The Cult of Scale Is Burning

The Collapse of the Middle: When ‘Optimized at Scale’ Meant Losing Money Faster, but Smarter

Pesach Lattin (ADOTAT)
July 09, 2025

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When ‘Optimized at Scale’ Meant Losing Money Faster, but Smarter

The Cult of Scale Is Burning

I used to believe in scale the way some people believe in astrology — with total conviction, zero evidence, and a vague sense that Mercury in retrograde was the reason my CTR sucked.

Back in the early 2010s, “scale” sounded noble. The more impressions, the better. We weren’t just running ads — we were launching campaigns into the algorithmic heavens. Billions of ad calls, a sea of third-party cookies, and so many acronyms we could’ve played adtech BINGO at every quarterly meeting.

We were promised a future where automation would bring perfect efficiency, programmatic would deliver omnipotence, and every brand would be just one DCO variant away from relevance.

What we got was a wasteland of MFA garbage, measurement hallucinations, latency black holes, and dashboards so bloated they looked like they were built by a hungover raccoon with a data fetish.

When Math Becomes the Monster

Chris Kane, in a recent interview on The ADOTAT Show, summed up the MFA boom with one brutally honest line: “It wasn’t fraud. It was math.”

He’s not being cute. He’s explaining the underlying rot. Scale didn’t reward quality — it rewarded volume that looked like quality. Impressions that met the minimum threshold for viewability. Clicks that came from click farms in Bangladesh. Video completes from autoplay inventory three pixels wide. The algorithms did their job — and their job, as it turns out, was to shovel ad dollars into a bonfire of synthetic engagement.

The industry didn't get tricked — it built the trick. This wasn’t a bug in the system. It was the system. Scale wasn’t optimizing for outcomes; it was optimizing for throughput.

When Less Is Finally More

Scott Ensign recently said something I haven’t heard from a media leader in years: “Ad impressions will decrease — and that’s a good thing.”

That statement, in most ad sales meetings, would be treated like flatulence in an elevator. But he’s right — and it’s exactly what the industry needs to hear. Because for over a decade, we’ve been obsessed with maximizing impressions as if they were lottery tickets. More spins, more chances to win, right?

Except the jackpot was rigged, the numbers were fake, and most of the tickets were printed on invisible ink.

Ensign’s point is simple but dangerous: maybe fewer ads — placed intentionally, contextually, and with actual respect for the audience — perform better. Maybe we should stop measuring success by how many screens we invade and start measuring it by how many humans we actually reach.

The Frankenstack Delusion

As I was writing this, Jeff Hirsch published a response to my piece on Magnite’s platform strategy. He didn’t deny the mess — in fact, he called out exactly what I had: the challenge of integrating legacy acquisitions like SpotX, SpringServe, and Telaria into one functional “platform” without it becoming a Frankenstein tech stack held together by duct tape and old PowerPoints.

He acknowledged that yes, most SSPs are still acting like middlemen. They’ve added pipes, stitched on labels, but many haven’t changed the game. But then Hirsch made a sharp pivot — and this is where things get interesting.

He argued that when an SSP owns the ad server, it’s not just a toll booth anymore — it becomes a market maker.

In other words, control the last mile of ad delivery and you’re no longer just connecting buyers and sellers. You’re shaping outcomes, optimizing in real time, innovating in format, and — this is the key — adding value instead of just extracting it.

That idea actually lines up with the central thesis of this series: scale is not inherently bad — what’s bad is blind scale. Scale with no transparency. Scale that rewards junk. Scale that breaks instead of builds.

The problem isn’t that we tried to build platforms. It’s that we built platforms that prioritized volume over value. Now, Hirsch is saying: if we’re going to build, let’s actually build something worth using — with real control, real transparency, and real accountability.

What We Built Instead: A Digital Junkyard

Let’s be honest. For the last decade, we’ve been playing a game of digital whack-a-mole. One fraud scheme dies, three new ones take its place. One verification company updates their standard, and suddenly ten new MFA sites find a new loophole. We’re not scaling clarity — we’re scaling confusion.

The result?

Campaigns that show 5 million impressions but move zero product
Ad servers that fire off more pixels than a Marvel movie
Marketers who’ve learned to game dashboards, not drive outcomes

And let’s not forget those glorious “custom reports” built by interns with access to Excel and zero understanding of causality.

Let It Burn

So yeah — I’m done pretending scale is our savior. It’s not. It’s the golden calf we built to distract ourselves from the fact that most of our industry is held together by incentives no one wants to talk about.

That’s why this series isn’t just a rant. It’s a reckoning.

Hirsch is right — the SSP of the future has to own more than a bidstream. But ownership without intent is just overhead. Control without curation is just another choke point.

We don’t need more ad tech.
We need better ad tech.
And that means burning the old church of scale down to its foundation — then rebuilding something real on top of the ashes.

The Rabbi of ROAS

🚨 NEW REPORT JUST DROPPED: "CTV’s Great Mirage" Why Advertisers Are Paying for Ghosts — and What Comes Next

🕵️ Spoiler: A shocking chunk of Connected TV ads are never seen by anyone. Literally.
They autoplay to empty rooms. Stream to TVs that are turned off. Run on zombie apps made purely to suck up ad dollars.

If you thought CTV was the shining savior of digital advertising… it might just be programmatic’s undead twin with better furniture.

This 80+ page ADOTAT+ investigative report blows the lid off the inflated metrics, spoofed inventory, and measurement black holes plaguing the industry.

💣 Highlights include:

The rise of MFA channels on Roku and how they became ad-dollar sinkholes
Why SSAI is the fraudster’s favorite weapon
How spoofed devices quietly drained millions from top brands
What platforms aren’t doing to stop it — and why
Real buyer tactics to stop funding fake impressions

👻 The ghosts are cashing in. Don’t let your budget join them.

👉 Subscribe to ADOTAT+ to unlock the full report. Stay Bold. Stay Curious. And Know More than You Did Yesterday.

🚨 READ IT (AGAIN): CTV’s Great Mirage
The Report That’s Still Haunting Adland — And For Good Reason

You’ve already got access. You may have even skimmed it when it dropped. But let’s be real: “CTV’s Great Mirage” isn’t just a report — it’s a reality check. And if you haven’t read it start to finish (or haven’t in a while), now’s the time.

👻 Because guess what? The ghosts didn’t go away.
They multiplied.

While the industry keeps sipping from the “CTV is premium” cocktail, we laid out exactly how zombie impressions, spoofed devices, and MFA channels are quietly draining budgets — and why platforms like Roku are looking the other way.

📉 If you're seeing weird app names in your CTV reports...
📺 If your CPMs look too good to be true...
💸 If you're wondering why your reach doesn’t feel like it’s reaching...

Then this report hits harder today than it did at launch.

🔍 The fraud playbook hasn't changed. But now you have one too.

🧠 Re-read the full ADOTAT+ exclusive: CTV’s Great Mirage
It’s not just relevant — it’s required reading.

Stay Bold. Stay Curious. And Know More than You Did Yesterday.

	CTV’S GREAT MIRAGE- THE BOOMING BUSINESS OF ADS NO ONE SEES .pdf3.85 MB • PDF File

How Purpose-Fueled Curation Challenges the Reliance on Cheap Reach in Retail Media

The Problem: Cheap Reach Addiction

Retail media networks have rapidly scaled by promising efficient, targeted advertising based on first-party data. However, this growth has led many brands to prioritize cheap reach—focusing on low CPMs and broad impressions rather than genuine business outcomes. This approach often results in:

Increased exposure to low-quality, "made for advertising" (MFA) inventory.
Opaque metrics that mask true ROI.
Missed opportunities for authentic engagement and brand safety.

The Solution: Purpose-Fueled Curation

Purpose-fueled curation directly addresses these issues by shifting focus from volume to value.

Here’s how it challenges the status quo:

1. Prioritizing Quality Over Quantity

Selective Inventory: Curated marketplaces enable brands to access only high-quality, relevant inventory, bypassing the randomness and low standards of open programmatic markets.
Stricter Standards: Platforms set higher thresholds for publisher quality, engagement, and compliance, reducing exposure to junk volume.

2. Enhancing Transparency and Accountability

Consolidated Supply Paths: Curation simplifies the supply chain, making it easier to trace where ad dollars go and ensuring spend reaches real, engaged audiences.
Robust Data Signals: Purpose-fueled platforms integrate reliable data (e.g., publisher insights, contextual signals) to improve targeting accuracy and reporting clarity.

3. Aligning with Brand Values and Social Impact

DEI Sourcing: By intentionally investing in diverse-owned media, brands support underrepresented voices and reach authentic audiences, moving beyond generic impressions.
Brand Safety: Curation allows brands to avoid placements that could harm reputation, ensuring alignment with company values and audience expectations.

4. Delivering Better Business Outcomes

Authentic Engagement: Purposeful curation focuses on meaningful interactions rather than inflated metrics, leading to higher-quality leads and stronger ROI.
Long-Term Loyalty: Supporting quality and diversity fosters trust and loyalty among consumers, creating sustainable business growth.

Comparison Table: Cheap Reach vs. Purpose-Fueled Curation

Aspect	Cheap Reach Addiction	Purpose-Fueled Curation
Inventory Quality	Often low (MFA, junk sites)	High, curated, relevant
Transparency	Opaque, fragmented data	Clear, direct relationships
Brand Safety	Risk of misalignment, fraud	Enhanced control, compliance
DEI & Social Impact	Minimal	Prioritized, measurable
Business Outcomes	Inflated metrics, low true ROI	Authentic engagement, real ROI

Conclusion

Purpose-fueled curation reorients retail media away from the pitfalls of cheap, low-quality reach. By emphasizing quality, transparency, brand alignment, and social impact, it ensures that every advertising dollar delivers genuine value—challenging the industry’s reliance on volume and restoring the promise of precision and performance in retail media.

What You’re Missing in ADOTAT+ — and Why It Matters

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This week? Kevin Krim drops the act and lays bare what's actually broken in ad tech—how even the outcome metrics we love are being gamed, and why most measurement tools are just mirrors with fog.

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The Cult of Scale Is Burning

The Collapse of the Middle: When ‘Optimized at Scale’ Meant Losing Money Faster, but Smarter

The Cult of Scale Is Burning

When Math Becomes the Monster

When Less Is Finally More

The Frankenstack Delusion

What We Built Instead: A Digital Junkyard

Let It Burn

🚨 NEW REPORT JUST DROPPED: "CTV’s Great Mirage" Why Advertisers Are Paying for Ghosts — and What Comes Next

👉 Subscribe to ADOTAT+ to unlock the full report. Stay Bold. Stay Curious. And Know More than You Did Yesterday.

🚨 READ IT (AGAIN): CTV’s Great MirageThe Report That’s Still Haunting Adland — And For Good Reason

How Purpose-Fueled Curation Challenges the Reliance on Cheap Reach in Retail Media

The Problem: Cheap Reach Addiction

The Solution: Purpose-Fueled Curation

1. Prioritizing Quality Over Quantity

2. Enhancing Transparency and Accountability

3. Aligning with Brand Values and Social Impact

4. Delivering Better Business Outcomes

Comparison Table: Cheap Reach vs. Purpose-Fueled Curation

Conclusion

What You’re Missing in ADOTAT+ — and Why It Matters

Subscribe to ADOTAT+ to read the rest.

🚨 READ IT (AGAIN): CTV’s Great Mirage
The Report That’s Still Haunting Adland — And For Good Reason

The Cult of Scale Is Burning

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