Four fifths of advertising professionals (81%) say they need to become more adventurous. 

That is according to the latest data from Bango, from a survey of 300 US and UK ad professionals working both in-house and agency-side.

As they seek to be more “adventurous”, they’re also looking to diversify the data which informs their methods, with 83% saying they are actively exploring new sources of data for targeting their ads. 

However, it’s not proving easy. Despite their willingness to trial new technologies and venture into new territories, 60% say that it’s “never been more difficult” to reach the right audiences online.

This difficulty can be attributed to the turbulent state of digital advertising, which has been impacted by both reduced consumer spending and declining marketing budgets. Combined with growing demands for data privacy, these factors now present significant obstacles for effective ad targeting.

As Anil Malhotra, CMO at Bango, said: “There’s no doubt that ad professionals remain committed to delivering informed, personalized and effective ads. But the deck is stacked against them.

“It’s time for advertising to get adventurous again. Only the boldest will succeed – those willing to explore and trial new innovations and targeting methods. Our data suggests the search is already on — the difficulty lies in finding the missing piece of the puzzle. Good targeting makes all the difference. Without getting ads in front of the consumers who will actually make a purchase, it’ll remain harder than ever to grow businesses and unlock revenue. This is where Purchase Behavior Targeting comes into play.”

To escape falling into the same trap of delivering poorly targeted ads, Bango proposes advertisers adopt ‘Purchase Behavior Targeting’ as their default form of user acquisition targeting. Advertisers who leverage data from billions of online consumer transactions can direct their ads to those who will actually buy.