‘THERE’S A LOT OF JUNK’: PREMIUM MEDIA ENVIRONMENTS OUTPERFORM CHEAP DIGITAL INVENTORY BY 4.3 TIMES ON CONSIDERATION; STUDY SAYS PURCHASE INTENT RISES 37%

The idea that greater reach at lower cost delivers better performance is the governing logic of the programmatic era, hardwired into agency trading desks, procurement teams and quarterly reporting packs. It also turns out to be wrong, at least when it comes to buying premium media, according to new research from The Trade Desk and PA Consulting.

The study, which adds to growing evidence-based research on the effectiveness shortfall of CPM pricing, argues premium advertising environments do not merely improve brand perception around the edges. They also materially outperform low-cost, high-volume inventory on the metrics CMOs increasingly care about most: Trust, purchase intent, consideration and long-term commercial impact. In a market now drowning in synthetic content, cluttered feeds and AI-generated noise, the real scarcity may be trusted attention.

What you need to know

• New research from The Trade Desk and PA Consulting argues marketers chasing low-cost digital reach may be undermining trust, purchase intent and long-term brand growth.
• The study found premium advertising environments were 4.3x more effective at driving purchase consideration, lifted purchase intent by 37%, and delivered 50% stronger positive brand associations versus lower-quality inventory.
• Researchers analysed 40-plus media properties in Australia across streaming TV, publishing, audio and social, combining behavioural science, surveys and testing with 1,500 Australian consumers.
• Consumers increasingly define “premium” not just by content quality, but by the ad experience itself – including relevance, clutter, placement and how naturally ads fit the environment.
• The report suggests marketers have over-optimised toward easy-to-measure metrics like CPMs and reach, rather than harder-to-measure outcomes such as trust, consideration and brand impact.
• Streaming TV and premium publishers scored strongly on trust and user experience, while social media environments were associated with clutter and weaker content controls –a gap researchers say could widen further as AI-generated content proliferates online.

Cheap reach, it drives numbers, and it drives uniques, but it actually doesn't sell anything.

— Ashton De Santis, senior director, inventory development, The Trade Desk

Marketers chasing cheap digital reach may be sacrificing the very business outcomes they are under pressure to deliver, according to new research from advertising technology company, The Trade Desk and consulting firm, PA Consulting.

The latest work argues premium advertising environments materially outperform low-cost, high-volume inventory on measures tied to trust, purchase intent and brand perception. Nor is The Trade Desk alone in its argument. As we recently reported, marketers are over-optimising for cheap CPMs and reach, mistakenly equating impressions with effectiveness and cost with value. It is one of the digital advertising industry’s foundational assumptions of the past two decades: That scale and efficiency, measured through reach and low CPMs, are reliable proxies for effectiveness.

Attention expert and founder of Amplified, Dr Karen Nelson-Field has calculated that the cost of dull media in Australia is $6bn in wasted ad spend annually – more than 20 per cent of total marketing investment. In an Mi3 podcast on the work, both Dr Nelson-Field and Guy Burbidge, MD of Val Morgan, argued that “proxies like reach and CPM” are masking true performance, leading to poor media choices.

CMOs also face ongoing pressure to justify budgets in a tepid economy with uncomfortable levels of inflation, while balancing short-term performance metrics against long-term brand growth.

This new TTD report argues many brands have optimised toward what is easiest to measure rather than what most influences purchasing behaviour. The study, titled The Premium Media Payoff, examined more than 40 media properties in Australia across streaming TV, digital publishing, audio and social media. (TTD studied 60 around the world) It combined expert interviews, behavioural science research, quantitative consumer surveys and experimental testing to examine how premium media environments influence advertising effectiveness.

“High-volume, low-cost impressions may support short-term delivery metrics, but are less effective at building brand trust, shaping consideration and influencing purchase decisions,” the report's authors argue.

Researchers assessed factors including trust, user experience, ad integration, navigation and brand reputation. The findings were validated through surveys and implicit-response testing involving 1,500 Australian consumers, measuring how different media environments influenced trust, purchase intent, consideration and broader brand perceptions.

Among its headline findings, the report claimed advertising in premium environments was:

• 4.3 times more effective at driving purchase consideration,
• lifted purchase intent by 37 per cent,
• was 50 per cent more effective at building positive brand associations than less premium environments.

The study defines premium media through two main characteristics: Trusted media brands and high-quality advertising environments. Researchers found consumers increasingly judged media quality not only by content itself, but by the advertising experience surrounding it.

According to the data, more than half of respondents said ad-related factors were among the biggest drivers of whether a media environment felt premium. That finding reflects a broader shift underway across advertising markets as streaming television, digital video and retail media platforms increasingly compete on user experience rather than just sheer audience scale.

“We've always had a focus on thinking that premium drives better outcomes,” Ashton De Santis, senior director, inventory Development, at The Trade Desk (TTD) said in an interview discussing the findings. “The focus of the study was, first of all, to define what is premium media.”

Native to content

De Santis said the research showed consumers increasingly associated premium environments with ad experiences that “feel native to the content,” appear at natural breaks and remain relevant to the user.

The findings also reflect growing concern among marketers that an industry-wide pursuit of cheap inventory may be damaging brand effectiveness over time. “Cheap reach, it drives numbers, and it drives unique, but it actually doesn't sell anything,” De Stantis said. “Quality reach, or reaching the right person in the right environment, actually drives outcomes.”

That argument is pitched at the long-running discussions inside media agencies and brand marketing teams over the balance between performance advertising and brand investment. For years, marketers have increasingly shifted budgets into highly targeted, auction-based digital advertising systems optimised around measurable outputs such as clicks, impressions and cost-per-thousand metrics. Critics have argued those systems often prioritise volume over attention quality, contextual relevance and long-term brand effects.

The Trade Desk study cites earlier research from WARC called The Multiplier Effect: A CMO’s Guide to Brand-Building in the Performance Era, suggesting over-investment in performance advertising can reduce revenue returns by between 20 per cent and 50 per cent.

The upside of Slop

TTD also argues the rise of artificial intelligence-generated content could further increase the value of trusted media environments. As content production costs collapse and synthetic content floods digital platforms, consumers may place greater weight on trusted brands and professionally curated environments.

Per the report: "The premium advantage is amplifying as AI reshapes the media landscape. As content volume surges and origins become harder to verify, trust has emerged as the primary signal of quality. In fact, 73 per cent of consumers surveyed place a greater trust in content known to be produced by human journalists, while consumers are 1.6x less likely to trust social media than premium digital sites."

Strong streamers

Streaming television platforms performed particularly strongly in the study’s testing. Researchers said premium streaming environments improved perceptions of advertisers as aspirational and high-quality compared with lower-tier streaming environments. Platforms including Netflix and Foxtel were singled out for intuitive navigation and seamless ad integration.

"Respondents [said] their intuitive navigation and seamless ad integration create an environment that feels worthy of their time. By contrast, some video players scored lower due to factors like frequent ad breaks that interrupted the flow of content, according to the findings."

Premium digital news publishers also scored highly on measures tied to consistency, uncluttered experiences and trust, according to the report. By contrast, respondents associated social media feeds with clutter and weaker content controls.

De Santis said publishers increasingly needed to think about advertising as part of the overall product experience rather than as a separate monetisation layer. Clutter is a big issue, he said. “If you've got less ads on a website, even though there's less opportunities, the idea is that they're more premium, so they're more valuable to a brand.”

Yet he said many marketers still defaulted toward reach and CPMs because those metrics remained easier to measure than trust, consideration and long-term brand impact.

“I think in the past, it's just been what's easiest to measure,” De Santis said. “Reach and CPM are probably easier to measure, but changing the measurement story to outcomes is where I think people will start to see the difference.”

Source: mi-3.com.au