Quick Introductions: Who's In The Room?

• Who on your team is leading this evaluation and what title should we use when we speak about decision influence? Options: Head of Programmatic, VP Digital Media, Head of Performance/Acquisition, CMO, Agency Lead, Procurement, Other
• Please list the primary contact(s) (name, role, email) who will own logistical coordination for the test campaign.
• Which stakeholders need to be looped into weekly status updates during the 30‑day test? Options: Media Ops, Brand/Marketing, Legal/Privacy, Finance/Procurement, Agency Execs, Creative/Comms, Other
• How have these stakeholders worked together on programmatic buys in the past—smoothly, with friction, or rarely? Options: Smooth collaboration, Occasional friction, Frequent conflicts, Rarely collaborated before

Who Actually Signs the Check (and Who Slows It Down)?

• If I told you our proposal could be live in 10 business days, what would surprise you about that claim? Options: Nothing—we're nimble, Procurement would slow us, Legal approvals required, Technical integrations cause delay, Other
• Who holds formal budget approval authority for a $50,000 test and who needs to be notified if the spend changes? Options: CMO, Head of Programmatic, Finance/Procurement, Agency CFO, Other
• What typical approval steps have historically added the most time when launching a new vendor test? Options: Contract/legal review, Security/privacy review, Tagging/tech QA, Budget reallocation, Executive signoff, Other
• How long does each of those steps usually take in your organization (in business days)?

If This Becomes Public Tomorrow—What's the Damage?

• How tolerant is your team and your C-suite of an open-web placement that sparks social media screenshots? Options: Zero tolerance—immediate pull, Low tolerance—major escalation, Moderate—depends on context, High—accept occasional misplacements
• Tell us about the last brand-safety incident you experienced: what happened, what channels were affected, and how long did it take to resolve?
• Which types of adjacent content would trigger an automatic campaign pause for you? Options: Hate/Supremacy, Graphic violence, Sexual content, Illicit activity, Misinformation, Other
• What remediation cadence do you expect if an issue arises—immediate pause, 2–4 hour response, 24 hours, or other? Options: Immediate pause, 2–4 hours, Within 24 hours, 48+ hours
• How would a brand-safety incident make you feel about continuing the test (confidence lost, cautious, indifferent, more scrutiny)? Options: Confidence lost, Cautious but continuing, Indifferent, Increase scrutiny

What Will Make the CFO Sleep Better About This $50K Test?

• Do you have $50,000 earmarked for an independent DSP test, or would this require reallocation from other line items? Options: Already earmarked, Requires reallocation, Needs new approval, Unsure
• If the test requires more budget mid-flight to reach statistical significance, how open is finance to a controlled top-up? Options: Open to top-up, Requires new approval, Prefer no top-up, Unsure
• What ROI or CPA improvement would justify scaling beyond the test to a multi-million-dollar program?
• Who in finance or procurement should we include in commercial discussions to accelerate contracting?

Define 'Winning'—What Metrics Actually Matter?

• If you could only pick one primary success metric for the 30‑day test, which would it be and why? Options: Cost per Acquisition (CPA), Viewability rate, Fraud‑filtered impressions, Incremental conversions, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), Other
• What minimum thresholds or acceptance criteria must be met for you to consider the test successful (e.g., CPA ≤ X, viewability ≥ Y%)?
• How important is log‑level transparency for your analysis (must-have, nice-to-have, optional)? Options: Must-have, Nice-to-have, Optional
• Which data fields do you require in the logs to validate supply-path and performance (impression_id, publisher_domain, intermediaries, bid_price, creative_id, device_id, timestamp, other)? Options: impression_id, publisher_domain, intermediaries, bid_price, creative_id, device_id, timestamp, other
• Who on your analytics team will be responsible for running the post-test comparison against your current DSP?

Who's Handling The Day‑to‑Day Ops If We Go Live?

• If the test campaign needs immediate optimization, who has authority to request pacing, creative swaps, or targeting changes? Options: Agency Media Ops, In‑house Buyer/Trader, Joint Ops, No one—requires approvals
• What access can you provide for logs and reporting during the test (S3, BigQuery, API, dashboard only, other)? Options: S3, BigQuery, API, Dashboard only, Other
• Are there technical constraints we should know about for tag deployment, audience onboarding, or server‑to‑server integrations?
• How comfortable is your ops team with troubleshooting supply‑path attribution issues—do they have established playbooks or will we need to co-own? Options: Have playbooks and ops
• Who will handle legal/privacy gating for data sharing and what timelines do they require to approve a standard DSP data processing addendum?

Timeline or Destiny: When Do You Need Answers?

• If performance meets your acceptance criteria, what target date would you want a scaled rollout to begin? Options: Immediately after test, Within 1 month, Within 3 months, Longer-term
• What internal milestones must we hit before the test can start (legal signoff, tag QA, finance approval, creative readiness)? Options: Legal signoff, Tag QA, Finance approval, Creative readiness, Other
• How quickly can your team turn around creative or targeting changes if optimization requires it mid‑test? Options: Same day, 1–2 days, 3–5 days, Longer
• What is the realistic earliest go‑live date based on current commitments and approvals?

What Will Make You Nervous Mid‑Test (and How Should We Respond)?

• If a spike in fraudulent impressions or a supply‑path anomaly appears, what immediate actions do you expect the vendor to take? Options: Immediate pause, Filter and continue, Notify and propose fix, Escalate to legal
• What SLA or response time do you require from a vendor when you raise a severity‑1 brand safety or fraud incident? Options: 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours
• Who is the escalation contact on your side (name, role, preferred contact method) for incidents that could become public?
• If the test underdelivers on primary metric but shows learnings in transparency or reach, what outcomes would still be valuable to you? Options: Supply-path insights, Log-level attribution, Audience expansion, CTV household dedupe learnings, Other

Clear Next Steps: What Would Commit You Today?

• What is the smallest, non‑risky commitment that would change momentum—signing an NDA, a tech trial, a 2‑week pilot, or a full 30‑day $50K test? Options: Sign NDA, Tech trial (no spend), 2‑week pilot, 30‑day $50K test
• Who needs to sign the test agreement and who will review the final SOW/SLAs on your side?
• What materials or assurances would you need from us to get that sign‑off (SLA language, security certifications, brand‑safety playbook, reference customers)? Options: SLA language, Security certifications, Brand‑safety playbook, Reference customers, Other
• When would you like us to schedule a short internal kickoff (15–30 minutes) to align stakeholders and confirm the earliest start date? Options: This week, Next week, In two weeks, Later—need internal alignment

Getting Comfortable — Quick Snapshot of Your Programmatic Setup

• Who owns daily programmatic buying for your brand right now? Options: In-house team, External agency, Hybrid (in-house + agency), Trading desk, Other
• Which DSP(s), ad servers, and PMP platforms are you actively using today? (list names and versions if known)
• What is your approximate monthly programmatic media budget across open web, CTV, and audio? Options: Under $50k, $50k–$250k, $250k–$1M, $1M–$5M, Over $5M
• Which channels are in scope for evaluation (select all that apply)? Options: Display/banner, Native, Video (in-stream), Connected TV (CTV), Streaming audio/podcast, Digital out-of-home (DOOH)
• How long has your current programmatic stack and partner roster been in production? Options: Less than 6 months, 6–12 months, 1–2 years, 2–5 years, 5+ years

If You Followed the Money — Supply Path Visibility

• If we asked you to trace one dollar of spend end-to-end, could you name every intermediary and fee applied? Options: Yes — we can map it, Partially — some gaps, No — we cannot map it
• List the top intermediaries, resellers, or exchanges you believe your spend flows through (names and known % of spend if available).
• What portion of your programmatic spend do you estimate goes to walled gardens or black‑box resellers? Options: 0–10%, 10–30%, 30–50%, 50–70%, 70%+
• When you request impression-level source details today, what specifically is missing most often? Options: Publisher/app ID, Bid path/intermediary IDs, Line-item or deal ID, Intermediary fee breakdown, Timestamp/geo
• How often do transparency gaps create internal escalations (legal/finance/CMO)? Options: Very often, Occasionally, Rarely, Never

Why Your Bids Lose — Latency, Two-Hop Resales, and Leakage

• How confident are you that intermediary latency or multi-hop reselling is costing you auction wins? Options: Highly confident — we've seen evidence, Somewhat confident — suspect issues, Not confident — no evidence
• Which publishers, SSPs, or app integrations do you suspect have the most resold/reseller inventory?
• Have you measured time-to-bid or auction latency impacts across your current supply paths? Options: Yes — we have metrics, No — but we want to, No — not interested
• How often do you see significant price or win-rate differences when comparing direct header-bid integrations vs. resold inventory? Options: Frequently, Sometimes, Seldom, Never
• If you could remove one intermediary tomorrow, which consequence would matter most to you (cost, latency, visibility, or relationships)? Options: Lower cost, Lower latency / higher win-rate, Full visibility, Maintain publisher relationships

How Clean Is the Inventory You’re Buying?

• How would you describe your current exposure to ad fraud: acceptable, concerning, or unacceptable? Options: Acceptable, Concerning, Unacceptable
• Which fraud-detection solutions do you currently use or rely on? Options: Third-party verification (e.g., IAS, DoubleVerify), DSP-native filters, Custom heuristics, Post-bid reconciliation, None
• What percent of impressions do you typically filter or block for fraud before counting as valid? Options: 0–0.5%, 0.5–1%, 1–3%, 3–7%, 7%+
• Can you currently access the raw signal-level data (request IDs, bidder IDs, user signals) needed to independently validate fraud decisions? Options: Yes — full logs, Partial logs — missing fields, No — cannot access
• Tell us about a recent fraud event (what happened, how discovered, business impact, and remediation steps).

Targeting When Cookies Fall — Identity & Context

• If third-party cookies and stable IDs degraded tomorrow, how confident are you in keeping your CPA and reach targets? Options: Very confident, Somewhat confident, Uncertain, Not confident
• Which targeting methods currently drive performance for your campaigns (select all that apply)? Options: Third-party cookies, Device IDs (mobile), Deterministic first-party CRM matching, Probabilistic modeling, Contextual targeting, Household graphs / DMP
• What percent of your audience targeting relies primarily on third-party cookies (best estimate)? Options: 0–10%, 10–30%, 30–60%, 60–90%, 90%+
• Do you have first-party data (CRM, logged-in data) that can be onboarded currently? If so, describe readiness or barriers.
• Which contextual signals or category taxonomies have you tested or are open to testing? Options: IAB categories, Custom semantic categories, Publisher-curated segments, Audio & visual context, None tested yet

When Screenshots Hurt — Brand Safety & Reputation

• Have you experienced a public brand-safety incident in the past 24 months that triggered executive attention? Options: Yes — required executive response, Yes — internal mitigation only, No
• Describe the most recent brand‑safety incident, root cause, and what channels or partners were involved.
• Which brand-safety controls are enforced before and during campaign delivery (select all that apply)? Options: Pre-bid contextual blocking, Publisher allowlists, Blocklists/blacklists, Third-party verification, Manual QA / human review, Realtime pausability
• How quickly can your team pause placements or pull spend across your current stack? Options: Seconds/minutes, Hours, Within a day, Multiple days
• What is your C-suite tolerance for brand-safety exceptions (choose the closest policy)? Options: Zero tolerance — any incident unacceptable, Very low — <0.01% risk, Moderate — <0.1% risk with remediation, Flexible — case-by-case

Measurement, Logs, and the Evidence You Need

• If asked for a full log of every impression from your last campaign, including publisher ID, SSP, bid path, and timestamps, could you provide it? Options: Yes — full logs available, Partial logs — missing fields, No — cannot provide
• What level of log detail do your current vendors supply (select all that apply)? Options: Impression request logs, Bid response logs, Winner notifications / creative IDs, Intermediary IDs / supply path, No logs provided
• How frequently do you encounter reporting discrepancies between vendor logs and your own analytics? Options: Weekly, Monthly, Occasionally, Rarely, Never
• Which metrics must be included in any log-level export for your test to be valid? Options: CPA / conversion events, Viewability per impression, Bid price and clearing price, Intermediary IDs, Device/household IDs
• Are there legal, contractual, or data‑privacy restrictions (e.g., data residency, vendor NDAs) that would limit log sharing? Options: Yes — significant restrictions, Some restrictions — can be negotiated, No restrictions

Operational Reality — People, Processes, and Timelines

• How many FTEs (or agency hours) are typically required to plan, QA, and run a 30‑day programmatic test? Options: <1 FTE, 1–2 FTEs, 3–5 FTEs, 5+ FTEs
• Which internal teams are essential for running a test (select all that apply)? Options: Programmatic ops, Measurement/Analytics, Legal/Privacy, Brand/Comms, IT/Engineering, Procurement
• Typical lead time to launch a cross-channel $50k test (days) Options: <7 days, 7–14 days, 15–30 days, 30+ days
• What's the single biggest operational blocker you face when integrating a new DSP or supply partner?
• How comfortable is your ops team with troubleshooting ad-ops issues in header-bid or CTV integrations? Options: Very comfortable, Somewhat comfortable, Learning curve, Not comfortable

What Proof Would Make You Move Budget?

• What single piece of evidence would convince your leadership to reallocate a meaningful share of programmatic budget away from a walled garden? Options: Lower CPA, Higher verified viewability, Lower fraud rates, Full supply-path fee transparency, Stronger cross-screen deduplication
• Which KPIs will you rank as primary for the 30‑day test (select up to three)? Options: Cost per acquisition (CPA), Verified viewability, Fraud‑filtered impressions, Reach / unique households, Return on ad spend (ROAS), Frequency
• What minimum performance delta or threshold would you need to consider the test successful? Options: >10% improvement, 5–10% improvement, Match current performance + transparency, Other (please specify)
• Are there mandatory publishers, platforms, or inventory types that must be included or excluded from any test?
• Do you require SLA terms for transparency, log delivery, or fraud remediation to be contractually enforced before running a test? Options: Yes — must be contractually enforced, Prefer but not mandatory, No

Permission to Proceed — Practical Next Steps

• Would you authorize a 7‑day sample audit of campaign logs (anonymized if needed) to baseline your stack? Options: Yes — authorize audit, Need internal approval, No — not at this time
• Preferred method for sharing logs and access (select all that apply) Options: Secure SFTP, Shared cloud bucket (AWS/GCP/Azure), Vendor portal export, API/endpoint access, On-site secure review
• Who are the key contacts and roles we should coordinate with (name, role, email) to run the audit and test?
• Are there NDAs, data-processing agreements, or legal approvals needed before we can ingest logs? Options: Yes — NDA/PDA required, Some approvals required, No approvals needed
• When would you be ready to pilot the 30‑day $50k test campaign? Options: Immediately, In 2–4 weeks, In 1–3 months, Later — needs planning

Before We Dive In: Quick Readiness Pulse

• On a scale from “We could flip the switch today” to “Not remotely ready,” where does your team land right now? Options: Flip the switch today, Mostly ready — a few items, Halfway there, Need substantial work, Not ready at all
• What’s the primary objective for this 30‑day test campaign (pick one)? Options: Lower CPA vs current DSP, Improve viewability, Reduce fraud and waste, Validate contextual targeting, Household deduplication in CTV, Other
• Who is the day‑to‑day ops owner we’ll coordinate with (name, role, preferred contact)?
• What is your target go‑live date for the test? Options: Within 1 week, 1–2 weeks, 2–4 weeks, More than 4 weeks, TBD

What’s Really Stopping Launch Day?

• If we attempted to launch tomorrow, what single thing would most likely cause you to pause the campaign?
• Which of these has caused the most surprises on past launches? Options: Missing data access, Broken tags, Publisher integration failure, Legal/privacy hold-ups, Measurement mismatch, Other
• How long do last‑minute technical issues usually take your team to resolve? Options: Same day, 1–2 days, 3–5 days, More than a week
• Describe a recent launch that went sideways — what happened and how did it affect trust with your stakeholders?

Who Holds the Keys: Data Access and Permissions

• Who currently holds the credentials or permissions we’ll need to access audience lists, CRM segments, or analytics logs? Options: Client-side data team, Agency data team, Third‑party data vendor, Vendor-managed, Not sure
• Which data sources do you expect us to ingest or query for the test? Options: CRM/first‑party, CDP, Measurement vendor logs, Ad server logs, Third‑party segments, Other
• What is the current status of data‑sharing agreements and DPA/TOU approvals required for data onboarding? Options: All signed, In progress, Not yet started, Legal review flagged issues
• If we need a sample of log files or an API key to validate schema, where would we retrieve those from and who can provide them?

Tagging, Events, and Measurement Contracts — Are They Aligned?

• How confident are you that your existing tags and pixels accurately capture conversions and events across web and CTV? Options: Very confident, Somewhat confident, Not confident, Unknown
• Which tags/pixels need to be present and validated before launch? Options: Conversion pixel, Viewability tag, Impression logger, CTV SDK events, Analytics pageview tag, Other
• Have you previously experienced discrepancies between server‑side logs and client‑side tags? If yes, how were they diagnosed? Options: Yes — resolved, Yes — unresolved, No, Not sure
• Please paste or describe the event contract for the primary conversion (event name, parameters, success criteria).
• Do you prefer a smoke test (small audience, minimal budget) or a full QA run prior to the 30‑day live test? Options: Smoke test, Full QA run, Both, No preference

Where Your Budget Could Go — Supply Path & Publisher Controls

• How certain are you that current campaigns avoid reseller chains or multi‑hop inventory that inflate fees? Options: Completely certain, Mostly certain, Not certain, I don’t know
• Which publisher controls do you require for the test? Options: Explicit publisher allowlist, Publisher blocklist, Category-level allow/block, No preference
• Do you have a documented allowlist of domains/apps for this campaign? If so, how many entries and who maintains it?
• Which header‑bid or exchange integrations are mandatory to reach your target inventory (list vendors/apps)?
• Would you accept impressions that come via a reseller if the supply path and fees are fully disclosed in logs? Options: Yes, with full disclosure, No, Maybe—case by case

Brand Safety: The Red Lines and Gray Areas

• If a single creative showed next to objectionable content during the test, what is your immediate reaction threshold (pull creative, pause campaign, escalate to legal)? Options: Pull creative immediately, Pause campaign, Escalate but continue running, Depends on severity
• Which content categories must be blocked at all costs for this brand? Options: Violence, Hate speech, Adult/Sexual content, Illicit drugs, Self‑harm/suicide, Other
• What level of contextual matching do you require (exact semantic, topical, high‑level category) for safe placements? Options: Exact semantic, Topic-level, Category-level only, No contextual requirement
• Which verification vendors or signals do you trust for brand safety (e.g., IAS, DoubleVerify, in-house classifiers)? Options: Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, Moat, Proprietary/contextual partners, None/other
• How fast do you expect an incident response when a brand‑safety violation is detected (SLA)? Options: Immediate (within 1 hour), Same business day, 24–48 hours, Longer

Fraud, Viewability, and the Logs You’ll Need

• Would you run this test without full queryable impression logs that show bid chain, publisher, and creative placement? Options: Never, Only with strong assurances, Maybe—if logs are provided post‑test, Not sure
• Which log fields are non‑negotiable for your post‑campaign audit? Options: Timestamp, Bid request ID, Publisher/domain, Supply path chain, Creative ID, Bid price, Device/app ID, Viewability metric
• What fraud threshold (e.g., % invalid traffic removed) would trigger a pause or renegotiation of acceptance criteria? Options: >0.5%, >1%, >2%, Depends on channel (CTV vs web), No fixed threshold
• Which viewability standard do you require for counting an impression (e.g., MRC 50%/1s, 100%/1s, custom)? Options: MRC 50%/1s, MRC 100%/1s, Custom (please specify), Not required

Operational Ownership — Who’s On Call When Things Go Off Script?

• If an alarm fires at 02:00 AM (fraud spike, tag failure, creative serving to blocked publisher), who gets paged and what is their expected response time?
• Which escalation path do you prefer for technical vs commercial issues? Options: Technical → Ops lead → Engineering, Commercial → Agency lead → Legal, Parallel escalation, Other
• Do you have a change‑control policy that requires pre‑approval for mid‑campaign optimizations? If yes, how are changes authorized? Options: Pre‑approved playbook, Formal written sign‑off, Email approval, Ad‑hoc
• How would you like real‑time monitoring delivered during the test (dashboard, Slack alerts, email digests, direct API)? Options: Live dashboard, Slack alerts, Email digest, API push, Combination

Sign‑offs, Legal, and Privacy — The Things We Can’t Ignore

• Which legal/privacy items must be completed before we can send live bids (DPA, CCPA/GDPR risk assessment, data pseudonymization confirmation)? Options: DPA signed, Privacy assessment complete, Data pseudonymization in place, Vendor security review passed, None required
• Are there specific audience segments or PII rules that prohibit certain types of log exports or third‑party sharing? Options: Yes — strict PII restrictions, Yes — limited sharing allowed, No special restrictions, Unsure
• Who in your legal/privacy team must be included on release notes or incident reports during the test?
• If we discover a privacy or data leakage risk during QA, what is your required remediation timeframe? Options: Immediate (stop traffic), 24 hours, 48–72 hours, Case by case

Clear Acceptance Criteria — What Passes, What Fails

• What are the top three metrics that will decide whether this test is a success?
• Which of these acceptance gates must be met before we declare the test successful? Options: CPA within target, Viewability above threshold, Fraud below threshold, Full log availability, Supply path transparency confirmed
• If one critical gate fails but others succeed (e.g., CPA good but logs incomplete), what is your preferred path forward? Options: Pause and fix, Accept with caveats, Extend test period, Renegotiate terms
• Who has final sign‑off authority to move from test to scaled adoption? Options: Head of Programmatic, VP of Digital, CMO, Agency Lead, Other

Final Practicalities — Handover, Runbook and First 72 Hours

• If we handed you a single launch runbook, what three sections must be included to make it useful?
• What reporting cadence do you want in the first 72 hours (real‑time alerts, hourly checks, twice daily, daily summary)? Options: Real‑time alerts, Hourly checks, Twice daily, Daily summary, Every other day
• Who should be on the initial post‑launch 24‑hour debrief call? Options: Ops owner, Media lead, Data/measurement, Legal/Privacy, Vendor/tech lead
• What would make you feel confident that the first 72 hours were a success (practical signs, not just numbers)?

Start With the Moment That Triggered This

• What specific event or realization made you decide to evaluate a new programmatic partner today? Options: Brand-safety incident surfaced publicly, Cookie deprecation impacted targeting, Internal audit revealed opaque fees, Performance decline vs. goals, Vendor consolidation initiative, Other
• Tell us the brief story of that event—who saw it, what happened, and what the internal reaction was?
• Who is the executive sponsor or final approver for this evaluation (name and role)?
• What budget have you preliminarily carved out for a 30-day proof-of-performance test? Options: $25k–$50k, $50k (target), $50k–$100k, No fixed amount yet, Depends on scope
• How would you describe the urgency—is this a fire-drill, a strategic pivot, or exploratory? Options: Immediate (within 2 weeks), Near-term (1 month), Quarterly planning, Exploratory/No fixed timeline

Is “Transparency” Really What You’re Getting Today?

• How confident are you that every dollar in your current programmatic stack is traceable to a single publisher or SSP? Options: Very confident, Somewhat confident, Not confident, We don't track this
• List the DSPs, exchanges, and major intermediaries you currently run through (include reseller relationships if known).
• Approximately how many intermediaries (resellers, sub-SSPs, ad networks) typically touch a given impression for your campaigns? Options: None / direct, 1 intermediary, 2 intermediaries, 3+ intermediaries, Unknown
• Have you ever been able to reconcile impression-level supply-path logs end-to-end? If yes, how often? Options: Always, Occasionally, Rarely, Never
• Describe an example where supply-path opacity harmed either performance, attribution, or brand safety for you.

Where Is Your Media Budget Quietly Leaking Value?

• Do you have a sense of what percentage of your programmatic spend ends up in walled gardens or reseller margins? Options: <10%, 10–30%, 31–50%, >50%, Don't know
• Have you identified specific partners that add material margin or latency (e.g., two-hop reseller chains)? If so, name them and estimate the impact.
• Which reporting style would make fee leakage and intermediary costs easiest for your finance team to consume? Options: Per-impression line item with fees, Aggregated fee summary by partner, Daily reconciled P&L, Other
• How would uncovering hidden intermediary fees change your ongoing buying strategy or vendor relationships?
• Which internal stakeholder cares most about reducing these leaks (e.g., CFO, Head of Programmatic, Procurement)? Options: CFO, Head of Programmatic/VP Digital, Procurement, CMO/Brand, Other

Which Parts of Your Stack Keep You Up at Night?

• When was the last time you experienced a brand-safety incident on open exchange inventory and what was the fallout?
• What are your current measured fraud rates (e.g., invalid traffic, spoofing) and which vendor(s) provide those metrics?
• How are you currently targeting audiences post-cookie—select all that apply. Options: First-party data onboarding, Contextual signals, Deterministic IDs (logged-in), Clean-room cohorts, Third-party cookies, Other
• Which of these problems costs you the most time or budget: cleaning fraudulent traffic, fixing viewability, or re-targeting lost audiences? Options: Fraud remediation, Viewability fixes, Audience retargeting, Supply-path troubleshooting, Other
• Tell us about a time an optimization or vendor switch backfired—what went wrong and how long did it take to recover?

If We Could Measure Only Three Things, Which Ones Would Convince You?

• Which single performance metric would cause you to say the test 'won' (pick one). Options: Lower CPA, Higher viewability, Increase in fraud-filtered impressions, Improved reach/deduplication, Better attribution clarity
• Select the full set of KPIs you want measured during the 30-day test (you can pick multiple). Options: CPA / cost per action, Viewability rate, Fraud-filtered impressions, Reach & frequency deduplication, Click-through rate, Engagement time, ROAS / revenue attributed
• For each KPI you selected, list the numerical acceptance threshold or improvement target you consider a pass (e.g., CPA <= $X or viewability >= Y%).
• How do your baseline metrics (current DSP) compare to the targets you just set? Please provide numbers or estimates.
• Which KPI would you accept trading off slightly to achieve a bigger win in another area (for example, slightly higher CPA for substantially better supply-path clarity)?

How Much Visibility Is Truly ‘Enough’ For You?

• If you saw a per-impression log, which fields are non-negotiable for your team? (select all that apply) Options: Publisher domain / app, Supply-path chain (each intermediary), Bid price & clearing price, Timestamp & auction id, Device/household id (hashed), Creative id, Geo/region
• How soon after an impression must logs be available for your analysts to act (latency requirement)? Options: Real-time / streaming, Within 1 hour, Within 24 hours, 48+ hours
• Which delivery format is preferred for log ingestion into your systems? Options: S3 (parquet), BigQuery, Kafka/streaming, Raw JSON via API, Other
• Are there legal, privacy or contractual constraints (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, publisher NDAs) that limit fields you can accept in logs? If so, explain.
• How would you like fee and intermediary data surfaced in your dashboards—aggregated summaries, drill-to-impression, or both? Options: Aggregated summaries, Drill-to-impression logs, Both, Undecided

What Would a 30-Day Test Have to Prove to Win Your Trust?

• If the test delivered cleaner supply-paths but no change in CPA, would you consider that a partial win or a non-starter? Explain why. Options: Partial win, Non-starter, Depends on context
• Which campaign elements are fixed for the test (creative, landing pages, attribution window) and which can be adjusted during optimization? Options: Creative fixed, Attribution window fixed, Landing pages fixed, All adjustable, Other
• Who will be the day-to-day ops owner on your side for running and approving optimizations during the test?
• What reporting cadence and format will let your team make go/no-go decisions (e.g., daily dashboard + weekly deep dive)? Options: Daily dashboard + weekly review, Twice-weekly updates, Weekly only, Ad-hoc
• Which outcomes would you label a 'deal-breaker' that would cause you to stop the test early? Options: Severe brand-safety violations, Unexpected high fraud, Systemic pacing issues, No measurable impressions, Other

Who's Driving the Decision—and What Keeps Them Up at Night?

• Who are the essential decision-makers and approvers for this engagement? Please name role and whether they sign final approval.
• Which internal team is most skeptical about moving budget off of existing vendors (e.g., brand, measurement, procurement)? Options: Brand/Creative, Measurement/Analytics, Procurement, Finance, Agency Trading Desk, Other
• What emotional or political risks do stakeholders worry about (e.g., a social media backlash, CFO pushback, vendor relationship fallout)?
• Have you run POCs like this before? If yes, name one prior POC that failed to convince stakeholders and the primary reason.
• What proof points (documents, dashboards, third-party attestations) would your procurement or legal teams require to move forward? Options: SLA with transparency terms, Sample impression logs, Third-party verification report, Data processing addendum, Other

Imagine Snapping Your Fingers—What’s Different Six Months Later?

• Describe the ideal programmatic buy after you’ve adopted a transparent DSP—what does daily life look like for your team?
• How would success in this partnership change your media allocation across open web, CTV, and walled gardens? Options: Shift significant budget to open web, Maintain current split, Gradual migration over quarters, Undecided
• What capabilities would you want us to build or prioritize on the roadmap to keep scaling with you?
• If you could guarantee one long-term outcome from a new DSP, which would it be? Options: Lower overall CPA, Full supply-path transparency, Reliable cross-platform deduplication, Stronger brand-safety controls, Other
• How quickly would you aim to scale beyond the test if acceptance criteria are met? Options: Immediately after test, Within 1 quarter, Next 2–3 quarters, Longer term / reassess

Next Steps — Small Bets That Prove Big Signals

• Which of these readiness items can you confirm today to start the test: data access, tracking tags, allowlist, publisher integrations? Options: All confirmed, Some confirmed (specify), None confirmed yet
• Choose preferred start window for the 30-day test. Options: Next 2 weeks, Within 1 month, Next quarter, Flexible / TBD
• Who will be our main operational contact (name, role, email) and who is backup?
• Which validation cadence do you prefer for log and KPI checks during the test? Options: Daily automated checks, Every 48 hours, Weekly manual review, Ad-hoc on demand
• What would a realistic mutual deliverable look like at the end of the test to make a go/no-go decision? Options: Signed performance review + SLA tweaks, Expand to scaled campaign, Deeper technical audit, Terminate and debrief