaigns by 2,000 brands across 1,200 platforms, it is the most accurate and comprehensive report on this subject to date.

Key findings for 2019 are summarized below:

• Invalid traffic (IVT) made up 31.9% of all digital advertising traffic in China, up 1.7pp from 2018;

• 39.9% of vertical media traffic was invalid; IT verticals had the highest IVT rate at 49%, up 14pp from 2018;

• Across industries, internet and communications saw the greatest IVT increase (up 6.3pp from 2018) and suffered the highest IVT rate;

• 10% of NEW TV ad traffic was invalid; agencies contributed the most invalid exposure;

• 26% of all online consumer sales leads were invalid, with major implications for auto and other industries that rely on online lead collection;

• 4.2% of outdoor advertising was invalid or not displayed;

• 48% of social media advertising traffic was invalid. On average, 57.5% of KOL fans were invalid, with baby & mom KOLs having the highest rate of invalid fans (65.1%).