Almost all (95%) chief marketing officers (CMOs) for UK consumer brands claim they will be seeking out independent digital marketing agencies according to QueryClick’s 2018 CMO performance report. This is due to concerns around lack of transparency in digital marketing. The report surveyed 150 CMOs for UK consumer brands with a revenue of over £150 million and an e-commerce.

Over half (51%) of CMOs said they will be moving to an independent digital marketing agency  in the next 12 months in hopes of improving transparency over campaigns within 12 months. However, 37% said they would take this course of action in the next 13-24 months. Only 3% of CMOs surveyed, said they would be managing their digital marketing in house in 2018/19. Marking the move to independent agencies as a start to improving transparency in digital marketing.

Respondents of the survey also admitted that their brands are unsuccessfully using online conversion data as an effective tool to interpret customers journey into significant insight that will improve digital marketing strategies. The respondents claim the following as the reasons for this; lack of consultative expert knowledge, lack of internal knowledge and expertise, lack of technology options and the marketing agency’s lack of ability to use customer conversion data as a key metric when proposing digital marketing strategies. 

QueryClick is an independent agency, working with a client-base of the world’s most known brands in 28 international markets and challenges group agency models, delivering high performance results for enterprise brands. According to Chris Liversidge, founder and CEO of QueryClick “We are facing an industry step-change. Brands are failing to get transparent results from their network agencies, whereas their independent counterparts offer a more personal and agile service”.

In 2018, lack of transparency has become one of the main concerns for UK brands and digital marketing. Independent digital marketing agencies are able to easily adapt to trends, which means strategic recommendations are profitable to their client’s interests and aims.