Why It's Time For Marketers To Rebuild Programmatic Strategy From The Publisher Up

Commentary by Michael Lyons , MeidaPost Op-Ed Contributor, June 11, 2025

As media leaders guiding clients through a dynamic, fragmented, and increasingly expensive advertising landscape, we must confront a hard truth: too much of today's programmatic ad spend still fails to deliver real value. According to the latest Q1 2025 ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark, only 41% of programmatic budgets go to impressions that meet basic quality standards (non-IVT, measurable, and viewable).

The rest? Waste.

The newly introduced TrueCPM Index — which factors in impression-level quality — reveals a 37.8% optimization gap, translating into a staggering $21.6 billion in potential efficiency gains across the global programmatic ecosystem. If you're accelerating spend in CTV or programmatic channels, this data should be a wake-up call.

The Problem Is Structural, Not Tactical

The issue isn't just about buying better inventory. It's about fundamentally changing how we approach programmatic media. Today's marketplace rewards volume over value, creating a race to the bottom where quality gets lost in the shuffle.

First, open web programmatic bidding continues to hemorrhage value, with too many ad dollars chasing low-quality inventory on the long tail of Made-for-Advertising (MFA) domains. While MFA spending has dropped dramatically, from 15% to just 0.4% since 2023 — the real issue isn't just MFA. It's the lack of accountability across sprawling supply chains. With the median marketer now buying across 19 SSPs and 53,799 domains, blind scale often replaces strategic investment.

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