The long-held adage in advertising that "all media isn’t created equal" is being rigorously re-examined by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). In a significant development for the digital advertising landscape, CIMM is set to release a comprehensive paper that directly challenges the prevailing programmatic ad tech theory. This theory, which prioritizes audience targeting and standardizes ad formats and creative, often overlooks the critical nuances of media quality and content. CIMM’s forthcoming research, previewed at its CIMM East event in New York City on Tuesday and reviewed by AdExchanger, argues that this narrow focus has perpetuated longstanding industry inefficiencies and hinders true advertising effectiveness, particularly within the burgeoning Connected TV (CTV) inventory.
The paper aims not only to demonstrate that differences in media quality are measurable but also to dismantle the industry’s overreliance on short-term performance metrics. This fixation, CIMM contends, has inadvertently fostered an environment where made-for-advertising (MFA) sites can manipulate the programmatic ecosystem, brands can inadvertently waste significant budgets on low-quality CTV ads juxtaposed with premium placements, and ad tech vendors prioritize audience data over the intrinsic value of the media itself.
Erez Levin, founder of ad tech consultancy Emet Advisory and a co-author of the paper, highlighted the ambiguity surrounding media quality. "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. He emphasized that CIMM’s objective in publishing this guidance is to establish an "objective, industry-wide shared consensus and framework." This framework is designed to move the conversation beyond its current "limbo" and foster a shared understanding of how media quality should be assessed and transacted. The goal, Levin clarified, is not to introduce new measurement standards but to catalyze an industry-wide dialogue, compelling agencies, tech platforms, and publishers to articulate a coherent approach to measuring media quality.
The Urgent Need for Industry Consensus on Media Quality
The proliferation of media quality, curation, and programmatic verification services has created a complex and often fragmented ecosystem. Startups such as Jounce Media, DeepSee, Sincera, Adalytics, and Gamera are all developing distinct methodologies to address these challenges. Concurrently, the resurgence of established players like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, alongside emerging trends in attention measurement and deal curation, has further intensified the focus on quality signals within media transactions.
The impetus for CIMM’s paper 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 consensus regarding the measurement of ad impression quality. This realization underscored the necessity for a more unified approach.
Despite these challenges, significant progress is being made in developing new tools and methodologies. The CIMM paper intends to raise awareness of these advancements and equip advertisers with a clearer understanding of the available resources. 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, gaining insights from both buy and sell sides of the industry. The paper’s other co-author, Gabriel Dorosz, brings a publisher-centric perspective, currently serving as the global advertising initiative lead at the International News Media Association and formerly as head of audience strategy for The New York Times.
Dorosz articulated his motivation for contributing to the paper: "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." He stressed that the paper is not solely focused on helping publishers demonstrate their media’s quality but also on empowering buyers to avoid costly misallocations of advertising spend on ineffective campaigns.
Dispelling Myths and Redefining Value
A key objective of the CIMM paper is to challenge deeply ingrained industry myths that have arisen from what Dorosz describes as buyers being "oversold on the value of certainty." One prominent myth centers on the overemphasis on deterministic attribution as a proxy for audience value. In many programmatic transactions, the presence of a deterministic identifier in a bid request is often perceived as inherently more valuable than an impression lacking such an identifier. Consequently, factors like time of day, contextual relevance, and device type are frequently relegated to secondary importance.
However, CIMM’s research posits that probabilistic modeling, rather than solely relying on deterministic data, offers a more accurate assessment of the true value across a broader spectrum of ad impressions. The paper advocates for incorporating probabilistic metrics, such as attention scoring and contextual relevance, to better gauge an impression’s potential to advance a brand’s specific campaign objectives. It also details how these metrics can fluctuate significantly based on contextual factors, including the time of day.
This perspective is particularly relevant to the CTV market. While premium CTV inventory often commands high price points, CIMM points out that these prices frequently remain elevated even for ad placements during off-peak hours, such as the middle of the night, when audience receptivity is typically lower. Levin suggests that advertisers should be questioning why their streaming campaigns might allocate substantial budget during these periods and be wary if such allocations occur without clear justification.
A New Model for Media Quality: The Quality Trifecta
To encourage a renewed emphasis on media quality, CIMM introduces a novel framework designed to reconnect with the foundational principles of marketing. This new model is primarily built upon "The Quality Trifecta," a concept championed by Levin since last year. The core tenet of this trifecta is the independent measurement of three distinct pillars: media quality, creative quality, and audience quality.
Media quality itself is further segmented into two critical components: "attention," which refers to the prominence and visibility of an ad placement, and "situational context," which evaluates the likelihood that the surrounding media environment fosters a receptive mood in the viewer.
The paper strongly advises marketers to move beyond simplistic, binary quality assessment methods, such as simply checking for the presence of an identifier in a bid request or verifying minimum viewability thresholds. Instead, CIMM recommends employing "non-binary, relative and probabilistic" measurements, such as attention scoring, to evaluate media quality on a spectrum of effectiveness. These nuanced approaches, the paper argues, are better suited for making meaningful comparisons across different media types and for capturing the dynamic variations influenced by audience behavior and contextual factors like time of day.
Furthermore, the paper underscores the importance of considering both short-term performance metrics and long-term brand-building opportunities. While acknowledging that smaller brands heavily reliant on immediate returns should continue to prioritize short-term outcomes, the broader implication is that a balanced approach is essential for sustainable growth.
CTV as the Proving Ground and the 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 crucial proving ground. This segment represents the highest-stakes market due to its elevated CPMs, intense demand, and expansive creative canvases.
Dorosz further elaborates that CTV’s relative newness and its liberation from the 20-plus years of third-party cookie dependency mean that its players are not as entrenched in the existing status quo. Moreover, many traditional pixel-based measurement approaches that are effective on other platforms are ill-suited for the unique characteristics of CTV. For example, the paper advocates for a complete re-evaluation of viewability measurement in CTV. Given that CTV ads typically auto-play with sound and occupy the full screen, traditional viewability metrics may become largely irrelevant.
Ultimately, while CIMM aims for industry-wide adoption of its framework, the authors concur that the buy side must spearhead this transformation. "These theories only matter," Dorosz concluded, "if the buy side demonstrates success and drives repeatability." This implies that agencies and brands must actively integrate these new quality assessment methodologies into their media planning and buying processes, proving their efficacy through tangible campaign results. The success of CIMM’s initiative hinges on its ability to move beyond theoretical discussions and foster practical implementation across the advertising ecosystem, particularly within the rapidly evolving CTV landscape.
