10 Questions About Media Quality: Adelaide and CIMM Q&A

The industryamp8217s understanding of media quality is evolving quickly My answers to the questions Jon posed to the panel explain Adelaideamp8217s point of viewJon Why is everyone talking about quotmedia qualityquot now What is it and what changedClaire Media quality is becoming a highinterest topic because brands and buyers have noticed the declining impact of some of their digital media investments Since the Media Rating Council MRC established the viewability standard in 2014 digital media quality has largely been described with basic hygiene metrics like viewability and video completion rate But viewability is widely acknowledged to have been gamed as an indicator of value and with the decline of thirdparty cookies the rise of MFA sites and now the flood of AIgenerated online content hygiene metrics arenamp8217t discerning enough to guide planning and investment decisions in a fragmented media landscape A media quality metric should be able to do exactly thatMedia quality describes the degree to which a media placement captures attention and contributes to a desired business outcome All impressions are not created equal and a media quality metric helps distinguish between themJon Not all impressions are created equalamp8212what are the implications for buyers and sellersClaire Buyers and sellers are used to transacting on audience reach and cost metrics An ad impression comes with a certain audience estimate and a certain CPM but traditionally has not been differentiated much further in media terms The idea of evaluating a quality metric alongside audience and cost metrics is relatively new in media but not in other markets Credit ratings and CARFAX scores are two familiar examples of quality metrics that complement evaluation and cost metrics in other marketsA buyeramp8217s opportunity is to use a media quality metric amp8211 Adelaideamp8217s AU amp8211 to identify and purchase media at the quality level needed to support a clientamp8217s business objectives either programmatically or directly from publishers Since weamp8217ve shown that media quality and media cost are not correlated buyers may have a qualityandcost arbitrage opportunity depending on their objectivesSellers have an opportunity to claim credit for their highquality ad inventory in a new way amp160 We think highquality inventory has historically been underpriced because the market has lacked a consistent way to identify and justify greater investment in it As a result advertisers have often focused primarily on cost and reach leaving higherquality publishers to compete on the same terms as lowerquality ones A shared transparent metric like AU allows buyers and sellers to evaluate quality alongside cost and negotiate based on a more complete view of the value of a placement Because AU is both diagnostic and predictive of outcomes it gives both sides a more valuable basis for negotiationsJon What are we missing when we measure only who was reached rather than where when and howClaire When we measure only amp8220whoamp8221 was reached we treat the specific characteristics of media placements including environment format and attention as noise when they are actually mostamp160 of the signal This can create an incentive to prioritize the cheapest way to reach an audience without accounting for meaningful differences in the quality of those exposures or their likelihood of driving an outcomeMedia research typically answers three questions amp8220How many how often and how longamp8221 In other words how many people use a particular media channel how often do they use it and how long do they use it foramp160 The answers to those three questions have largely determined how media inventory is valued and monetized At Adelaide we answer an additional question amp8220How wellamp8221amp160 This meansamp160 how effectively did the media inventory capture attention and lead to a business impactamp160 We now have a way to quantify that difference for the market Without accounting for quality buyers may save on media costs while sacrificing overall campaign performanceJon What does quotpremiumquot mean nowamp8212content context audience platform experience outcomesClaire With the media landscape evolving quickly inventory that buyers viewed as premium ten or even five years ago may no longer be seen that way We need a new definition of amp8220premiumamp8221 and it should be something more than amp8220most expensiveamp8221At Adelaide we think amp8220premiumnessamp8221 is a property of the placement amp8211 not of the media brand or the platform amp8211 measured by its predictable likelihood of driving impact That is a framing that legacy media publishers who have traditionally been considered amp8220premiumamp8221 may have to get used to but itamp8217s also their great opportunity because AU is real evidence of their media quality from a neutral validated third partyJon Is the high and lowquality gap clear and appreciated across the market Is it baked into pricingClaire The gap is real and significant and it is not yet broadly reflected in pricing which creates an inefficiency buyers can currently exploit to their advantage We39ve seen cases where the highestviewability inventory had the lowest AU and the weakest conversions Highquality media exists in every channel and the most expensive inventory does not always offer the best value The market appreciates the gap in the abstract but hasn39t broadly repriced for it partly because until now there hasnamp8217t been a shared quality currency to transact onThat is starting to change as media partners in the AU Ecosystem increasingly package guarantee and price inventory based on AU Brands are also using media quality thresholds and AUweighted MMMs to guide investment decisions But we39re still early which means buyers willing to act on AU now may benefit from a temporary arbitrage opportunityJon What convinces a skeptical marketer or CFO that quality is a performance argument not a branding oneClaire Relevant evidence We need to show marketers and CFOs that quality matters which is why we have invested in partnerships with multiple research providers including Nielsen as well as in independent thirdparty audits and our ongoing MRC accreditation process We publish dozens of case studies in our annual Outcomes Guide each January demonstrating the upper and lowerfunnel impact of AU applications Our latest guide included 60 case studies across 16 industries with higherAU media delivering an average 33 lift in upperfunnel outcomes and 53 lift in lowerfunnel outcomes Together this evidence shows a consistent link between media quality and campaign performance in terms that matter to brands including cost efficiency and bottomline business outcomesJon Which quality signals are most predictive of real impactClaire AU is a quality signal that is predictive of real outcomes impactQuality is complex and multidimensional so AU accounts for the many placement characteristics that influence media quality These vary by channel from clutter position duration and size in display to genre daypart apppublisher and pod position in CTV Eyetracking research helps guide characteristic selection while outcome data determines how those characteristics are weighted so that AU reflects a placementamp8217s likelihood of contributing to business resultsWeamp8217ve tested thousands of model variations and leveraged several hundred thousand brand survey responses and more than 100 million middle and lowerfunnel conversion events to train and refine AU We update our channel models regularly and continue to improve their predictive accuracy across major purchasefunnel KPIsJon What needs to happen to make quality an operational tool not just a principleClaire AU is already operational on the buyside and the sellside is catching up quickly We have adopted amp8220AU Everywhereamp8221 as our company rallying cry and worked to embed AU across the media landscape The principle becomes a tool the moment a planner can write a minimum AU threshold into a buy and a DSP can execute against it automatically For many of our customers thatamp8217s already happening todayOperationalizing quality requiresA standardized metric Quality has to be expressible as a number agencies can put on a media plan buy against and report on the way they already do with GRPsAvailability in the workflows buyers already use That includes prebid segments and custom bidding algorithms in DSPs PMPs in SSPs and guaranteed deals with builtin thresholds Adoption cannot require entirely new workflows complex integrations or significant additional overheadIndependent audits and validation Thirdparty scrutiny is essential to building trust in any metric used to inform transactionsJon How do buyers fold quality in without making it too complex or expensiveClaire Start by measuring a set of campaigns to establish a baseline and identify an appropriate AU threshold for a specific client then let buying tools do most of the work Prebid segments and curated PMPs allow buyers to prioritize highAU supply without handmanaging placement by placement As measurement experience accumulates the brandamp8217s AU dataset becomes a planning asset that can inform future campaigns Buyers also gain confidence when they see that other brands and agencies have adopted qualitybased buying without adding significant complexity to their operationsJon How do buyers and sellers collaborate on quality without it becoming another negotiation battleground What changes in three yearsClaire Media quality should not become a bargaining chip used only to negotiate lower prices It should give buyers and sellers a shared way to evaluate the quality of a placement alongside its cost and determine whether it represents fair valueWhen both sides transact using the same independently validated score they can agree on clear quality thresholds or guarantees rather than debate subjective definitions of amp8220premiumamp8221 Quality becomes a measurable contract term that can be guaranteed much like a GRPWithin three years I expect quality thresholds to become a standard part of insertion orders and highquality inventory to be priced more appropriately as its value becomes easier to quantify Blended CPMs will become less useful as buyers gain a clearer view of the quality cost and expected impact of the placements they are buyingPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

10 Questions About Media Quality: Adelaide and CIMM Q&A

Author

Publish date

Channel

Claire Browne

The Man Who Moved Creators from the Margins to the Middle of Microsoft - By Jack Myers

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

10 Questions About Media Quality: Adelaide and CIMM Q&A

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Claire Browne

TAGS:

The Man Who Moved Creators from the Margins to the Middle of Microsoft - By Jack Myers

The payment was successful

Cookies