Well over half of Australian brands (57%) are considering moving their budget away from paid advertising efforts to owned and earned content creation, while one in five (21%) are already doing so, according to a new report from leading provider of product reviews and user-generated content (UGC) solutions, Bazaarvoice.

Close to nine in 10 (88%) believe that more authentic user generated content (UGC) in their paid and owned media would improve the performance of their ads and content.

Almost all Australians (98%) have access to first-party data to allow for customer segmentation, with 85% saying they would pay to get access to more first-party data. However, the recession is affecting budgets, with 55% saying their budget will be impacted, while 19% are unsure. The majority (85%) say they will be expected to reduce marketing dollar spend.

When it comes to maximising brand revenue, eight in 10 (81%) plan to do so via retail, while 52% plan to do so via media. To measure social commerce success, over half of Australian agencies (57%) rely on traffic volume, followed by conversion rate within a social platform (45%), then its conversion rate when engaging with social content on their site and revenue generated within the social platform (40%).

“For years, brands have always leaned on paid channels to amplify branded content, tactics, and offers. In fact, more than $700 billion was spent on paid advertising alone in 2022. Now we are seeing a rebalancing to optimise the marketing mix modeling (MMM) as consumers are yearning for organic content from other shoppers i.e. earned and shared content and channels,” Bazaarvoice chief marketing officer, Zarina Stanford said.