Like all the best things in life, programmatic advertising is only as good as the quality that drives it forward.

As the latest Q2 research from the Association of National Advertisers finds, programmatic efficiency is “driven by the ability to actively manage quality, price, measurement, and curate supply at scale, not by traditional transaction cost components.”

(Photo Source: Association of National Advertisers’ “Programmatic Transparency Benchmark”

The research found an increase in TrueAdSpend — the percentage of total ad spend resulting in high-quality impressions — to the highest level it’s measured: 45.1%. That’s a nearly 2pp increase from Q1, with higher-performers at 52.3% and the lower cohort at 31.1%.

“Pricing efficiency, however, moved the other way,” the research says. “CPM increased from $4.27 to $6.09, lifting TrueCPM from $6.47 to $9.03. With quality improving alongside the price rise, the TrueCPM Index eased to 32.6% (–1.3pp) — a marginally more efficient marketplace.”