The long-held adage that "all media isn’t created equal" has been a foundational, albeit often platitudinous, concept within the advertising industry. Yet, the prevailing currents of programmatic advertising technology frequently appear to sidestep this crucial nuance, prioritizing audience targeting above the intrinsic quality of the media environment where advertisements are placed. This dominant theory posits that ad formats and creative elements can be standardized and commoditized, as the ultimate objective is to reach a specific audience. However, a forthcoming paper from the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) is poised to challenge this deeply ingrained perspective, particularly as it applies to Connected TV (CTV) inventory. AdExchanger has obtained a pre-release copy of this significant report, which was teased during CIMM’s recent East event in New York City.
The CIMM paper goes beyond merely demonstrating that variations in media quality are measurable; it makes a compelling argument that the industry’s relentless focus on short-term outcomes has exacerbated persistent challenges. These include the proliferation of "made-for-advertising" (MFA) sites that exploit the programmatic ecosystem, brands inadvertently overspending on low-quality CTV ad placements that are bundled with premium inventory, and ad tech vendors that emphasize audience value at the expense of the media’s inherent worth.
Erez Levin, founder of ad tech consultancy Emet Advisory and a co-author of the paper, articulated the problem: "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." CIMM’s objective in publishing this guidance, Levin explained, is to foster "an objective, industry-wide shared consensus and framework" to move discussions about media quality measurement out of their current "limbo." The paper is not intended to introduce novel measurement standards but rather to catalyze an industry-wide conversation, compelling agencies, tech platforms, and publishers to articulate a coherent approach to measuring media quality.
The Imperative for Consensus in a Fragmented Ecosystem
The rationale behind CIMM’s paper is deeply rooted in the rapidly evolving and increasingly complex landscape of media quality, curation, and programmatic verification services. The past few years have witnessed an explosion of startups, including Jounce Media, DeepSee, Sincera, Adalytics, and Gamera, each attempting to address similar challenges through distinct methodologies. Furthermore, the emergence of publicly traded giants like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science has revitalized the media quality measurement sector. Coupled with recent trends in attention measurement and deal curation, new avenues for transacting on quality signals are continually being explored.
The genesis of the CIMM paper can be traced back to the organization’s collaborative work with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on the "Attention Measurement Playbook for Marketers," released in late 2023. During the development of these attention standards, the working group repeatedly encountered a fundamental lack of consensus regarding the measurement of ad impression quality. This realization underscored the urgent need for a unified approach.
Despite these ongoing challenges, significant progress is being made, and the CIMM paper aims to illuminate the array of new tools now available to advertisers. Levin, who has been a vocal advocate for enhanced quality and attention measurement since at least 2017 when he served as a product specialist for Google Marketing Platform, bringing a buy- and sell-side perspective, emphasized the importance of this initiative. He was joined in co-authoring the paper by Gabriel Dorosz, global advertising initiative lead at the International News Media Association and former head of audience strategy for The New York Times.
Dorosz’s motivation for contributing to the paper stemmed from his extensive experience on the publisher side. "In the premium news publisher space, there’s a belief that the market is not serving those kinds of publishers well," he stated. "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 Myths and Redefining Value
Dorosz further elaborated that the paper’s scope extends beyond empowering publishers to demonstrate their media’s quality; it also aims to equip buyers with the knowledge to prevent wasted expenditure on ostensibly effective, yet ultimately less impactful, advertising. To this end, the authors endeavor to debunk several persistent myths that have taken root as a consequence of buyers being "oversold on the value of certainty," as Dorosz put it.
A prime example is the industry’s heavy reliance on deterministic attribution as a proxy for audience value. The presence of a deterministic identifier within a bid request often renders that inventory inherently more valuable in the eyes of advertisers and ad tech platforms compared to inventory lacking such an identifier. In this paradigm, factors like time of day, contextual data, and device type are often relegated to secondary importance, overshadowed by the perceived value of the identifier itself.
The CIMM paper, however, contends that probabilistic modeling, rather than solely deterministic data, offers marketers a more accurate assessment of the true value across a diverse spectrum of ad impressions. The report provides guidance on incorporating probabilistic metrics such as attention scoring and contextual relevance to gauge an impression’s potential to advance a brand’s stated campaign objectives. It also highlights how these metrics can fluctuate significantly based on factors like the time of day and surrounding content.
Similarly, the industry has become accustomed to high price points for premium CTV inventory. Levin pointed out the anomaly of major streaming platforms commanding premium rates even for ad placements during the late-night hours, a period when audiences are generally considered less engaged. This suggests that advertisers should scrutinize why their streaming campaigns might allocate substantial budget to overnight placements and question such allocations if they appear indiscriminate.
A New Framework for Quality Measurement: The Quality Trifecta
To galvanize the industry into re-prioritizing media quality, the CIMM paper introduces a novel model designed to reconnect with the fundamental principles of marketing. This new model is primarily anchored by "The Quality Trifecta," a concept championed by Levin over the past year. The core tenet of this framework is the independent measurement of three distinct pillars: media quality, creative quality, and audience quality.
Media quality, within this framework, is further dissected into two critical components: "attention," referring to the prominence and visibility of the ad placement, and "situational context," which assesses the likelihood that the surrounding media environment fosters a receptive mood in the viewer.
The paper advocates for a departure from binary quality measurement methods, such as simply verifying the presence of an ID in a bid request or confirming minimum viewability. Instead, it urges the adoption of "non-binary, relative, and probabilistic" measurements, like attention scoring, which evaluate media quality on a spectrum of effectiveness. Levin explained that these more nuanced approaches are superior for making comparisons across different media types and are better equipped to capture the dynamic variations influenced by audience characteristics and temporal factors like time of day.
Furthermore, the paper underscores the importance of marketers considering both short-term performance metrics and long-term brand-building opportunities. While acknowledging that smaller brands reliant on immediate returns may need to prioritize short-term outcomes, the broader message is one of balanced strategic planning.
CTV as the Proving Ground and the Buy-Side Imperative
While the CIMM paper is intended as a comprehensive guide for the entire open web, the authors specifically identify streaming media and CTV supply as the critical proving ground for these principles. This is attributed to CTV representing the highest-stakes market, characterized by elevated CPMs, intense demand competition, and expansive creative canvases.
Dorosz also highlighted that CTV, having not been burdened by over two decades of third-party cookie dependency, offers a less entrenched status quo. Many traditional, pixel-based measurement methodologies, effective in other digital environments, are not well-suited to the unique characteristics of CTV. For instance, the paper challenges the conventional understanding of viewability measurement for CTV. Given that CTV ads typically auto-play with sound and occupy the full screen, the traditional definition of viewability may become largely irrelevant, necessitating a reimagining of how ad exposure is assessed.
Despite the ambition for industry-wide adoption, the authors concur that the buy side must spearhead this transformation. Dorosz emphasized that these proposed frameworks and methodologies will only gain traction and demonstrate their value "if the buy side demonstrates success and drives repeatability." The ultimate success of CIMM’s initiative hinges on advertisers and their agencies actively embracing and implementing these new approaches, thereby proving their efficacy and encouraging broader industry adoption. The implications are significant: a potential recalibration of how advertising value is assessed, a more equitable distribution of ad spend towards genuinely high-quality inventory, and ultimately, more effective and efficient advertising campaigns across the digital landscape.
