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When the Dashboard Lies: Cimin Ahmadi Cohen on Building a Better Agency and Exposing Advertising’s Attribution Illusion

2 days ago
56 min read





What happens when the numbers say your advertising is working—but the business says otherwise?


In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Cimin Ahmadi Cohen, Founder and CEO of Idea Peddler, for a wide-ranging conversation about advertising, ad tech, entrepreneurship, media measurement, and one of the industry’s most persistent problems: ad fraud.


Cimin brings a rare perspective. After rising through the ranks of major agencies, she walked away from the traditional agency path and ultimately founded Idea Peddler, an independent, woman-owned agency based in Austin with a satellite office in Santa Fe. She shares the story behind that decision, including how a drive through New Mexico helped give her the clarity to rethink what she wanted from her career and build an agency around a simple idea: doing good work for nice people.


We also get into what it means to build a company differently. Cimin talks candidly about being a female founder, creating a workplace that gives parents greater flexibility, building outside the traditional New York agency ecosystem, and why Austin has become such a powerful environment for entrepreneurs and creative businesses.


Then the conversation turns to some of the biggest problems in digital advertising.


Cimin has become an outspoken critic of what she calls the “attribution illusion”—the idea that marketers can watch metrics like ROAS continue to improve even when revenue, profit, or other real business outcomes remain flat. She explains why platform-reported performance can be misleading, how advertising systems can take credit for sales that were already going to happen, and why marketers need independent measurement rather than allowing the companies selling the media to grade their own homework.


That leads to a fascinating discussion about ad fraud, invalid traffic, MFA sites, audience extension, opaque programmatic supply chains, agency compensation models, and the financial incentives that can encourage nearly everyone in the ecosystem to keep more media dollars flowing.


We also spend time talking about Dr. Augustine Fu, a repeat Signal & Noise guest and one of the industry's most persistent voices on digital ad fraud. Cimin shares her admiration for his willingness to challenge the industry, bring evidence, and ask questions many people would rather avoid.


Other topics include why Cimin believes marketers should scrutinize cheap programmatic inventory, whether brands should audit their agencies more aggressively, the tradeoffs between transparency and principal-based buying, the future role of independent agencies, media in-housing, and how AI could eventually change parts of the media-buying process.


It’s a smart, funny, occasionally provocative conversation with a leader who isn't afraid to question some of digital advertising’s most comfortable assumptions.


If you work in media, advertising, marketing, AdTech, measurement, or simply want to understand where your digital advertising dollars actually go, this is an episode you won't want to miss.


Transcript:


Brett (00:01.295)

Hey everybody, welcome back to Signal and Noise. This is Brett House, joined by my co-host Rio Longacre. And today we have Simeen Amadi Cohen to the show. coming straight out of Austin, Texas, right? What what a great city. What a great, what a great barbecue tradition. I love the brisket.

 

Rio Longacre (00:07.494)

One.

 

Rio Longacre (00:11.804)

Welcome.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (00:14.616)

That's me, yeah. Glad to be here with you. The best in the world.

 

Rio Longacre (00:20.658)

the best breakfast tacos in the universe. I mean not even close. I don't even know where the second best would be.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (00:25.582)

We cr we created them. We're the founders of them. So we've got to own it.

 

Brett (00:28.397)

Yeah, yeah, it's it's best Mexican food and best or Tex Mex and then best barbecue, I think, in terms of all of the regions in the in the country. you know, and all the different traditions. Yeah, yeah. And so

 

Rio Longacre (00:29.02)

Yep. Yep.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (00:37.654)

And maybe put margaritas in there for contention too.

 

Rio Longacre (00:40.65)

Yeah, I I would not argue that. But but but but the breakfast taco thing is funny because like if you tell people who've never been to Austin about the breakfast tacos, like what do you mean breakfast tacos? Like they kind of don't get it. Like, no, you have to try the breakfast tacos. Like that you can quite literally get them almost anywhere and they're incredible. So I digress.

 

Brett (00:56.193)

Yeah. Yeah. And so Samine, for those that don't know, is the founder and CEO of Idea Peddler. it's a full service, women owned, independent agency. with teams obviously in Austin, but also Santa Fe, right? And and

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (00:56.266)

They are incredible.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:10.23)

Yep, we have a satellite office there. Yeah.

 

Brett (01:11.937)

Yeah, in your words it unites big agency experience with boutique agency services. We'll we'll dig into exactly w sort of what differentiates you and and your sort of mission and vision. and you know, you took the f the founder dive dive, which you know many of us have or or you know, and a lot of our listeners are founders, CEOs, you know, so we're all used to sort of the the feeling the fear of death and the chewing on glass. I call it chewing on glass and looking down an empty elevator shaft.

 

kind of feeling that you have, like you're in a constant state of fear that this is all gonna come tumbling down. So I I I would love to hear that story. We'll talk a little bit about that. And I heard that you went on a a trip, and we'll put the word trip in in New Mexico in quotes. I ki I kid you. I don't wanna Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that gave you enough distance from from your career in the agency world with companies like Starcom and Media Vest and

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:42.094)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (01:54.61)

We're not accused no accusations, but you know we are interested in hearing about it.

 

Brett (02:10.831)

Or community, excuse me, Spiceworks and Mind Share, to really take the the leap and to walk away. so would love to hear that story. you know, like I said, a lot of founders, and execs on the show that that I think can really associate with that and empathize with that. so I think that's pretty accurate. You grew up in the Austin suburbs, so you're sort of born and raised?

 

In in the region, right? So you know you know your barbecue. Do you have a do you have a Texas cooker in your backyard? Do you do you actually smoke meats?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (02:34.178)

That's right. Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (02:42.316)

Don't we just got rid of our green egg. We that's actually a very normal question here. You ask people. I'm not blinking at it.

 

Rio Longacre (02:43.791)

You d do you smoke meat? What kind of question is that? Okay, okay.

 

Brett (02:48.597)

I know. I and I am like a massive I my holy s yeah, I'm like it

 

Rio Longacre (02:53.438)

He he has a meat he has a meat smoker in his backyard. I've seen his backyard.

 

Brett (02:55.723)

Yeah, I'm like a New York City native now, like outside of the city of New Jersey, but my family is all my extended family is all from Kansas City and St. Louis. And so I grew up with a tradition where there was no gas grills allowed. My grandfather didn't have a grass grill gas grill. I think my brother eventually bought one. And we all got into it. And when I moved out to the Burbs, I really got into the the that tradition, authentically, like deep, like smoking briskets. That's what I do for th you know.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (02:56.514)

Do you?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (03:09.859)

Right.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (03:20.977)

Mm, mm.

 

Rio Longacre (03:23.057)

Well, my parents were hippies and we did not have a smoker or even a barbecue in our backyard. I think we vegetarians for a bunch of years growing up, so different world, Brett.

 

Brett (03:30.5)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (03:30.848)

Yeah, there's there's smokers all over. I actually was just over at a friend's house and they put this giant smoker in their backyard in this like beautiful luxury home. And the neighbor said, you know, your smoker is blocking my view of the sunset. Will you move it? And they said, No. But it's massive. It's like smokestacks, like giant big black smokestacks.

 

Brett (03:47.404)

It's not it's not polluting the air, and it's funny because even when I'm doing like fat yeah. Yeah, even when I'm doing like fast cooks, like fast fire cooks, it there's a ton of smoke and I'm like, this is not particularly environmentally friendly. And my and my and my neighbors are like, We thought we smelled a fire, but then we realize, it's just bread over there burning shit in this backyard, right? it there's no

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (04:02.35)

Your neighbors. Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (04:09.56)

Smoking meats.

 

Rio Longacre (04:09.583)

But sm but smoke but smoke meat is so good though. I mean it it is s so delicious.

 

Brett (04:13.781)

No comparison. But and I hear I heard you're also an advanced media adjunct professor at Texas state. And you're a UT grad, right? So there's probably a little rivalry there.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (04:20.93)

I am. Yeah. Yes. We actually played no, I grew up here. I grew up here and and went to UT left and came back and we actually played Texas Texas Longhorns played Texas State for the for our opening game of football last weekend and everybody asked me, are you feeling a conflict?

 

Rio Longacre (04:22.363)

Very cool.

 

Rio Longacre (04:27.503)

Is that how you ended up in Texas? Going to U T or did you where you did you grow up okay.

 

Brett (04:44.889)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (04:49.464)

Going to this Texas, Texas State game, and I said, I feel no conflict whatsoever. I am a longhorn. The only time I feel a conflict is in the National Student Advertising Competition, which I helped co-advise with Professor Mike Devlin. And that's the only time I feel rivalry that like I'm rooting for my Texas State Bobcats in those moments and not my Texas longhorns. Yeah.

 

Brett (05:07.447)

Yeah, once a longhorn, always a longhorn. And I I one thing I've seen in my lifetime and with with kids in college, one in college and one almost in college, how incredibly difficult it is to get into University of Texas. We had somebody from our town that got into pr got into Princeton, got rejected from the University of Texas. I was like, what?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (05:19.48)

Thank you.

 

Rio Longacre (05:21.411)

Increasingly difficult too.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (05:27.926)

I have a very simple equation for this, which is the University of Texas at Austin is the best school in Texas. Texas is the best state in the nation. United States is the best nation in the world. So University of Texas is the best school in the world. It's pretty simple logical math there.

 

Brett (05:46.325)

Yeah yeah, it it's spoken like a true Texan. I'm I'm really yeah, of course Texas is like the center of the universe, right?

 

Rio Longacre (05:50.235)

Well a and I would say with the exception of maybe July, August, Austin is is up there for best cities. It is

 

Brett (05:56.643)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (05:56.931)

You can go to Barton Springs. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (05:59.794)

Spring and fall are great, yeah. I I used to I my own company had an office there so I used to go pretty frequently. It's a great town. Lots of amazing music and good food. So

 

Brett (06:05.884)

Yeah. So d so so and I just one thing I also wanted to highlight is you wrote or at least co authored, I think, an attribution illusion the a res research on it was called attribution illusion inside the one trillion dollar crisis transforming the future of digital advertising. Right? PGX Media, Share Local Media Locality, you had a bunch of partners and you even had an investigative journalist from New from New York Times that supported this. So I certainly want to dive into that.

 

Rio Longacre (06:24.025)

You like that title?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (06:29.91)

Yes.

 

Brett (06:34.34)

but did I 'cause 'cause it looks like you've kind of looked into and talked a lot about how measurement is broken in so many ways. Which I've come from that space. I was at Nielsen, I've been on the MTA and the MMM side, I've been in the big data side. So certainly want to talk about that. But welcome to the show. Sorry for the lengthy intro. I think you deserve it. and anything that I missed, anything that you want to tell the audience about sort of what brought you to today in your career?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (06:42.956)

Yes.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (07:03.532)

You got it. Beautiful opener. Thank you.

 

Brett (07:04.334)

All right. Rio, on to you.

 

Rio Longacre (07:07.833)

Right yeah. Yeah, so and also saw saw that you recently made Doctor Foo's top one hundred I think ad tech influencers or something like that. So congrats on that. I he left me off the list. I was a little miffed, I gotta say, but I saw you on it. it's a we're a big fan of the Foo here on the on the pod. He's been a re repeat guest and we hope to get him on e again soon. Talk about talk about all the ad fraud and crazy stuff going on. So

 

Brett (07:25.922)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (07:29.868)

Yeah, I'm curious. You guys seem okay with riffing, so I would love to riff for one minute. I am like I am puzzled how he's been kind of sidelined in the industry, like speaking truth to power kind of thing. I'm always trying I my POV on him is like he had this cushy job as chief digital officer and couldn't about at Omicom, yes, thank you.

 

Brett (07:34.816)

Yes.

 

Rio Longacre (07:53.179)

Ramican.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (07:56.781)

And couldn't abide by the things that he was seeing left to go do his own thing and try to speak truth to power. And why that doesn't give you more credibility rather than less to say, I'm not gonna just go along with this big obfuscation. I'm gonna come out and say the thing. I I've been confused on why he's a confusing character in the landscape.

 

Rio Longacre (08:17.851)

Well, it's interesting. Susamine, we're both big fans and he's a great person. He has loads of integrity and he's right about almost everything, right? and he brings receipts, which I love. But I I think that part of the reason why, this is just again, observation, is that I think it's the manner he goes about things does rupee some people the wrong way. I've seen him just absolutely torch people. I mean he's he's he he he brings receipts, he's usually right, right? But he but I've seen him just absolutely annihilate people, like with facts, right? So

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (08:26.328)

Mm-hmm.

 

Brett (08:40.012)

He he he's a he's a lightning rod, yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (08:47.259)

I think it's his manner probably and you know, so like I just want and I admire this though. I don't I think he just doesn't want to play ball. He's I'm not gonna go to Cannes, I'm not gonna get a yacht, I'm not gonna go to your parties, I'm just gonna do my own thing. I respect that, right? So I don't even know if he wants to be in, but he is very well respectful.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (09:02.06)

Yeah, yeah. I love that perspective.

 

Brett (09:02.156)

Yeah. He's truly a maverick, yeah, and he's willing to put to to speak truth to power to you to like you said. you know, and there might be a combination of both substance. He might be, you know, sort of being cancelled due to the things that he's saying. But I think it's a style plus substance equation here. 'cause he's he's super bold and and sometimes people find that a little off putting. But but we love him here. And Doctor Fu, you're always welcome on the show. New York City native too, he lives right in Manhattan.

 

Rio Longacre (09:22.641)

But but we love him here, Brett, right? We we he's welcome, he's welcome on any time. Always welcome here. We love what you have to say. Yeah. All right. So so Simi, getting back to the the theme here, so a couple of things you really need to dig into, as Brett mentioned about your background. One was you we noticed you had been on this like super fast track to to leadership within big agency, big hold co-world. And in in my understanding is you looked around the room and just thought.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (09:30.018)

I love that.

 

Brett (09:32.343)

All right.

 

Rio Longacre (09:51.186)

These are not types of people that I want to be maybe spending my time with or working around and they don't look super happy. So maybe there's something a little better. And I think that kind of leads into your founder origin store, which we really want to dig into. Maybe we can start there. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that, that trip to New Mexico, and kind of what what led you to want to make that leap.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (10:11.212)

Yeah, I would only ask just one thing, which is like I I actually really loved everybody in senior leadership at those big agencies. I had amazing mentors that I still call on today. I think they're some of the best and brightest people. but yeah, the there's certain points where you're like, you've made it to EVP level and you still have no control in this situation, which makes up eighty eighty-five percent of your day. Or you know, at one point I saw

 

A US CEO's comms person kind of running around the morning after. This was many, many years ago, but WPP and Publicis had announced that they were gonna do a merger at Cannes, talking to no one. It didn't end up going forward, but it was like the scramble of just like, okay, so two guys at Cannes can just announce things and no one else knows, and that's how this whole thing is operating. So that was kind Yes. Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (10:59.129)

probably decided at two in the morning after like five bottles of of rose or something that yeah.

 

Brett (11:02.658)

Yeah. We we heard the same stuff with Live Ramp and Publicists, like under you know, where it was just s it was leaked out and then everybody's like, Did you hear, did you hear, did you hear, did you hear? Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (11:07.375)

I see yes.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (11:11.446)

And it's like, this one we gotta go through with 'cause we already said we're gonna do this. So yeah, so that kind of stuff was kind of disenfranchising. and yes, we were in New Mexico. I did not have a I had a trip of a kind, but it was a driving trip. where driving through the through the mountains of New Mexico. Yes. where I just got some clarity on

 

Brett (11:29.496)

Very well said.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (11:37.389)

You know, that there were other ways and got some perspective that there had to be a better way to do what I call good work for nice people. and I kind of made the decision to leave big agency really without a net. I didn't have anything else planned. I was like, I'm probably gonna be at Starbucks being a barista here in a few weeks. and randomly got a call through a network correct connection of somebody that needed to find somebody who knew media very well to go pitch.

 

this pi piece of business. and we did go pitch and win that business and we still have it eleven years later that we kind of serve in a collective. Yeah.

 

Brett (12:11.669)

Wow. So this was eleven years ago.

 

Rio Longacre (12:14.321)

Yeah, and and there was no no licking toad story.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (12:17.77)

No looking toad, no toad gas poison.

 

Rio Longacre (12:18.632)

okay.

 

Brett (12:20.885)

Yeah. Yeah, no no connecting with the mother goddess in the middle of the desert.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (12:25.566)

Maybe just the enchantment of the enchanted circle. it is a very special place. So I do believe like big magic can happen out there and kind of shifting and stirring your soul in different ways. And that's what's really special about places like Taos.

 

Brett (12:36.171)

Yeah, that de is it is it like that yeah, that desert environment that right, where there's just the there's a yeah. Something about that.

 

Rio Longacre (12:38.264)

It's gorgeous out death.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (12:44.204)

Yeah, it's one of the oldest places in the United States. I mean, Taos is home to Taos Pueblo, which is a new UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's the longest continuously habited inhabited place in North America. So there is like really old soul feeling in New Mexico that if you haven't been, it really it does have powerful unlock if you're open to it to transform. And I don't know what that magic is. I think people have been chasing it and writing about it and painting it.

 

Brett (13:07.47)

Yeah, the closest I've gotten to New Mexico is is Bra well which some people are calling New America, which is just so outrageous. just no one no one's calling it somebody's blustering this online. Like it like are you out of your c mind completely? But the the closest I've ever gotten to New Mexico is breaking bad, which may not give the landscapes were absolutely stunning, but I've been to Texas of course. Yeah. I've never been to New Mexico.

 

Rio Longacre (13:07.589)

Yeah. It's one of the most

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (13:15.256)

No no one's calling it New America. What

 

Rio Longacre (13:27.468)

Show that's funny, yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (13:31.72)

man, you so you haven't been. You've gotta go. Rio, have you been?

 

Rio Longacre (13:37.074)

Yeah, I live in I live in Colorado, so it's just six hour drive. So I've gone to Santa Fe a couple of times. That's that is it's a long drive and a part the part in Colorado is just straight and boring. But once you get in New Mexico, it is it's fabulous. In fact, it there's like a back road you can take. I forget like actually cuts through these canyons. It is stun it's stunning, stunning. Taos is a cool little town. Like the it's great artwork, food's awesome, it's just a good vibe. So yeah, I I yeah, well we we have good ski in Colorado.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (13:39.608)

Very close.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (13:52.824)

The high road, yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (13:57.443)

Yeah. Great skiing. Yeah.

 

Brett (14:00.971)

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm adding it to my list. I'm adding it to my list. So

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (14:04.352)

This is the year, it's Super El Nino year, so this is the year to get out to Taos.

 

Brett (14:08.575)

Yeah, yeah. Well is it gonna be so it'll be warm in the w Epic snow. Yeah, yeah. The we've had that on the list for our west coast ski trips, but I've done Big Sky and a whole bunch of places Aspen, but we've had house it's just a it's off the beaten track, right? So you you avoid some of the crazy crowds that that occupy some of those Rocky Mountain

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (14:11.338)

No.

 

Rio Longacre (14:13.265)

Yeah, there's supposed to get supposed to be a dumping this year.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (14:23.95)

For sure. Independent spirit, independent mountain. Yeah.

 

Brett (14:29.269)

Yeah, there we go. So you've described win in one topic that you just around your founding journey, you know, women founders is changing business by taking kind of a you know, work life design seriously, which we all have faced situations where it's like how much of my mental health am I gonna give up to accomplish this task or this goal? You know, how did you actually l employ that at Idea Peddler and and what are your what are your kind of what's your mission and and drive behind that?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (14:36.93)

Mm-hmm.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (14:58.892)

I don't think it started as intentionally. it kind of just formed from my own personal need once I had my son. Like there was not a way to build big with the agency and be the kind of mother I wanted to be. And I think there were several things along the way that I just got nuggets from other parents saying things like, you know, you're laying the foundation now for the relationship you'll have with your child in the future.

 

Brett (15:28.716)

Yep.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (15:28.864)

And so that really woke me up of like, is my 18 month old going to miss me if I'm not there during the week? No. But setting these time allotments to have parenting be a key part of my life, I knew was going to have compounding payoff in a way that the business may or may not have at any given moment. and so what it has started to look like is allowing a lot of flexibility for parents to have.

 

Brett (15:48.555)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (15:55.341)

the time that they need. Like I made a dedicated time for pickup and I go do pickup and I am home in the afternoons. And everybody knows that I'm not going to take afternoon meetings when I need to be there for my kid for pickup. Other people have different priorities in their life. You know, we've gone so far as to like pay one of our creative directors was a woman, a single mom. And so we've like paid to have her child and childcare out with her on production shoots so that she's able to go do her job and still be a mom.

 

giving people re you know, remote or all kinds of things like that where we're really investing and putting our money where our mouth is where it's gotta be viable for women to be successful and to do that we need to pay to help women have that support that they need.

 

Brett (16:42.05)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (16:42.329)

I love that. I mean I mean my wife's an attorney and she actually like when we had a kid, she actually quit working for a firm and she just wondered. She said just it's the that life is not make itself amenable to someone who you wants to have any balance at all. Right. So I think that's definitely you know, maybe not as much of a problem as used to be, but still a problem nonetheless. I think that's cool. So looking at like Austin as your headquarters, I know you also also have a branch in an office in Santa Fe.

 

there will be people in the industry world to me who'll say, like you kinda have to be in New York. So but I'm curious, like why Austin? Obviously I you grew up there, so maybe that's why, but like so why Austin? But also like what is that giving you in terms of advantages that you maybe wouldn't have in New York? I'm curious to hear about

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (17:17.11)

Mm.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (17:28.834)

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I have, you know, my track was Chicago. So I definitely feel like there is some Chicago center of gravity. There's certainly New York center of gravity. I think when Idea Pether was starting, there was not like a, my gosh, Austin's gonna be exploding. That's not the perception that I had. It has always been heavily B2B.

 

And we we don't do B2B, we're not a B2B agency. And so people have kind of looked at us like we have three heads, like, are you crazy missing out on all this opportunity? But at the time it was starting, you know, remote work was really starting to be more viable. This was before COVID, but you could actually service clients from anywhere and do work from anywhere. And so that was really the original thing, which is just like this is where home is for me. So I have to make this work somehow. But

 

Rio Longacre (17:56.709)

Right.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (18:14.144)

I think the thing that Austin unlocks, unlike any other place, is that we have always been a little like a little big city we call ourselves. Like there's this feeling here of entrepreneurial community. there's a feeling of people having more to prove and kind of an unlimited appetite for growth and ambition and that being supported and as well as a good quality of life. I mean, I'm looking outside, it's beautiful, it's sunny.

 

we do have great breakfast tacos and barbecue and Barton Springs and music. And so there's a lot to thrive here for both attracting talent, being centrally located in the US to serve clients on both coasts. and I think all of those things, plus the spirit of this city, like I have a friend from Detroit who came down to visit and he said that you know, I'm a fish and water here. I don't see the city as others see it from the outside. So he came down and he said, the energy in this city is just electric.

 

Like you can feel it just getting off the plane. It is youthful, it is energized, and that is something that you don't realize it carries you so far in having having growth.

 

Rio Longacre (19:23.471)

Well w well I love the fact it's a college town. It's a college town. So you get that vibe of right of that, but it's also a city and I think what's Boston's done is really smart. I mean Denver could could learn from this. She's just building a building a lot. So housing prices have been kind reasonable. a lot of good things going on.

 

Brett (19:24.074)

Yeah, puzzle puzzle.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (19:26.733)

It's a college town.

 

Brett (19:33.803)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Brett (19:38.987)

Yeah, and and I mean j just to to jump on the the Austin bandwagon, I meant when you said electric, I think both literally and figuratively, I meant when I think of Austin

 

Not only do I think about barbecue, but I think of like Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan and the and the deep sort of blues and bluegrass and tradition and music traditions that have come out of of Texas that are just have changed the world. And so it it's got a deep cultural foundation, right? That's more than all the glitz and glam and fancy offices and and rapid growth and startups, right? Which I think kind of you know?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (20:11.552)

Yeah. Yeah, there's like a deep-seated, I think, desire for Texas and Texas-based companies and brands, they're originally from here, not the latecomers, to build big because there is a spirit of Texan that is big, that is, you know, outsized. And that's just kind of in our DNA that we're punching big and making legacy is a really big important here, important thing. So

 

You you certainly get the flash in the plant pan kind of companies, but you also get a lot of independent spirit of people who kind of take that home about the Texas, Texas spirit and Texas size.

 

Brett (20:45.035)

Yeah.

 

Brett (20:52.864)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, you're you're I'd love to dive into your

 

you know, views and and the perspectives that came from this research that you did that we mentioned at the at the top of the hour, the attribution illusion. what were some of the you know you've made some comments around ROAS, right? And I think you had an actual experience where where you had all these ROAS numbers that were not being seen on the bottom line, right? And the CEO looks at it and says, why aren't we experiencing growth? And I've seen that both on the B2B side, I've certainly seen it on the B2C side with clients, but on the B2B marketing side, same same sort of concept where you have media people telling you you've

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (21:01.496)

Mm-hmm.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (21:16.054)

That's right.

 

Brett (21:27.702)

a return of ad spend of some cr some crazy number in the hundreds of percentiles and yet you're you're not really seeing it flow down to actual closed deals or or or one customers. So so what were some of your learnings both doing that report and actually from clients that sort of made that abundantly clear that Roas might be bullshit or or might be n might need to be yeah yeah easily gamed or needs to be rethought how we how we think about it.

 

Rio Longacre (21:28.413)

we're yeah, we're crushing it. Yeah, right. Robost keeps going up.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (21:50.424)

Easily gamed.

 

Rio Longacre (21:50.619)

Easily games, right?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (21:56.963)

Yeah, I think as you said, for starters having clients say, Next year I want you to make this number go up again. And, you know, us kind of gulping and saying, like, okay, we'll do our best. If it's not, you know, a gumball machine. You cannot put in a quarter and a guarantee every time that a gumball comes out. it is still art and science behind all of those things. And as much as you want to say AI has solved it, it hasn't, and it's flawed, and I'm happy to talk about that. so that disconnect between

 

Brett (22:13.281)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (22:25.154)

The next year we did make the number go up. We did, you know, refine the process and we improved ROAS and they didn't see it in the business outcome that you know they either had a flat year or or just yield increase it increased. and so going through that process, we really found that there was not a linear connection between ROAS and business outcomes. and it's not, you know, everybody who's

 

As an agency knows that ROAS is being double counted in all these different environments. But I think the degree to which all ROAS, no matter the platform, no matter the industry, is accounting for demands that would have already converted, or like I've heard it referred to as a sales already in motion and capturing that last sales in motion. It's not incremental sales.

 

Brett (23:12.885)

Yep.

 

Rio Longacre (23:13.135)

not increment it's not incremental sales, right? It's it's just it would have happened.

 

Brett (23:17.568)

Yeah, and you've got and you've got platforms and agencies taking credit for something that might have happened just t naturally, without any advertising at all.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (23:25.59)

Absolutely, not even might have, w would have, you know, and just the presumption that that's the best way to market is i it has been debunked because nine tenths of businesses do not own the end to end channel experience. Like there are so few truly D to C companies that can operate that way and that have tried

 

Brett (23:38.219)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (23:52.323)

You know, it's been a late turn of all these other industries trying to turn and take that playbook and go use it for themselves. But the data and evidence has already come in that those companies can't be successful exclusively in DTC. They get acquired out of it, like what happened with Native. they go, you know, direct to the normal channels of retail, like the Warby Parkers of the world, or they go bust like the Alberts and the Caspers. It's not a viable business model. And I don't

 

Brett (24:07.851)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (24:18.553)

Or they do what Nike did, right? And they and they obsess over going direct. They rely on ROAS and all of the other vanity metrics and they look at platf you know, they went big on Google, right? So they go big on like spending everything within the platforms and they rely on the platform metrics and you know, it it it was short term, it it it gave them the metrics they thought they needed, but their sales tanked over five years.

 

Brett (24:40.096)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (24:40.718)

Yeah, and I think the story ultimately becomes one of like you it's not I'm not telling anybody to abandon Google and Meta and say that those are worthless. I'm just saying those are not the whole story. And you need to be doing all the things all the time. Yes, you need a very strong earned team, you need a strong owned team, and you need a strong paid media team. And if you think that paid media and campaign work plays no role

 

You're not paying attention to how humans have been making decisions for hundreds of years and how we continue to make purchasing decisions. And not even AI is going to change that because it is a it is a convoluted random process, and part of it is subliminally messaging to people through traditional means over and over and over again.

 

Brett (25:23.818)

Yeah, and do you think this is fundamentally an attribution problem, a measurement problem, or is it more of a fragmentation considering how walled off and moded

 

a lot of the media the media world and especially a lot of the spend if you look at the Googles, the Metas, the Amazons has become is or is it a combination and and then there's data loss, right? Identity loss and and and and cookie you know, loss, all that sort of stuff. Where where do you think the kind of where do you point the finger or do you think it's a holistic mix of all those things?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (25:54.895)

I think that it is a mix of all the things. The attribution problem is more of a symptom of a measurement problem that becomes about having a report to give to stakeholders. but I think ultimately it is an incentive problem more than anything else. I think the incentive system for agencies

 

Brett (26:08.224)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (26:18.702)

For media companies, for a lot of large portion of ad tech, not every single one of them, but a lot of them. And for marketers, where, you know, for the last 20 or 30 years, success has been been defined by how many people you oversee and how big your budget is. And when there is more information about how budget could be better utilized and it goes against the story that you're selling internally, people do not want to hear that story.

 

Or if you could be doing more with less and that budget needs to go from marketing to ops, people don't want to let their budgets go. And it creates a cascading misalignment and incentives from ag tech to agencies across the board. So I think that's the tip of the spear that needs to be resolved is fixing the alignment issue.

 

Rio Longacre (27:03.205)

Yeah. And but that that's I think core to Dr. Fu's philosophy too is the incentives are driving a lot of the bad behaviors and the and the and the bad outcomes. I think that's interesting. I mean for those who are don't have a media background who are listening, a lot of the the way agencies have traditionally been paid is they take a commission based on total ad spend, right? You know, y y it was fifteen percent back in the day, but that that's changed over time. And then a lot of the ad tech companies also they

 

It's it's a take rate based on the amount of media flowing through their pipes, right? It might just be a couple of points, but between all these different intermediaries, it does add up. But so there's always this perverse incentive to spend more, to spend more, right? And I think you've written about that, how it's even especially at the the Wald Guards and platforms, how they almost have like a disincentive to report anything that might make ad spend potentially go down within their platform or might make it go go elsewhere. Love if you could maybe comment on that for a little bit, kind of what what you've meant by that. specifically like

 

Like how those incentives have made it there's a disincentive of them to do things like removing click fraud, for example. So I'd love if you could talk about that for a minute.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (28:04.972)

Yeah. Yeah, I'll start with like just the bottomless pit that is Google and Meta in terms of budget, which I had joked a while ago that I don't know any single soul in advertising who's ever gotten a message from Meta from Google that says your budget is enough. Like it will always say your campaign is underperforming, you need to add more budget. That's the only Google

 

Rio Longacre (28:24.177)

So we spend more.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (28:29.908)

notification if somebody else out there in the world has gotten a notification that was like, whoa, pull back on spend, please let me know because I've never heard of it or seen it. They will never say that. even if it's true and you can see that by applying more budget and seeing your KPIs come down. So it is true and it happens, but they will never do that. to your second question about meta, can you say the second part of the question again?

 

Rio Longacre (28:36.561)

I've never heard of it ever, ever, ever.

 

Brett (28:37.855)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (28:56.817)

Well it's just the walled gardens. Do do these perverse and like do these incentives like dro like correct? You know, like do things like that. Do like do they result in like behaviors like their their their seeming inability or disinterest in even identifying like fraudulent like I IV T or fraudulent traffic, right?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (28:59.837)

the pulling out the bad Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (29:12.29)

Yes. Yeah, they they have no reason to do that because, you know, if they're if they're paying pennies on a dollar, or let's just say they have nothing to do with the click farms and the box and the bad actors, if they just open audience extension and they scale more spend to audience extension and audience extension is where, you know, this click fraud lives. It's basically a lot of bad actors and invalid traffic, spoofing.

 

Rio Longacre (29:41.667)

All the off site stuff, right? Especially if we're meta, yeah.

 

Brett (29:41.748)

Yep. MFAs. Yep.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (29:42.569)

Apps, yes, MFAs. we know that the majority of traffic takes place in the majority, like in the top places that we think of. We know that people are not going to this long tail of web traffic that is few and far between. When we apply common sense thinking, we know that people are not going to those websites and clicking on those ads to go buy a random thing. They are doing that on Instagram, Meta, TikTok, Google.

 

they're watching on the traditional C T V channels.

 

Brett (30:13.181)

Yeah, they're generally three

 

Rio Longacre (30:13.873)

Pla places are authenticated, right? They're authenticated, we know who they are. They're not going to these websites, those those aren't people's what you're saying.

 

Brett (30:18.899)

Yeah, and and it's usually from a feed and feed experience. Whether it's a news feed, whether it's a social feed, it's usually from some sort of feed experience where you end up at the at this place, right?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (30:19.756)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (30:28.214)

Yes. And even I mean, I do think that there is somewhat of a long tail, maybe in the hundreds of, you know, we do a lot of work in in the travel industry of people going to travelandleisure.com or going to a far.com. Like the that is real, that does happen. but it is not at the scale of like I need millions more impression on audience extension networks. And the reason why these brands are saying do audience extension network is because they know that time spent, for example, on Instagram, time spent is actually going down.

 

They have fewer and fewer people to advertise to, but they want you to spend more money. So they need to find an extension for the audience, for the content, for the time and attention. And when they find that extension, all that lives in there for the most part is eighty, ninety percent invalid MFA traffic. yes.

 

Brett (31:13.299)

Yeah, it's manufactured reach. Right, right. And I think Foo Dr. Foo says said that almost explicitly on the pod a couple of times that that you know, this reach doesn't actually exist. There's not enough inventory or supply. Yeah Yeah, yeah, supply to meet the demand of advertiser spin, but but but agencies and or the the the Walled Gardens themselves aren't gonna turn away spin. So they're gonna find ways to

 

Rio Longacre (31:24.785)

Yeah, they're all end of inventory or on meta or on Facebook or on Instagram and then

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (31:38.062)

Correct.

 

Brett (31:38.303)

to deliver those impressions, right? And and so there's pe bad actors that come in and fill the gap to say, Hey, there's plenty and that's where the audience the the audience extension is where brands get in trouble, right? when they're in the Yep.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (31:48.705)

Yeah. And my partner says it really well, which is this is the fine line. Is it negligence or is it fraudulent? And I think that probably varies by partner. I think probably on meta, I'd say squarely on fraudulent. some of the other partners in the ad tech space, I don't know if they know if it's negligent or fraudulent. I don't, I don't wish to believe in a world where every single partner is in this fraudulent space.

 

Brett (31:59.659)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (32:15.762)

but there's a lot of negligence of people letting things run in environments that are not getting real human reach.

 

Rio Longacre (32:20.197)

But but there's there's almost like a disincentive to even find out if it's like illegitimate, right? Because if your if your compensation's tied to the amount of spend flowing through the pipes, yeah, I mean, why would you even wanna investigate, right? So

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (32:27.938)

Yes. Why would you want to investigate?

 

Brett (32:30.677)

Yeah, we've had David Nuremberg on our pod a couple times and he's actually talked about he has a a very telling story that we posted on our check it out everybody. I can't remember the title of it, but it's in our editorial desk. The cost of keeping quiet. Yeah, yeah. And and where he elaborated on a specific example of him basically saying this I'm I I'm not I'm gonna stand up and not and and make a comment about this bad I don't wanna buy this media

 

Rio Longacre (32:40.667)

The cost of keeping quiet was the name of the article in the public.

 

Rio Longacre (32:53.337)

I don't wanna buy this media. It's this is this garbage, yeah.

 

Brett (32:56.041)

You know, but what happens is you're going back to the client to say, We're not gonna spend this money and then the company effectively loses budget and and they were like, No, we're gonna protect our budget

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (33:00.696)

Yes, yes.

 

Rio Longacre (33:04.355)

Or there there could have or there could have been rebate spread as well that they weren't disclosing. but and I think that brings us to the agency question. I'd love to hear what you have to say about this too, because you've I you've you've you've written and talked quite a bit about this and I I've I've some pretty strong opinions, haven't worked agency a long time, about the the compensation model and some of the behaviors that drives an agency. Love you maybe talk about that a little

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (33:05.656)

Yes, yes, yep.

 

Brett (33:07.305)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (33:26.36)

Poof. yeah, as you said, the fifteen percent fee. first of all, there's almost no other industry where a fifteen percent fee would be like a ghastly markup on something for the amount of work that is going into media planning and buying and the expertise needed behind it. The you know, debt leveraging to go from cash conversion cycles of paid. So it's just actually we should throw out the idea that that was ever a high fee. That is bare minimum. You look at

 

Brett (33:53.653)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (33:55.513)

Contractors making 30% and what do they do? So we've got to get rid of the idea that that was a bad fee to start with. But what it has done is made it 10 times worse because we get clients who will say, that is so high, 15%. So and so's offering me 3%, or they'll do it free. Yeah, I'll name names. Stackadapt.

 

Rio Longacre (34:13.785)

Yeah.

 

Brett (34:15.701)

To race to the bottom.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (34:18.572)

We'll always tell people, we'll do it for free. This tool is for free. I think Mountain's another one where it's like you come in, we offer this as a service, it's free. We make our deals on the back end. I wish people would use some common sense. Like use some common sense. It yes, if you're not paying for the product, you're the product. So they are making margin on you. And what yes, or the mark. And when those partners can't.

 

Rio Longacre (34:28.337)

Well, they're making their deals, right? They're that yeah. They're they're getting paid somehow. They're making money somehow.

 

Rio Longacre (34:39.194)

Or the mark.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (34:44.99)

answer what their margin is or they will not. They refuse to answer what their margin is. I don't know why that's not more publicly discussed in the industry as just being very bad business. and it is everybody turning a blind eye to these kinds of things, but it's 70-80% markup. Now if you're paying 70 to 80, you can go on Mountain's public disclosures because they're a public company and go see what their gross margin is.

 

And if they're taking 70 to 80 percent on those things, where do you think you're running in premium inventory? Like, do you think you're able then to still have your budget and go compete against people who are buying direct and like reserving inventory? No. No. No. And then, but it's still capturing the natural demand that would have happened anyway and taking credit for it. So it still looks like something good happened when in reality it followed the people around who were going to already purchase.

 

Brett (35:20.448)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (35:25.595)

Or or there's even people seeing your ads. I mean they probably a lot of them are not.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (35:43.18)

And the rest of it went to MFA bot farms.

 

Brett (35:47.615)

Yeah. And and and that's where ROAS can be a pumped up number that is kind of meaningless when it comes to actual business growth.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (35:55.532)

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Rio Longacre (35:57.702)

I've even seen it's interesting, some RFPs come through where it says zero. Like we like we expect you to find the money basically. It's what it they're they don't say that's what they're implying. It's like we want you to manage the business. And I guess the what they're saying is we're expecting you're gonna like use whatever method, you know, probably principle based buying, right? In order to do this, where you're buying very low in bulk and you're, you know, it it it conceived in theory you're giving us good inventory, but I obviously a lot of that's not going to be because there's

 

'Cause they need to make their money. There's gonna be rebates kicked in and if you're if you'd be if you'd be if a if a publisher or platform is offering you a rebate, clearly this inventory they they can't unload any other way, right? So like do you

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (36:37.806)

We know that that's not true because the supply side and the demand side are out of equilibrium. Like how could Hulu and NBCU and Warner Brothers, why would Ellison be doing a takeover bid if these things were being traded for pennies on the dollar? If you could get an ad for pennies on the dollar on Paramount, why would they be buying them for billions of dollars buying these companies? It doesn't make any sense.

 

Because that's not actually the value of that thing. They are selling it and they are reserving that inventory for bigger deals and that principal buying model of like it's you're getting everything else other than that. We already know that 75% of CTD views happen on 14 publishers. You don't need more information than that than to say, okay, I'm only gonna do PG and PMP deals because there's no, there's not enough traffic to warrant you're not getting some great deal on that. Yeah, on open exchange.

 

Brett (37:09.609)

Yeah.

 

Brett (37:19.134)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (37:28.143)

buy programmatically, right? Yeah.

 

Brett (37:29.726)

Yeah. Or I'm gonna go direct to to this n this handful of authentic you know, of of of premium publishers in order to reach that that reach the audience that I wanna reach. Yeah, yeah, that have actual CTV inventory or whatever it might be, because you and and Foo argues for that, to say it's actually the media management process and there aren't that many vendors that really

 

Rio Longacre (37:38.993)

But then have real that have actual C T V inventory, not you know, night.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (37:41.858)

Yes.

 

Brett (37:51.205)

you need to reach in order to hit your kind of you know the the highest percentage of your target audiences possible. you know, so do it that way versus versus sort of outsourcing it to a principle based model, right?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (38:02.752)

I think to the point about like compensation, I wish that if the rules had changed and we no longer care about transparency and honesty and fees, that we would just say that clients would just say, we don't care. Whatever you're making, deliver the ROAS, take all of the markup you want. But they won't say that. but they will also not, you know, do reasonable fee management. So

 

Somewhere the shoes gotta drop. I do think more and more people are coming out. I think the WPP whistleblower that's all over the news is starting to move in that direction. And more and more I hear young people that I work with that are either employees or former employees that go to big agency and come back saying how they don't feel comfortable with this. They can see what's happening and they don't want to be part of those businesses. I wish clients would ask for audits.

 

but again if they if the rules have changed and we're grading on some other metric, like let's just say that. Call a spade a spade and make the playing field even.

 

Rio Longacre (39:07.855)

I think you made a good point there about the if if a brand says to an agency, Hey, listen, here's my money, here's what I want you to get me. I don't care where you're buying. In fact, I I don't care where you're buying, what you're doing, you make your money. you know, let let's assume here's my budget, period, right? I mean you do it do with it do with it as you will. I think that would be you could then argue, okay, well, the agency they should go buy by you know, by principle based media. They should go negotiate the cheapest rates they can.

 

they get they can get pros, right? I mean they should they should take rebates, right? Then that's totally fine because the brands said we don't care. But and then so I almost see the market bifurcating. There are some I think there's a trend towards that where I'm seeing more and more of that, especially kind of at the I'm seeing brands brands say, hey listen, like just you o you own I mean you can even argue the old goes are kind of building their own walled gardens, right? Like Public Cis has LiveRamp, they bought Epsilon.

 

So they can met they can grade and measure their own homework now, right? They have the act they have all the activation pipes in place, right? They have their own data layer. in theory, they could yeah, we'll get to whatever you whatever whatever outcomes you want, just give us your money. So I think there's a trend towards that. And the agencies like it because they can be really act as financial services institutions, right? but but I think you're right. If a brand really wants transparency, you can't have that model. You have to want you have to say, okay, we're gonna pay what it what it really takes in order for a high quality team of skilled people.

 

Brett (40:03.113)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (40:20.234)

Mm-hmm. That's right.

 

Rio Longacre (40:32.955)

To do this, right? Like we're gonna be comfortable with 15% or maybe more than that, right? Maybe the actual cost of doing it right if you have if you have complex buys is gonna be twenty or twenty-five, but I want you to do it right, get me high quality impressions on high quality publishers and get me get get me real results that actually have incremental value. I think those are two very different models. And I kind of see bifurcation now, does that make sense?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (40:53.42)

Yeah, I think they I don't know that the clients are aware yet that that's the conversation they should be having from the junk before you go out to RFP. Just be clear about that. Some clients do want that entirely closed Publicist model and they're okay with that, and they just are gonna be in relationship with that client owning the whole closed loop ecosystem. There's pros and cons for that. I mean, one of the reasons I left Publicys Agency is because I'm like, that's great. I think actually a lot of what Publicist is doing is

 

very smart if I had to put my dollar on any hold code it would be publicis but they're winning a lot we'll see what they're promising but but not everybody can afford that and there's a lot of market where you're not going to be able to afford to be at a publicis company and get any yeah and to not you know you're not going to be able to have your be you're gonna be a very small fish in the big pond even if they take you so there should be a lot of room for independence to

 

Brett (41:24.542)

Yep. Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (41:24.581)

They're winning a lot, there's no doubt. Yeah.

 

Brett (41:28.884)

Ha ha

 

Brett (41:35.06)

To an agency old guy.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (41:48.717)

Go have opportunity that publicists can't serve. But if those clients don't know that they should be asking that question about, okay, what am I prioritizing? Am I prior prioritizing transparency and growing my business overall? Or am I prioritizing a dashboard and a spreadsheet that looks and feels good that may not may or may not be accurate or real behind it?

 

Brett (42:08.202)

Yeah, and that's kind of how you market yourself as no holding company media commitments. It's you know, you th you have some some level of yeah, I mean, or do you think that that structural independence is actually protecting clients from and getting them a broader view of their media commitments or media spend across an ecosystem that is becoming more largely walled, right? You got a lot of continents in a in a world of media, right, with the Amazons and the Googles. Rashad Tabacawala talked about that, right?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (42:30.817)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (42:34.189)

Yes.

 

Brett (42:35.986)

You know, and and and the the you know, he claimed that that was the transformation behind Publicis that has been going on for about ten years, was that he he he reframed how they were competing. It's kind of ironic because he reframed their competitive landscape. He said, We're not competing with the other hold codes, we're competing with the consultancies and we're competing with Google Meta yeah, yeah, Google Meta, Amazon, right? Because c c

 

Rio Longacre (42:43.355)

Ten, twelve years, yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (42:53.154)

Yes.

 

Rio Longacre (42:55.343)

Accenture, Deloitte, Google Meta, yep, Amazon.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (42:59.542)

Mm-hmm.

 

Rio Longacre (43:00.177)

And now the AI companies were probably like open AI and

 

Brett (43:01.458)

Yeah, and and client because clients need a view that's holistic across all of those those media moats, so to speak. Right. Now Pubisis seems to be leaning into the media moat data moat category with the purchase of LiveRamp. They're bec they're looking more and more like a walled garden.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (43:05.442)

Yes.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (43:13.954)

Yes.

 

Yes.

 

Absolutely.

 

Brett (43:20.52)

To compete with that, right? Which is kind of an ironic shift considering the transformation that went through. So how do you guys think about it as an independent agency of giving a more holistic view across all of these things that are now kinda balkanized?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (43:34.187)

Have a problem with publicists having a moat so long as they are, and I think what agencies need to be doing is being able to be independent about moving dollars to where outcomes lie. So if I have a moat that only allows me to buy pipes into certain channels, I am cutting my clients' access to improved outcomes off by limiting my buying pool. If I only have certain

 

Brett (43:54.974)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (43:59.203)

deals with certain partners or rebates with certain partners, that creates a misaligned incentive where I can't put dollars where they actually need to go. I think more and more you've seen people coming around to Amazon. They don't have the infrastructure in ad tech space that a lot of the other competitors do. So they've been skipped over because they haven't played ball with agencies very well to create a lot of, you know, they've been very focused on e comm ads and not thinking about their full funnel and their moat.

 

Brett (44:06.953)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (44:27.948)

And so if you have any kind of dynamic that limits you from considering a partner who is good and has access to a lot of good data and outcomes, because whatever tech layers you've tied yourself into knots to get to, if that limits you being able to go by in an independent, you know, way for your clients, that's what I think is is damaging and clients need to be aware of.

 

Brett (44:28.137)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (44:50.865)

You brought up a couple of good points before that I wanted to unpack a little bit. So one of them was about the like with with agencies, obviously like they've been focused like the compensation model for for big agencies has been you know, it's it's just like you've never heard a Google person say spend less, you've probably never heard a media planner saying spend less either, right? But I think that looking at like looking at how that's impacted media.

 

I find it ironic. I I I mean, I used to work for an SI where we did we did these media transformations. We weren't buying media at all, right? We were just doing advisory work and systems integration work. And I remember we would always offer as part of the media transformation, which are really processing tech and data and governance, right? We'd offer media audits and clients rarely took us up on it. Like just you know, literally like one out of 50 clients would ever would ever say yes and they'd be they'd be very reticent to do it. They'd worried about it. And we would joke that this is fear of finding out, right? That they they they would be.

 

Brett (45:46.814)

Fear of what they would uncover, yes.

 

Rio Longacre (45:48.44)

Right, 'cause it 'cause every time we ran these audits, you know, we look at log files, we would find minimum twenty percent invalid traffic. We would find like one platform, one affiliate that was just hoovering up all the dollars and it was just MFAs and like and it it ironically the platforms optimized towards that and actually once it started performing well, even though it was maybe like a a click farm in Pakistan or something, right? Like all all of the tra all of the traffic would all the dollars would start going there, right? So we'd always find at least twenty percent totally wasted.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (45:50.495)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (46:00.281)

Yeah, yep. Yes.

 

Rio Longacre (46:17.019)

They could have done away with that and it would have had zero impact on their on their bottom line at all. So we we would joke that it was fear refining. I love it if that's been your experience and if you have any thoughts on it.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (46:28.472)

Yeah, I just had this conversation with somebody the other day thinking like, okay, maybe I can help people see by offering these audits. And yeah, they will say, that would disturb my relationship with my agency. Why? Shouldn't the agency want, yeah, come, doors open. If you don't have that dynamic, yes. And should as an agency, if you're doing nothing wrong, why would that

 

Rio Longacre (46:42.577)

But yeah, she's fine. Yeah, well yeah.

 

Brett (46:43.624)

Yeah.

 

Brett (46:47.667)

Sho Yeah, shouldn't you hold them accountable?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (46:56.684)

You know, you should just be able to say, Of course, come in, look around. Like what do you Yeah.

 

Brett (47:00.261)

It's an entirely political decision then. Yeah, it's the relationships that they have 'cause they have relationships with the agency at a high level, probably executives if they're if they're a senior level brand executive, right, that they don't want to disturb and there's a backdoor handshake that says, Don't don't don't make us open up the you know, the the skeletons in the closet, so to speak.

 

Rio Longacre (47:03.569)

Well I think br I

 

Rio Longacre (47:20.857)

Right. We would always find stuff. Always find stuff. I mean even e but not even s not not even invalid traffic, but we'd find stuff like markups that shouldn't have been there. They would never want to disclose how much they're actually buying the media for. Even in platform where we all do is log in and look, right? But they would not let the clients log in and look. So I always thought that was very a very interesting situation.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (47:21.806)

Yeah.

 

Brett (47:29.543)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (47:38.335)

It's it is a it is a bold move. You guys talked about at the beginning of the the podcast with Dr. Fu and the approach. It it is not a kind thing to do to your agency partner. all of a sudden, and it signals a distrust. And nine times out of ten, the agencies are working their butts off to go drive outcomes for clients. I just wish that there was more of an auditing.

 

Brett (48:00.298)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (48:04.522)

understanding from the jump with clients and agencies. If you're in the client pack that is like, I want transparency, I'm gonna pay you a fair fee and I want that to go well. but more and more I'm that's not I think maybe we all need to take the lesson that that's not what clients are saying they want. They want to just put the money away and not see about it and give me the report. Tom Goodwin, who I follow on LinkedIn posted this thing and I don't know the provenance of the quote, but he posted this quote

 

That I think about all the time, which is if you want to get rich, lie to people who want to be lied to. If you want to make a living, tell the truth to people who want to tell the truth. And if you want to be poor, tell the truth to people who want to be lied to. And I can't stop thinking about that constantly, that there are a lot of people who wish to be lied to. and so gotta be careful with the truth.

 

Rio Longacre (48:46.737)

Excellent.

 

Brett (48:51.101)

Yep.

 

Don't don't call that don't call that brown thing in the middle of the table a brownie, right? it's something else entirely. Right? That's that's that's really that's really yeah, and so so in and I think, you know, that that's a common theme that that we talk about a lot is that that a lot of this transformation, whether it's media transformation, measurement transformation or AI transformation, is a lot about organizational change, right? And aligning to your point incentives

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (48:58.222)

Exactly, exactly, yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (49:19.554)

Yes.

 

Brett (49:22.426)

and desiloing organizations that have a lot of and that that's where the incentives come along. People are protecting a territorial and oftentimes the hubris is at the executive level and they're unwilling to to kind of change their minds. They they're like this is what this is the the template that I've used and and you end up with problems, right?

 

Rio Longacre (49:43.058)

But is there a better way to buy media though, right? So I mean it's a commission model, which I think is drives is it's a bad incentive, right? I mean, I think no one would argue that the whole take rate is probably a bad incentive, right? Is there a better way to do it? I people have tried. Remember, Accenture rolled out that model for years ago. They were saying, we're just actually gonna buy the media at cost, we'll disclose everything, and we'll charge you for services on top of that, right? Whether it's 15% or 20% or 5%, it'll depend on the complexity. But no one wanted to do it, right? Like they they sold one or two accounts.

 

They scuttle whole thing after a couple years. I know the guy that started it. We used to offer that to clients and most of them would say like like we had one or two that agreed back back in the day, but like in general, because it was like something like the media professionals would say, I have my media budget. I'm gonna give it to someone. Like I don't wanna be built for services on top of this. This is not the model I'm comfortable doing. That's not how we that's not not how anyone buys media. It was really hard to get anyone's is there a better way to do it? Or and if there is, like why why is it so hard to change things?

 

'Cause I I agree the incentives are the problem.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (50:43.904)

Yeah, I mean, you're illuminating for me because I'm like, that's how I charge it. It's probably a limiting factor in growth. I don't I don't know why that is a hard tradition to untangle. It seems like there is a better path, which is that path of just like these are the costs. And I think there there are certain sectors where that's more of the dynamic. but it does feel, you know, that that's that's not the path that

 

clients want to hear, but what they do want to hear, we don't know. It's a mystery because they don't want to hear about markups and they don't want to hear about straight pass-through. So yeah, I mean I will I will wait on on edge, waiting to hear what the better way is so that I can adopt it.

 

Rio Longacre (51:27.985)

So you sh so you charge for services you just media is a pass through with your firm?

 

Brett (51:28.338)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (51:31.766)

Yeah, we typically do like figure cost based on what a percentage would be, and then we're billing that monthly as a fee for the year and media is transparently billed at cost.

 

Brett (51:43.102)

Yeah, and I think I think brands fundamentally want to just have a a a v a view of where the money's being spent and and some incremental growth metrics, right, where they can see it like continuously what's going on. you know, to me that that it's the stuff behind the black box that's the problem, right? Both from a measurement perspective and

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (52:02.162)

say yeah the the mystery hides the margin so where wherever there is like a lot of convoluted ad tech stack and multiple partners that's where margin gets lost and I have the core belief that a lot of clients just want to know what am I paying you? What are your fees and what am I paying for everything else? And let's move on with it and have that just be transparent and talked about one time and and move along with our days. But I think

 

Brett (52:06.312)

Yeah.

 

Brett (52:14.952)

Yep.

 

Brett (52:29.309)

Yeah. And that convoluted nature, that messiness is a strategy, right? It's a strategy by the middlemen to obfuscate what's really happening. And I think a lot of where we've kind of arrived at this point in time, Rio, is is it there's a lot of talk around how do you reduce how do you collapse the middle, the take rates from all of the the the middle you know Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (52:33.771)

Yes, yes.

 

Rio Longacre (52:50.619)

AI c AI could in in theory do some do it to some some of media. I don't think all, but some of it could certainly

 

Brett (52:56.625)

Yeah. And directly connect the brand to the rich publisher, you know, that has authenticated traffic that that they know they're gonna reach their audience on. D make that connection a little bit more direct and remove all that stuff in between. And hopefully publishers will see some of the benefit from a monetization perspective, which has been, you know, largely stolen from them over the last twenty years. and brands.

 

Rio Longacre (53:18.289)

Well well Simi, how how many s how many sources did you say C T V? It's like we said fourteen platforms, streaming services, or seventy percent.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (53:24.726)

Yeah, this Nielsen publishes all of the time their you know state of streaming or whatever it is. yeah, it there's fourteen publishers on there. There's fourteen places to go by media for seventy-five percent of the traffic.

 

Rio Longacre (53:35.057)

So so so in theory, let's say you have a big brand you're working for in theory, all you all you need is so all you need is your team to be trying to for fourteen's a big number, but it's not that really, right? I mean like instead of going through so Foo who would probably say instead of going through D S P where you get all the supply in one place, like like y you actually just go to each portal individually, make your buys there, do PG deals or yeah.

 

Brett (53:38.503)

Yep. Seventy five percent of the traffic, that's important, yeah.

 

Brett (53:46.685)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (53:47.032)

That's very accessible.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (53:55.267)

Yes, that's what we do. We go, yes, that's what we do. Go negotiate the best deals you can with the best players in the space, get added value out of it, get measurement, get top tier programming, be seen in real environments. and that, yeah, more working media. I mean, ANA has already also come out with their study that only 36 cents of every dollar programmatically actually reaches a publisher. So it this it continues to fall. And like these aren't my

 

Brett (54:07.409)

More working media. Yeah.

 

Brett (54:17.68)

that's that's lower than the forty cents yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (54:20.049)

Continues to fall. It's crazy.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (54:24.674)

beliefs about things. These are like published facts that PG and PMP direct deals with curated publisher list is the best way to get the best rate for the best inventory that will actually move the needle for your brand. And now I think there's a lot of creativity and tech that can be deployed in how to improve the moment by moment placement of those dollars on like a national scale. Again, if you own the channel and you own the ticketing process or the purchase process.

 

There's a lot that can be done to make that really sharp, or at least a portion of it really sharp. But pretending that we're gonna spend 20, 30, 40 million dollars in CTV and and every one of those impressions is gonna show up in that way at the moment of time of purchase is delusional.

 

Brett (55:10.791)

Yeah, it's simple supply and demand economics, right? And and the question is can brands and not to threaten your business 'cause you're in the agency business, but can brands think about or should they think about or do we see a future where they would in house some of this capability, right?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (55:26.798)

It's possible. I mean, I think that whenever I think about clients doing that, it it's a lot of expertise that you have to have in-house. It's a pretty senior person, you're building out a team. And I think that we have found over and over again that when clients move this trend towards in-housing, it ends up costing them more than having an agency. You have to.

 

Brett (55:35.293)

Yeah.

 

Brett (55:47.473)

Yeah. They're building their own internal agency and they have to pay for all that headcount and

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (55:52.044)

You have to. You cannot have one person doing all the dials. It doesn't work that way. It's a lot of work.

 

Rio Longacre (55:56.326)

Yeah. So I mean I I agree with you. It's funny. Yeah. So we went on a friend of mine, she was the global head of media for for Phillips in the Netherlands, and they went through a multi-year in housing exercise. And right when they did it, they're they added it up and they realized this actually was not cost effective and they they ended up spinning it back out. But I do think there's a place for in-housing measurement, in housing a lot of MarticAdTech, and certainly in-housing the platform licenses and you can see the markups and get the log files.

 

Brett (55:58.622)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (56:23.801)

and and run your own analyses to check the homework of the agency. I think that's I think there's a place for that. I I'm seeing a big trend towards that among brands who want that transparency. The opposite might be true. There's some again who don't care. But I think I think there is a way to do that and and get better results. And maybe maybe with as AI gets better too, if it's only 14 like portals ready to go to buy, right? You could even everything's going headless at some point too. You could just have your own buyer agents going to all of them with your media plan.

 

Brett (56:29.385)

Yep.

 

Brett (56:47.624)

Yeah.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (56:52.098)

That's right.

 

Rio Longacre (56:52.601)

making your deals come you know negotiate, come back, say here the bot here's all the PGs or P and P deals we're g we we've negotiated. Can we execute these and just going and executing, right? I mean I think in theory that'll be possible, but I I but I s I think brands need agencies for that still. Like I see agencies needed to

 

Brett (57:04.585)

Yeah yeah.

 

Brett (57:09.137)

Yeah, so the intern the internal team's doing the validation, the data analytics work, which can be a lean team that's got AI for for a lot of the the deep data analysis and data, you know, collection, right?

 

that you would you would suggest that you would say that that would be a better path than actually saying okay we're gonna build out an entire media team plus creative y you know, right? It's probably a lean team approach to to helping solve this problem. It's like what are the what the numbers actually say? And and then you're not holding the agencies accountable for audits, which makes them uncomfortable. right? But you're still collecting that data and c in ha Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (57:43.334)

Yeah, you're constantly reviewing and auditing in that in that model. And and also too, what's interesting, I think, is that the eight like I've done a lot of in-housing work and these in-house agencies, not only do they struggle, something to your point, to find the people, but even if they find them, they can't retain them or pay them, right? And these are highly specialized roles. They tend to be very expensive, especially if they're very technical. And you know, one thing just a little bit agency life, you know, for people who have never worked at agencies, get to work in Coca-Cola one day, Home Depot the next day.

 

You're working like the biggest, coolest brands in the world, right? Sony the next day, right? And like if you're an in house agency, you're doing the same crap week after week, year after year. Like the the a lot of the stars end up leaving, so you get kind of like the I don't want to say dead weights probably a bad term, but you get a get a l you don't get the highest performers sticking around long term in an in house agency.

 

Brett (58:24.275)

Mm-hmm.

 

You settle into this world of mediocrity is is what you're suggesting.

 

Rio Longacre (58:30.971)

That's kinda what happens. These in-house agencies, the longer they exist, like the worse they get, right? So they end up saying it's not working anymore and they spin it back out. It was a long-winded way of saying I think there's a role for agencies and a very important role, but I think like they need some in-house capabilities, but not.

 

Brett (58:44.295)

Yeah.

 

Well, and Smean we we do appreciate you speaking truth to power as well. And you s you kind of not only in some of the research you're doing, but you're you're you might be one of the the few agency folks, and I deal with a lot of them that I've talked to that kind of goes down that path of saying, you know, like let's not obfuscate the truth here. There's a lot of mismanagement of media and spend, there's a lot of measurement errors and obfuscation that doesn't show what's really happening, right? It's it's bold and so you know, congrats to you and and a woman led agency as well.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (59:14.914)

Thank you.

 

Brett (59:15.087)

out of Austin, Texas. it's it's it's awesome. You're doing some great stuff over there. so Rio, unless you have another thing, I think 'cause you've got a hard stop, right? I think we're all have to run to other meetings. But I mean

 

Rio Longacre (59:27.291)

I have a flight to catch in about an hour, but I I s I I'm good, but I know everyone does that. I know something you probably have a client who's waiting for you. So, like maybe we go to Quick Hits Bright, I that's what you're getting to.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (59:34.126)

huh.

 

Brett (59:35.557)

I that's yeah, he d he always knows what I'm getting to cricket. And now to wind it down

 

Rio Longacre (59:39.547)

I tell you he's getting antsy 'cause he probably has a client call coming up too, so

 

Brett (59:42.169)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I well I've got a big agency that I'm prepping for to talk to their chief product officer, right? so I've got a I'm I'm getting a little stressed. so what is you know, one default setting every media buyer should audit this week or or in the very near term?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:00:01.283)

I think geography, the amount of bad inventory coming that's not even trying to get through VPNs that look like the US is crazy. so geography would be my first thing that I would tell agencies to go audit.

 

Brett (01:00:16.84)

Yeah, we've heard some funny stories on that one. That's for sure. Yep.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:00:18.974)

On the GA side, not on the delivery side.

 

Rio Longacre (01:00:23.759)

If Meta Roas walked into a courtroom and you were cross examining, what would be your opening argument against this suspect?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:00:30.574)

How do you prove you exist? That's a great one.

 

Brett (01:00:41.638)

So so which advertising you know, metric or measurement approach do you think is is is the worst of the bunch in terms of of tracking true performance and true impact?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:00:58.55)

It sounds crazy, but I still see impressions getting thrown around. And that is a race to the bottom of CPMs that only furthers the problems we've been talking about. So and you know, people will still say, well, this delivered this many impressions, like what's the quality of those, you know?

 

Brett (01:01:06.535)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (01:01:19.899)

What's the funniest, dumbest, or most painfully obvious AI generated pitch that you've received recently?

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:01:27.972)

gosh. they're all so bad. It's hard to pick one. I still get the like whether it's AI doing it or humans doing it or maybe it's the humans that are messing up AI, still getting the emails that say like, hi, first name.

 

Rio Longacre (01:01:30.245)

Probably get a lot of

 

Brett (01:01:44.974)

y the high f like literally first name where it doesn't fill in. yeah, we've

 

Rio Longacre (01:01:45.649)

So bad.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:01:46.158)

Yeah, hi first thing.

 

Rio Longacre (01:01:49.509)

And they're selling like per they're selling personalized personalized lead gen service. So bad.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:01:51.764)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Brett (01:01:55.315)

Yeah, they they forgot to do do something within their code, whether it's in the platform or through a through a vibe coding exercise. So so now but let's go back to Austin. I think this is a good place to end. What's one Austin place you take a visitor, non food. Let's go non food, right? when you want to really understand the culture, maybe even the music culture of the city.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:02:13.73)

Yeah.

 

Rio Longacre (01:02:19.205)

And and it it that beyond just sixth street itself, like which as a tourist I love, but it's go ahead and interrupted you.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:02:19.745)

I

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:02:24.738)

Yeah. I would say a Whitehorse. It is a really great music dance hall. It's still has like the old run down East Austin vibe. it's got a lot of young energy, but it's like a real mix. The thing I love about Austin is like where all kinds of different people can meet and be in one place and have fun together and White Horse is one of those places.

 

Brett (01:02:37.013)

nice.

 

Brett (01:02:47.706)

Yeah, yeah. They yeah, well and I went to a I which I didn't expect. I just wandered into kind of an open mic like hip hop thing in Texas and like people were just getting up and just trying their thing out with a DJ in the back and it was yeah, and I and I was like, they're freestyling and I was like this is real I didn't you know, you always expect to run into a blues musician or a guitar based music or something. but but yeah, Austin's a unique place. Sabine, you're a unique person. Thank you for joining.

 

Rio Longacre (01:03:00.753)

Freestyling, nice.

 

Rio Longacre (01:03:12.315)

That sounds fine. Yeah.

 

This is great.

 

Brett (01:03:16.633)

signal and noise. you know, it's w it's funny, we all walked into this not knowing one another and I think we came out knowing a little about one another, which is which is

 

Rio Longacre (01:03:22.811)

We'll have to grab a beer at the White Horse at some point when we we'll do a single noise field trip down to Austin someday. I'm sure we will.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:03:24.982)

I'd love that.

 

Brett (01:03:28.186)

Yeah, totally. Totally. I I I I need a visit to to Texas in the in the near future and f and I don't think my my younger son's gonna get into U T, so I think he might be applied to Texas Tech though. Yes.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:03:28.504)

Please do.

 

Rio Longacre (01:03:37.169)

May maybe maybe south by s maybe next south by southwest Brett we can head down.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:03:39.032)

He Texas State. Yeah.

 

Brett (01:03:42.471)

Yeah, we'll probably be there for Signal Noise. So thanks for joining. Thanks for spending some extra time. And for everybody that made it this far, visit our website at wdebdeb.signalnoise.ai. we're on TikTok, TikTok, Instagram, Apple, Spotify, and all. Anywhere you listen to podcast or watch videos, you'll find us. And we'll see you next time. Thanks everybody, and thanks, Samine.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:03:45.194)

Love that. Thanks for having me.

 

Cimin Ahmadi Cohen (01:04:05.198)

Thanks, bye.

 

 

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