The series of brand safety scandals on YouTube and other platforms during the last 12 months have taken their toll on brand trust, as more than a fifth are planning to spend less on programmatic advertising in 2018, according to a new report published by QueryClick.

Entitled “Programmatic Ad Fraud Transparency”, the report polled the opinions of 150 high-level marketers at major brands across the UK. A testing year for the biggest digital ad platforms is finally about to end, but the consequences are set to reverberate into 2018, as 41% of respondents said they had lost trust in the practice of automated decision making and buying for targeting audiences with ads.

The individuals surveyed work for brands with revenues exceeding £100m. There is a clear trend that a selection of the most notable players in respective industries will overhaul their ad strategies in the New Year as they attempt to provide more relevant experiences to end users that don’t threaten the status of their relationships with customers or brand reputation.

Whether the new data suggests more marketers will switch to organic content and campaigns is not known, but there is a clear frustration among leading executives in regard to the options available to them on the ad-buying side of the equation at the moment. Almost half said the lack of alternative tech options, such as ad buying platforms, was to blame for the cutback in investment.

A similar number also cited ongoing transparency concerns as a major factor, as many still struggle to determine exactly how much programmatic ads cost and the return on investment they deliver. Meanwhile, 39% claimed this transparency discrepancy extended to ad placement, which is no surprise considering the number of high-profile brand safety incidents in 2017.

All three factors have snowballed to create a programmatic landscape that is not capable of delivering the consistent value brands expect, especially when the consequences of getting it wrong are so high in terms of losing consumer confidence and the prospect of financial and reputational damage. Ad fraud is also a growing concern.

“Despite it being on the rise, programmatic advertising is wide open to abuse,” QueryClick executive Chris Liversidge said. “Recent studies have put the cost of digital advertising fraud as high as $31bn. That makes digital ad fraud not just more costly than any form of cybercrime, but more costly than offline crimes such as counterfeit goods and payment card fraud.”

He added: “Publishers are on the front line in the battle against advertising fraud. They have a duty to educate both brands and agencies on programmatic processes to ensure transparency. However, brands can take steps to protect themselves too.

First, where possible, they should separate their programmatic campaigns so they are given the consideration — and performance measures — their growing size warrants. Secondly, they should unbundle their agency relationship from the programmatic platform, to enable them to seek out independent providers that offer true transparency and protection from the risks of current programmatic campaigns.”