The long-held adage that "all media isn’t created equal" is being re-examined with renewed urgency in the digital advertising landscape, particularly as programmatic trading increasingly prioritizes audience targeting over the intrinsic quality of the media environment. A forthcoming paper from the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), teased during its recent CIMM East event in New York City, aims to challenge this prevailing theory, especially concerning Connected TV (CTV) inventory. An advance review of the paper suggests it will not only demonstrate the measurability of media quality differences but also critique the industry’s short-sighted fixation on immediate outcomes, which has perpetuated issues like made-for-advertising (MFA) sites gaming the system, brands overspending on subpar CTV placements, and ad tech vendors focusing solely on audience value.
The Erosion of Media Quality in Programmatic Trading
For years, the dominant narrative in programmatic advertising has been that ad formats and creative elements can be standardized and commoditized. The underlying assumption is that the ultimate goal is to reach a specific audience, and the context in which the ad appears becomes secondary. This approach, however, has inadvertently created fertile ground for inefficiencies and exploitation within the digital advertising ecosystem. Erez Levin, founder of ad tech consultancy Emet Advisory and a co-author of the CIMM paper, noted the industry’s struggle with defining "quality" in a non-self-serving manner. "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 initiative seeks to rectify this by establishing an "objective, industry-wide shared consensus and framework" for discussing and measuring media quality. This isn’t about introducing yet another set of measurement standards, but rather about fostering a comprehensive industry-wide dialogue. The paper aims to ensure that agencies, technology platforms, and publishers can articulate a coherent approach to evaluating media quality when pressed.
The Genesis of a New Quality Consensus
The impetus for CIMM’s paper stems from the rapidly expanding ecosystem of media quality, curation, and programmatic verification services. A wave of startups, including Jounce Media, DeepSee, Sincera, Adalytics, and Gamera, are tackling these complex challenges from various angles. The resurgence of established players like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, coupled with emerging trends in attention measurement and deal curation, has further intensified the focus on quality signals in ad transactions.
This endeavor is a direct evolution of CIMM’s prior work with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on the "Attention Measurement Playbook for Marketers," released late last year. During the development of those attention standards, the working group repeatedly encountered a fundamental lack of consensus on how to effectively measure the quality of ad impressions. This realization underscored the need for a more foundational discussion about what constitutes quality media.
Levin 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, engaging with both buy and sell sides of the advertising equation. Gabriel Dorosz, the paper’s other co-author and global advertising initiative lead at the International News Media Association, brings a crucial publisher-side perspective. "In the premium news publisher space, there’s a belief that the market is not serving those kinds of publishers well," Dorosz explained. "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 Reclaiming Value
Dorosz emphasized that the paper’s scope extends beyond merely helping publishers demonstrate their media’s quality. It also aims to equip buyers with the knowledge to avoid squandering budgets on ineffective ad placements. The authors endeavor to dismantle entrenched myths, particularly those that have arisen from buyers being "oversold on the value of certainty," according to Dorosz.
A prime example is the industry’s heavy reliance on deterministic attribution as a proxy for audience value. The presence of a deterministic identifier in a bid request often leads to that inventory being perceived as inherently more valuable than inventory lacking such an identifier. In this scenario, factors like time of day, contextual data, and device type are frequently relegated to secondary importance. However, the CIMM paper contends that probabilistic modeling offers a more accurate assessment of the true value of a broader range of ad impressions.
The paper advocates for incorporating probabilistic metrics such as attention scoring and contextual relevance to gauge an impression’s potential to advance a brand’s campaign objectives. It highlights how these metrics can fluctuate significantly based on contextual factors, including the time of day. For instance, Levin pointed out the persistent high price points for premium CTV inventory, even when ads are served during late-night hours when audience receptiveness is typically lower. This suggests that advertisers should scrutinize campaigns that allocate substantial budgets overnight without a clear strategic rationale, questioning why such spending is deemed necessary if audience engagement is diminished.
A Holistic "Quality Trifecta" Model
To reorient the industry’s focus toward media quality, CIMM proposes a new model designed to reconnect with the foundational principles of marketing. This model, which Levin has been championing as "The Quality Trifecta," posits that media quality, creative quality, and audience quality should be assessed independently.
Within this framework, media quality is further dissected into two key components: "attention," referring to the prominence and visibility of the ad placement, and "situational context," which considers the likelihood that the surrounding media content fosters a receptive mindset in the viewer.
The paper encourages marketers to move beyond simplistic, binary quality assessment methods, such as simply checking for an ID in a bid request or meeting minimum viewability thresholds. Instead, it recommends employing "non-binary, relative and probabilistic" measurements, like attention scoring, which evaluate media quality along a spectrum of effectiveness. Levin argues that these nuanced approaches are superior for cross-media comparisons and better equipped to capture variations influenced by audience characteristics and contextual elements like time of day.
Furthermore, the paper addresses the crucial balance between short-term performance and long-term brand-building objectives. While acknowledging that smaller brands reliant on immediate results should prioritize short-term gains, it advocates for a more holistic view that considers the enduring impact of advertising.
CTV as the Proving Ground and the Buy-Side Imperative
While CIMM’s paper offers guidance applicable across the entire open web, the authors identify streaming media and CTV supply as the critical proving ground. This segment represents the highest-stakes market, characterized by elevated CPMs, intense demand, and expansive creative canvases, making it an ideal environment for testing and refining new quality assessment methodologies.
Dorosz added that CTV’s relative newness and its freedom from the decades-long dependency on third-party cookies mean its players are not as entrenched in established, often outdated, practices. Traditional pixel-based measurement techniques, while effective on other platforms, often fall short in the CTV environment. For example, the paper challenges the very notion of viewability measurement for CTV, given that ads typically auto-play with sound and occupy the full screen, rendering traditional definitions of visibility largely obsolete.
Despite the paper’s ambition for industry-wide adoption, the authors concur that the buy side must take the lead in driving this shift. "These theories only matter if the buy side demonstrates success and drives repeatability," Dorosz concluded. This implies that advertisers and agencies will be instrumental in validating and implementing these new quality-centric approaches, ultimately shaping the future of digital advertising transactions. The implications of this shift are far-reaching, potentially leading to a more efficient and effective advertising ecosystem where value is derived not just from audience reach, but from the quality of the environment in which those audiences are engaged.
