Advertisers have wasted a record $123 million in digital advertising dollars in Q2 2024, according to a report by Next&Co's Digital Media Waste.

This figure represents a significant increase of $25 million from the previous quarter and nearly $50 million from the same time last year. The wasted digital advertising spend accounted for an average of 44% across total audited digital media spend.

The report audited 37 companies with digital ad budgets between $500,000 and $21 million, including multinational (42%), national (357), ASX-listed (11%), and SME (10%) companies. The retail sector recorded the highest amount of wasted digital ad dollars at $48 million, despite an overall decline in retail spending nationally.

Google topped the digital media channel waste list with $55.4 million wasted on advertising, followed by Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms at $52.9 million. These figures were calculated using Next&Co's auditing platform, Prometheus, which has been utilised by hundreds of companies across Australia to identify ad spend wastage. Prometheus provides a score out of 100 on the overall performance of each metric and the exact dollar figure of ad spend wastage.

Co-Founder of Next&Co, John Vlasakakis, said: "It’s astounding that, given the national cost-of-living crisis impacting consumer spending and shrinking advertising budgets nationwide, digital advertising spend wastage has peaked in the last few months. The digital ad spend waste trend line is definitely moving in the wrong direction and this is concerning. Now more than ever, brands need to look closely at their ad performance and really understand their wastage levels. There is no room for wasted advertising dollars – brands must ensure every dollar they are spending is delivering results. In this economic climate, understanding the exact ROI on your advertising spend could be the difference in maintaining client confidence and short and long-term success."