Tip of the Spear Blog | Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts – William Bruce
Thanks to Dr. Augustine Fou for articulating in his latest post Openly Selling Counterfeit bAds , that clearly programmatic media has an ongoing IVT/NVT problem. In my experience, a toxic mix of weak technology, sloppy process and biased analytics are often to blame.
The bAds framework is clever, yet as presented it is Manichean: options are either a) $35 CPM “real pubs” or b) $3 CPM Cucci/Bluberry. The problem is that reality is more nuanced and this line of thinking risks “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” To keep it simple there are three (at least) categories: 1) established media brands 2) legit mid-tier/indie “long-tail” sites and 3) clickbaity content farm type sites (“scammers”).
The subtle implication that advertisers “get what they pay for” might suggest to some that they are misguided, cheap and even penny-wise/pound-foolish. As uncomfortable truth as far too many certainly are! However, advertisers must manage the considerable digital ad execution risk, which in practice they do by preferring lower CPM programmatic media – if they can show it works. For some it does and for some others they are just going through the motions.
Tip of the Spear Blog | Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts – William Bruce