P&G Cut Over $100 Million in Digital Ad Spending With No Effect on Business ⇥ t.co

Alexandra Bruell and Sharon Terlep, Wall Street Journal:

Procter & Gamble Co. said that its move to cut more than $100 million in digital marketing spend in the June quarter had little impact on its business, proving that those digital ads were largely ineffective.

Almost all of the consumer product giant’s advertising cuts in the period came from digital, finance chief Jon Moeller said on its earnings call Thursday. The company targeted ads that could wind up on sites with fake traffic from software known as “bots,” or those with objectionable content.

Keep in mind that this is against an estimated total U.S. ad spend of $2.5 billion last year, or about $620 million per quarter. This shows that about one-sixth of their quarterly spend was completely wasted. I don’t understand the appeal of automated placements in gigantic ad networks.