The Race to the Bottom: Media Quality, Attention, and Why Cheap Reach Is Costing Brands More Than They Think

For nearly two decades, digital advertising has optimized around one primary objective: finding the cheapest possible way to reach the right person. Programmatic buying, identity signals, attribution, and performance marketing have created extraordinary efficiency—but they may also have trained the industry to systematically undervalue one of the most important variables in advertising effectiveness: the quality of the media itself.In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House welcome back friend of the podcast Erez Levin for his third appearance and his second full-length conversation. Erez is one of the industry's most respected voices on media quality, attention, and advertising effectiveness. A former Google executive and now Founder of Emmett Advisory, he recently co-authored CIMM's landmark report, Quality Matters: Navigating Quality in Media Buying and Measurement, an effort to establish a common industry framework for evaluating media quality.The conversation explores a simple but powerful premise:Not all impressions are created equal.While the industry has become exceptionally good at optimizing for identity, CPMs, and short-term outcomes, it has largely ignored the environments where advertising actually appears. As deterministic identity signals become less reliable and privacy regulations reshape digital advertising, Erez argues that marketers must begin treating media quality as a first-class buying signal—not merely a brand safety filter.Topics include:Why optimizing exclusively for ROAS and CPMs can quietly destroy long-term brand growthHow the industry's obsession with attribution created a "race to the bottom" in media buyingWhy attention alone is an incomplete measurement frameworkThe difference between audience quality, media quality, and creative quality—and why all three matterWhy premium inventory isn't binary, but exists on a spectrum of valueThe hidden problems with averaging performance across wildly different media environmentsWhy CTV has an opportunity to avoid repeating the mistakes of display advertisingHow marketers should rethink media planning as identity signals continue to weakenWhy procurement incentives often work against advertising effectivenessPractical ways brands can begin incorporating media quality into buying decisions todayThe future of AI-driven media buying and whether automation will improve—or worsen—advertising qualityWhy marketers—not platforms or agencies—must ultimately lead this shiftThe discussion also expands into broader industry questions, including the future of the open web, the role of private marketplaces, the economics of connected television, media governance, AI-generated advertising, and whether today's measurement systems are rewarding the wrong behaviors.Throughout the conversation, Erez makes the case that quality is not a "nice to have." It is a pricing signal. One that may become increasingly important as AI, automation, and privacy reshape the advertising ecosystem.If you've ever wondered why digital advertising often feels more optimized than effective—or why brands continue chasing cheaper impressions while premium publishers struggle to monetize quality—this conversation explains why.Whether you're a CMO, agency executive, media planner, AdTech leader, publisher, or simply interested in where digital advertising is headed next, this is an essential discussion about one of the industry's most important strategic shifts.Guest: Erez Levin, Founder, Emmett Advisory; former Google executive; co-author of CIMM's Quality Matters report.Connect with Erez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erezlevin/