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The long-held advertising adage that "all media isn’t created equal" is being re-examined and challenged by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) in a forthcoming paper that critiques the current programmatic advertising ecosystem’s overemphasis on audience targeting at the expense of media quality. The coalition argues that the prevailing industry theory, which posits that ad formats and creative can be standardized and commoditized because the audience is the primary target, overlooks crucial nuances that impact advertising effectiveness and value, particularly within the burgeoning Connected TV (CTV) landscape.
CIMM’s forthcoming white paper, a pre-release copy of which was reviewed by AdExchanger, directly confronts this theory, asserting that differences in media quality are not only measurable but critically important. The paper contends that the industry’s relentless focus on short-term outcomes has exacerbated persistent challenges, including the proliferation of made-for-advertising (MFA) sites that exploit the programmatic ecosystem, instances where brands inadvertently overspend on low-quality CTV ads alongside premium placements, and ad tech vendors who prioritize audience value over the intrinsic quality of the media itself.
Erez Levin, founder of ad tech consultancy Emet Advisory and a co-author of the paper, highlighted the ambiguity surrounding the term "quality" within the industry. "Quality has been a buzzword for a while in this industry, and no one’s really defined it, except, for the most part, in self-serving ways," Levin stated. CIMM’s objective in publishing this guidance, he explained, is to establish "an objective, industry-wide shared consensus and framework" to move beyond the current "limbo" in discussions about media quality measurement. The paper aims not to introduce novel measurement standards but to catalyze a comprehensive industry conversation, compelling agencies, tech platforms, and publishers to articulate a coherent methodology for assessing media quality.
The Imperative for Consensus in a Fragmented Ecosystem
The impetus for CIMM’s paper stems from the explosive growth and diversification of media quality, curation, and programmatic verification services. The market now features a constellation of startups, including Jounce Media, DeepSee, Sincera, Adalytics, and Gamera, each approaching the complex challenge of media quality from distinct angles. This burgeoning sector has also seen a revitalization with the emergence of publicly traded incumbents like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, further intensifying the focus on quality metrics. Recent trends in attention measurement and deal curation have also introduced innovative approaches to transacting based on quality signals, underscoring the need for a unified understanding.
The genesis of CIMM’s research can be traced back to its collaboration with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on the "Attention Measurement Playbook for Marketers," released late last year. During the development of attention standards, the working group repeatedly encountered a fundamental lack of industry consensus on how to effectively measure the quality of ad impressions. This realization fueled CIMM’s drive to address this critical gap.
Progress is being made, and CIMM’s paper seeks to elevate awareness of the sophisticated tools now available to advertisers. Levin has been a vocal advocate for enhanced quality and attention measurement since at least 2017, a period when he served as a product specialist for Google Marketing Platform, engaging with both buy-side and sell-side stakeholders. Gabriel Dorosz, the paper’s other co-author and global advertising initiative lead at the International News Media Association, brings a valuable publisher-side perspective, having previously held the role of head of audience strategy at The New York Times.
Dorosz elaborated on his motivation for contributing to the project: "In the premium news publisher space, there’s a belief that the market is not serving those kinds of publishers well. My passion is that quality publishers ought to be getting more of their fair share of ad spend, and this paper is a way to advance that."
Dispelling Pernicious Myths in Ad Buying
Beyond advocating for publishers’ needs to demonstrate media quality, Dorosz emphasized that the paper also aims to equip buyers with the insights necessary to prevent the wasteful expenditure of advertising budgets on ineffective campaigns. To this end, the authors endeavor to debunk persistent myths that have taken root due to what Dorosz describes as buyers being "oversold on the value of certainty."
A prime example is the industry’s heavy reliance on deterministic attribution as a proxy for audience value. In the programmatic landscape, a bid request containing a deterministic identifier is often perceived as inherently more valuable than one lacking such data. Consequently, factors like time of day, contextual relevance, and device type are frequently relegated to a secondary, often marginal, status compared to the perceived value of identifiers.
CIMM’s paper challenges this notion, arguing that probabilistic modeling offers marketers a more accurate assessment of the true value across a diverse spectrum of ad impressions, surpassing the limitations of deterministic data alone. The coalition provides actionable guidance for incorporating probabilistic metrics such as attention scoring and contextual relevance. These metrics, the paper suggests, can better predict an impression’s likelihood of advancing a brand’s stated campaign objectives. Furthermore, the paper illustrates how these metrics can fluctuate significantly based on contextual factors, including the time of day.
This insight is particularly relevant to the premium Connected TV (CTV) inventory market, where high price points have become commonplace. Levin pointed out that major streaming platforms often command similar high CPMs even for ads served during off-peak hours, such as the middle of the night, when audience receptivity is typically lower. This highlights a critical disconnect, where advertisers may be paying a premium without commensurate value, and should be alerted if their campaigns exhibit disproportionate overnight spending.
A New Model for Quality: The Quality Trifecta
To foster a renewed industry emphasis on media quality, CIMM proposes a novel framework designed to reconnect with the fundamental principles of marketing. This new model, championed by Levin, is primarily built upon "The Quality Trifecta." This concept posits that media quality, creative quality, and audience quality should be independently assessed and measured.
Within this trifecta, media quality is further bifurcated into two key components: "attention," which refers to the prominence and visibility of an ad placement, and "situational context," which gauges the likelihood that the surrounding media environment fosters a receptive mood in the viewer.
The paper advocates for a departure from binary quality assessment methods, such as simply verifying the presence of an identifier in a bid request or meeting a minimum viewability threshold. Instead, CIMM advises the adoption of "non-binary, relative and probabilistic" measurements, exemplified by attention scoring. These approaches allow for a more nuanced evaluation of media quality on a spectrum of effectiveness, acknowledging that quality is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
These probabilistic methodologies are also more adept at facilitating comparisons across different media types, Levin explained. Moreover, they are better equipped to capture the variations influenced by diverse audiences and other dynamic factors, such as the time of day. The paper also stresses the importance of considering both short-term performance metrics and long-term brand-building opportunities. However, Levin noted that for smaller brands heavily reliant on immediate returns, prioritizing short-term outcomes remains a strategic imperative.
CTV as the Proving Ground and a Buy-Side Imperative
While CIMM’s paper offers guidance applicable to the entire open web, the authors identify streaming media and CTV supply as the critical proving ground for these new quality paradigms. This is due to CTV’s status as a high-stakes market characterized by elevated CPMs, intense demand, and expansive creative canvases.
Dorosz added that CTV benefits from not being encumbered by two decades of third-party cookie dependency, allowing for a less entrenched status quo. Furthermore, many traditional pixel-based measurement approaches, effective on other platforms, prove less suitable for the unique characteristics of CTV. For instance, the paper advocates for a complete re-evaluation of viewability measurement for CTV. Given that CTV ads typically autoplay with sound and occupy the full screen, traditional viewability metrics become largely irrelevant.
Despite the aspiration for industry-wide adoption, CIMM’s authors concur that the buy side must spearhead this transformative shift. Dorosz concluded, "These theories only matter if the buy side demonstrates success and drives repeatability." The implications of this shift are profound, potentially leading to a more equitable distribution of ad spend, a reduction in wasted advertising investment, and a more robust and accountable digital advertising ecosystem, especially as the industry navigates the continued evolution of streaming and other emerging media channels. The success of CIMM’s initiative hinges on its ability to translate these conceptual frameworks into tangible, measurable improvements in advertising efficacy and value.
