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Today we're diving into the murky underbelly of the internet, where the insatiable hunger for ad dollars mated with the blissful ignorance of programmatic traders to give birth to a Frankenstein-like creature: Made-for-Advertising (MFA) websites.

These sites, designed to siphon off paid media dollars while sidelining quality content and user experience, are taking a hefty bite out of ad budgets and leaving advertisers with little to show for it.

According to Jounce Media, a staggering 12% of programmatic display ad budgets go to these MFA websites. (Go read this report, it is free!)

We're talking about billions of dollars funneled into the digital abyss, with no real return on investment. However, most advertisers think they are getting material ROI thanks to last-touch attribution models.

But fear not, fellow advertisers and media buyers, for we shall endeavor to shed light on this shadowy corner of the internet and arm ourselves against these digital parasites.

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It was my first CES since 2019, and I was excited to be back. When planning my triumphant return to Las Vegas’ largest trade show, I did not know if it would still “be a thing” for the media business, but I registered anyway!

Attendance beat expectations with 115,000 attendees. (The original prediction was closer to 100,000.) That’s down from 185,000 in 2019 when I last attended. It was delightful! Still busy and exciting, but not a complete mob scene.

Advertising Biz + CESFor well over a decade, CES has been widely attended by the advertising and marketing industry. Like every “cool-kid event” from Sundance to Cannes, the ad mafia finds a reason to show up!

CES occurs early each January, which provides a great way to kick off a new year.

This year’s most prominent theme was biddable advanced television (i.e. CTV, OTT, addressable, programmatic, etc.)

There were so many ATV events, sessions, panels, and happy hours on the topic that it would be impossible to attend them all.

Measurement was the week's buzzword despite being discussed in only the fluffiest of terms.

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Perhaps never have we seen an advertising marketplace spring up with so little measurability. Yet there is a line of brands down the block desperate to spend.

At the top, I firmly believe that 100% of television advertising will be addressable and delivered to viewers via internet pipes within ten years. There is zero chance that the current linear business model survives into the next decade.

However.

Today, it is a mess.

Measurement of campaign delivery and performance, in line with modern internet protocol-based activation systems, simply does not exist. Yet.

Our industry faces a confluence of challenges, including technology interoperability and poor [non-existent] incentives to change.

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Months ago, a company called Deepsee published an exposé of a traffic and audience generation strategy called “reward traffic.” The piece was picked up by Bloomberg just this week.

Their research alleges that companies like iHeart have been juicing their podcast rankings by purchasing “rewarded” downloads from an ad network called Jun Group. In Deepsee’s thoroughly documented report, they found multiple iHeart URLs used as creative and traffic landing pages such as:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-bloomberg-surveillance-30972795/episode/surveillance-market-timing-with-bitterly-podcast-98773848/

It does not appear that iHeart was alone in these allegations. There are many publishers trading and buying this traffic. A-L-L-E-G-E-D-L-Y