Comscore’s Rachel Gantz On Why Programmatic Needs A Quality Filter

“Advertisers don’t want to waste money on long-tail, low-quality inventory,” says Rachel Gantz, Managing Director at Proximix by Comscore. “Our new Certified Deal IDs give them a way to activate programmatically while staying aligned with trusted, premium content.”

ALAN WOLK (AW): So, let’s start with the basics. What exactly are Comscore Certified Deal IDs? Explain it to me like I’ve never heard of them.

RACHEL GANTZ (RG): It’s a new solution we’re really excited about. It came directly from buyers telling us they needed an “easy button” to curate programmatic inventory—something to make sure they weren’t wasting their ad dollars on low-quality, long-tail placements. That was true across all ad formats, but especially in CTV where CPMs are higher and the stakes are bigger.

So, we took that challenge back internally. Comscore has been a trusted source for inventory quality for 25 years. Now, for the first time, we’re bringing our trusted content rankings directly into programmatic environments. That’s what Certified Deal IDs do, and we’re launching it with Magnite.

AW: And who’s using this? Is this primarily for media buyers?

RG: Yes, this is squarely aimed at buyers—anyone who’s activating programmatically and wants a way to ensure their ads show up in high-quality environments. It helps them spend more efficiently and with more confidence.

AW: So when you say “quality,” how are you determining that? What’s the actual standard here?

RG: For us, it comes down to real audience engagement—how many people are actually visiting or watching, and how engaged they are. That’s been our guiding principle for years. In today’s environment, with things like MFA sites and bot traffic on the rise, having that audience-first lens is more important than ever.

It’s especially critical in CTV. We’re seeing a wide range of content quality there, and advertisers need tools to help navigate that landscape. Certified Deal IDs give them that filter automatically.

AW: Is this just for desktop and mobile, or are you including CTV as well?

RG: It includes CTV as well. This solution covers all formats—display, video, mobile, and CTV.

AW: What about publishers? Do they have to do anything to have their content included?

RG: Not really. The publishers included are already part of our long-standing content measurement relationships. So we’re not asking them to do anything new. What we’re doing is taking all that existing rigor and bringing it into the programmatic space. It’s really about making it easier for advertisers to connect to high-quality supply, and for publishers to benefit from that demand.

You could think of it as bringing a meritocracy to programmatic—aligning spend with quality in a much more streamlined way.

AW: How often are the rankings updated?

RG: Monthly. And as they update, the changes flow right into the solution automatically. Advertisers don’t have to do anything. Publishers don’t have to do anything. It’s built into the tech layer. No more manually compiling spreadsheets of sites or trying to keep inclusion lists current.

AW: So it’s automating what used to be a pretty manual process?

RG: Exactly. A lot of what was happening in the ecosystem before was teams manually pulling together independent resources to try to protect their campaigns. We’re just folding that into one automated layer and removing the friction.

AW: What was behind the decision to have Magnite as your initial launch partner?

RG: Magnite has been a strong partner, they’re a forward thinking company, and we’re excited to work with them to get this out into the market. But this is just the foundation. Over time, we’ll be able to build on it.

AW: Meaning you could start layering on other kinds of targeting?

RG: Exactly. Once you’ve got that quality layer in place, you can start to build more sophisticated targeting on top of it. For example, Comscore has a product called Proximic that offers ID-free predictive audiences. It’s privacy-safe and doesn’t rely on identifiers. So now we can combine that audience targeting with quality protections, all within the same framework.

AW: Are there specific verticals that care more about this than others?

RG: We’re seeing demand across the board—from CPG to pharma to alcohol brands. But it’s especially valuable to regulated industries, because they already have stricter standards around where they can appear. That said, in a market where budgets are tight, every advertiser is watching every dollar, so there’s a universal need to avoid wasted impressions.

AW: Where does this fit into Comscore’s broader strategy around advertising?

RG: It brings together two sides of our business: our core measurement business, which is rooted in trusted content rankings, and our growing programmatic offering. It’s a way of taking what we’ve always done well and making it easier to activate in real time. And it sets the stage for us to bring more AI-powered solutions to market that connect measurement, activation, and optimization.

AW: If everything pans out, what does this like a year or two from now?

RG: This is the starting point. From here, we see a range of opportunities to expand—more curation options, additional data layers, and smarter optimization tools that help buyers not just access quality but also drive performance.

AW: Do you think this could eventually factor into measurement itself? Could “quality” become a metric?

RG: Absolutely. There’s a real opportunity for closed-loop measurement here. You validate campaigns based on where they ran, who they reached, and what happened as a result. Especially in CTV, where CPMs are high and inventory quality varies wildly, it’s critical to get it right the first time. If we can help buyers make better decisions up front, and then measure what those decisions delivered, that’s a powerful combination.

AW: Right—CTV’s all over the place. You’ve got studio-grade programming alongside yoga videos someone shot on their phone.

RG: Exactly. And advertisers need a way to tell the difference before the buy goes through. That’s what we’re solving for.

AW: One last question—what is one thing you think the industry still doesn’t fully understand about this offering or the challenge it’s solving?

RG: I think people are starting to recognize that content matters again. For years, the focus was entirely on audience targeting—reach the right person no matter where they are. And that’s still important. But if you’re putting your ad in front of the right person in the wrong environment, it’s a wasted opportunity. This offering brings those two things together: precision in audience targeting, and confidence in content quality. That’s the shift we’re helping to drive.