There are two types of people in ad tech: the ones who swear up and down that transparency is the industry’s salvation, and the ones clutching their spreadsheets like a doomsday prepper hoarding canned beans. Mario Diez, CEO of Peer39, is firmly in the first camp. He’s the guy who makes sure advertisers know where their money is going, publishers know what they’re selling, and the entire industry doesn’t collectively trip over its own jargon.

We sat down to talk CTV, cookies (or the lack thereof), brand safety, and the fine art of not running a Pampers ad next to, well, content that might require Pampers.

Transparency & Programmatic: Ad Tech’s Favorite Buzzword or a High-Stakes Game of Frenemies?

Ad tech has more buzzwords than a TED Talk on synergy, but “transparency” is the current golden calf—sacred, worshipped, and, if we’re being honest, a little overhyped. Everyone chants it like a mantra, writes it into their pitch decks, and nods sagely in panel discussions about its virtues. But do they actually want it? Or is it just another one of those things—like flossing daily or deleting old emails—that everyone claims to care about but conveniently ignores when it gets inconvenient?

“Advertisers demand it, publishers fear it, and companies like Peer39 are caught in the middle,” I pointed out, because let’s be real: nothing in ad tech is ever as simple as it sounds.

Diez, coffee in hand, didn’t miss a beat. “Look, in CTV, brands think they know where they’re running, but often they don’t. Do they want their ad showing at 3 AM next to a questionable late-night infomercial? Probably not. Do publishers want to be upfront about what’s actually in their inventory? Also probably not.”

That’s the thing about transparency—it sounds noble in theory, but in practice, it means forcing advertisers to confront the inconvenient truth that their premium placements might not be as premium as they thought. And publishers? They’d rather not spell out that their high-quality, hand-curated premium inventory occasionally includes the digital equivalent of a roadside motel that’s seen better days.

Right now, content-level transparency is like playing iSpy in a dimly lit dive bar—except instead of looking for a red ball, you’re desperately trying to figure out if your brand is wedged between a conspiracy theory docuseries and a rerun of Dude, Where’s My Car? Or worse, a knockoff reality show that somehow got greenlit by an algorithm gone rogue.

And then there’s programmatic—the high-tech vending machine of advertising that either delivers exactly what you want or serves up a dented can of expired soup.

“Will programmatic and transparency ever get along, or are they doomed to be frenemies for life?” I asked.

Diez didn’t hesitate. “If you can’t see what you’re buying, you’re just throwing money at a black box and hoping it works. That’s not sustainable.”

And yet, here we are—watching buyers shovel cash into a system that sometimes works like a dream and other times acts like a used car dealership with an ‘As Is’ sign taped to the window.

The reality is, CTV is still the Wild West, but instead of cowboys and saloons, we’ve got ad exchanges and CPMs. And just like the Old West, there are plenty of snake oil salesmen promising miracle cures for visibility problems. The winners? The ones who actually deliver results instead of hand-waving about “advanced AI-driven contextual relevance” while quietly serving ads on screensavers and digital fish tanks.

So, is transparency really happening? Or is it just another buzzword we slap on industry panels so everyone can nod along and pretend like we’ve solved something? According to Diez, it’s coming—slowly, inevitably, and whether the industry is ready for it or not.

And when it does, there’s going to be nowhere left to hide.

The Great Cherry-Picking Debate: Quality Control or Just Another Ad Tech Myth?

The industry loves to whine about advertisers “cherry-picking” content, as if quality control were somehow a bad thing. Because, obviously, brands should just blindly throw their budgets at inventory the way people pick mystery sushi rolls at a gas station. Who doesn’t want to pick the ripest fruit? I asked.

Diez laughed. “The idea that advertisers just want one show is a myth. Sure, back in the day, a CEO would pick their favorite sitcom and tell the media buyer to ‘put us there.’ But today? It’s about reaching the right audience, not just buying a slot in The Masked Singer and hoping for the best.”

And yet, some people still act like content transparency is some kind of existential threat. The argument goes like this: if advertisers get too picky, it’ll ruin the beautiful randomness of programmatic, where your ad could end up anywhere—from a prestige drama to a six-hour loop of a digital fireplace.

Except Diez calls nonsense on that. “CTV budgets are large. Advertisers on the buy side want to reach their audience. I don’t think if you asked any advertiser that they only want to buy one show or one piece of content—they want to reach an audience.”

In other words, this isn’t about cherry-picking—it’s about avoiding getting stuck with bruised peaches.

That old-school “let’s just buy whatever the CEO watches” model? Dead. “That follows the ‘What show does the CEO watch? Let’s make sure that we buy that show.’ Or ‘What out-of-home signs does the CEO walk by or drive by on the way to work? Let’s buy that.’” Diez explained.

Turns out, CEOs aren’t exactly known for making the best data-driven decisions—who knew?

Instead, brands are chasing audiences, not just content. “The top shows, top sites, top content, top apps—they’re always gonna be of interest. But more specifically on CTV, the idea of cherry-picking, I personally think is a myth because there’s a lot of investment going into it. And it’s not that they just want that one show or one series or whatever it may be—it’s that they want the audience that’s watching that type of content, and they wanna reach more of it.”

So, let’s be clear: advertisers aren’t hoarding their budgets for the Succession season finale; they just don’t want to fund content that’s actively misaligned with their brand.

“Without some more transparency and broader content signals, then I think publishers are missing out, frankly,” Diez added.

Translation? Publishers who offer transparency don’t lose demand—they gain it. The ones clinging to outdated models and hiding their inventory behind vague descriptors like “premium content”? They’re the ones watching dollars disappear.

So, next time someone complains about advertisers getting too “picky,” remember: it’s not cherry-picking—it’s quality control. And in a world where ad budgets are scrutinized like expense reports before a mass layoff, quality control isn’t just smart—it’s survival.

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Brand Safety: Protecting Advertisers or Smothering Anything Interesting?

Brand safety discussions in ad tech are where things really get messy—like trying to eat soup with a fork. On one hand, advertisers don’t want their million-dollar campaign accidentally running next to something that makes shareholders break out in a cold sweat. On the other hand, if we sanitize everything to fit into a Stepford-approved, brand-safe utopia, we’re left with ads running on nothing but Puppy Yoga: The Series and that one wholesome cooking channel that somehow still manages to offend someone.

So I asked the question that’s been looming over the industry like a bad pre-roll ad: Are we saving brands, or are we suffocating edgy content?

Diez had receipts. “CTV is mostly brand-safe. It’s not about ‘safety,’ it’s about suitability,” he clarified. “Advertisers don’t want their family-friendly ad playing before an R-rated horror flick. Unlike linear TV, CTV doesn’t always strip out explicit content. That’s a problem.”

That’s the distinction most people miss. Brand safety implies that advertisers are in constant danger of running next to content that will single-handedly tank their stock price. But in reality, it’s more about suitability—a nuanced game of making sure Pampers doesn’t end up rolling their soft-focus, baby-giggling ad right before a Tarantino shootout, where someone’s getting their face introduced to the business end of a shotgun.

The issue with CTV is that, unlike traditional linear TV, content isn’t always sanitized for mass consumption. Back in the old-school days of prime-time broadcasting, you’d never see a beer ad before a gory crime scene because networks had standards and censors ensuring that things made sense. But in the world of CTV, where automation reigns supreme, things aren’t as tightly controlled. So if you don’t set the right parameters, that wholesome cereal ad could end up running before a scene from The Boys where someone’s head explodes like a malfunctioning piñata.

Brand safety, in theory, makes sense—no one wants to wake up to a PR nightmare where their ad for a friendly neighborhood bank is running alongside Serial Killer Confessions: The Final Cut. But Diez made a point: where do we draw the line between protecting brands and making sure content creators don’t get frozen out entirely?

There’s a growing concern that in the race to sanitize everything, we’re boxing out edgy but legitimate content—news sites, investigative journalism, even scripted dramas that push boundaries. Take Jezebel, for instance, a site that almost went dark because advertisers were too squeamish to run on anything even remotely controversial. The same fate looms over plenty of publishers who produce great content but find themselves stuck in a brand safety no-man’s-land.

Diez pointed out that while CTV might be generally safe, there’s still a massive disconnect between what advertisers want to avoid and what actually poses a risk. News, for example, is often blacklisted not because it’s dangerous, but because it's unpredictable. If brand safety policies are written too broadly, they don’t just prevent brands from running on truly harmful content—they also end up blocking them from high-quality, high-engagement media that might actually work for their audiences.

This is where ad tech has to grow up. It’s not about a binary “safe” vs. “unsafe” label; it’s about nuance. The real challenge isn’t eliminating risk—it’s understanding what’s actually risky and making smarter, more strategic choices. Because if we don’t, we’ll end up with a brand-safe wasteland where advertisers are stuck running ads on nothing but traffic cams and knitting tutorials.

The CTV Genre Targeting Myth: Precision or Just Another Way to Inflate CPMs?

Not all “lifestyle” shows are about cooking, and not all “news” is serious journalism—just ask anyone who’s ever accidentally stumbled onto a Shark Tank rerun and realized they’ve been watching a glorified infomercial for the last 45 minutes.

“So does genre targeting actually work, or is it just another layer of jargon to justify inflated CPMs?” I asked.

Diez smirked. “Define ‘work.’”

Which, honestly, is the only correct response to any question about ad tech efficiency.

“Publishers who provide better genre targeting do see more demand. But ultimately, it’s about scale,” he explained. “If you’re selling CTV inventory, being able to differentiate a cooking show from a home improvement show means you’ll attract the right advertisers. And if you’re buying, you’re not wasting budget on irrelevant content.”

That’s the polite way of saying: genre targeting isn’t total snake oil, but also not a magic bullet.

Here’s the problem—advertisers love the idea of genre targeting because, in theory, it sounds like a no-brainer. Want to sell kitchen appliances? Run ads on cooking shows. Launching a new home security system? Target true crime fans (because paranoia sells). But the reality is a little messier.

Most publishers don’t just produce one kind of content. A network might be known for lifestyle programming, but that doesn’t mean every show they air is Chopped or The Great British Bake Off. And if an advertiser assumes their ad will only show up next to a specific type of content—when in reality, it’s running alongside a random mix of loosely related programming—they’re going to feel duped.

That’s why advertisers don’t just want genre targeting—they want granular, content-level transparency. The ability to know if their ad is running during a chef-driven competition or a low-budget reality show where contestants cook using only a microwave and a hot plate. The difference matters.

Before wrapping up, I asked Diez what marketers needed to unlearn about contextual targeting.

“They need to stop thinking of it as just a keyword game,” he said. “Context isn’t just about words—it’s about sentiment, environment, and actual quality.”

In other words: if you’re still using 2005-era thinking to run your 2025 ad campaigns, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your life choices. Because at this point, clinging to outdated targeting methods is the equivalent of trying to navigate the streaming era with a cable TV guide.

Mario Diez: DJ, Ad Tech Veteran, Transparency Evangelist

Before he was running Peer39, Mario Diez was spinning records as a house music DJ. Makes sense. Ad tech, much like DJing, is about finding the right signals, mixing them together, and hoping the end result isn’t a total disaster. A well-crafted ad campaign, much like a perfect setlist, requires precision—know your audience, drop the right beats (or impressions), and for heaven’s sake, don’t let the whole thing go off the rails.

Diez has spent his career remixing chaos into clarity, whether it’s sorting through the murky waters of CTV transparency or making sure advertisers aren’t funding an all-night marathon of Paranormal Dating Uncensored when they thought they were buying premium primetime inventory.

So, will transparency and programmatic ever have a healthy relationship? Maybe. It’s the kind of dysfunctional dynamic that keeps ad tech interesting—part power couple, part messy reality show. But if there’s one thing Diez has made clear, it’s this: advertisers deserve to know exactly what they’re paying for. No more black-box buying, no more "trust us, it's premium" hand-waving.

Because in ad tech, knowing where your ad runs is the difference between a successful campaign and setting your budget on fire.

And that’s a tune we can all dance to.

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