• by Philip Rosenstein , June 6, 2017

Data plays a crucial role in developing advertising strategies. So it may come as a surprise that according to a Lotame study on data management platform (DMP) adoption, only a third of media agencies worldwide deem DMPs “vital” to their tech stack.

Nevertheless, DMP adoption among agencies is up a strong 49% across the globe since 2015. Still, 57% of respondents said that having access to a DMP is “nice to have,” but not vital.

The report, produced by Lotame in partnership with ExchangeWire Research, also took a look at geographical variations in DMP execution among the U.S., EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) and APAC (Asia Pacific) countries.

The report found the following:

-- U.S. agencies have the highest rate of data use for TV (28%) and radio (13%).

-- Agencies in the U.S. also lead in use of DMPs for cross-device attribution and sequential messaging.

-- APAC agencies are more likely to use data strategies for out-of-home (OOH), search, social and email than the other regions studied.

-- APAC is also more advanced at using data to inform creatives and messaging.

-- In EMEA, agencies put a strong focus on partnerships, third-party data and reporting capabilities when they select a DMP.

-- Agencies based in EMEA also tend to care more about audience insights and onboarding offline data than creative, message optimization or sequential messaging.

-- The largest upside for agencies using DMPs comes when using data for content and experience personalization, cross-device attribution, sequential messaging, creative and messaging optimization.