How MFA collapsed and signal quality became the new performance frontier

Programmatic just experienced one of the most significant quality upgrades in its history — and almost no one is talking about it.

In 2023, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) revealed that 15% of programmatic spend was leaking into made-for-advertising (MFA) sites. Two years later, the latest ANA benchmarks show that number has collapsed to around 0.4%. That isn’t a marginal improvement; it’s a structural correction.

At the same time, major SSPs have begun openly positioning themselves as MFA-free, using cleaner supply paths as a competitive differentiator. What started as a brand-safety concern has evolved into something far more consequential: a performance story driven by cleaner signals, stronger transparency and better optimization inputs.

We talk a lot about identity and AI, but one of the biggest performance shifts in programmatic happened under the radar: The pipes got cleaner.

The fall of MFA: What actually changed

The collapse of MFA wasn’t the result of moral outrage or industry handwringing.

It was economics.

In its Q1 2025 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark, the ANA introduced quality-filtered metrics, including TrueCPM Index and TrueAdSpend, which calculate value using only qualified impressions such as non-IVT, viewable and measurable. This tighter lens effectively reset the baseline: Inefficiencies that once blended into the noise appeared clearly as avoidable waste.

At the same time, buyers became far more sophisticated in how they scrutinized their supply chains. Log-level transparency, SPO tooling and path analytics exposed the real cost of MFA: inflated frequency, duplicated reach, diluted match rates and ROAS decay. Once advertisers saw the performance drag quantified, their patience evaporated.

Inventory quality dashboards amplified the effect. With clearer views of path length, reseller chains and domain-level anomalies, buyers could finally apply commercial pressure with precision — rewarding the SSPs that delivered transparency and consistency.

On the sell side, SSPs recognized the commercial opportunity. Platforms like PubMatic began openly marketing “MFA-free” supply, positioning quality as a competitive feature rather than an afterthought. That shift mattered. When exchanges stop bidding on MFA domains — or significantly deprioritize them — those sites lose the oxygen that kept them alive.

Publishers took note too. Reducing clutter, improving UX and strengthening identity absorption weren’t just user-experience upgrades; they became revenue optimizations that improved eligibility and price competitiveness.

The result was a systemic correction. When you align buyer incentives, supply-side signals and transparent measurement, MFA doesn’t need to be banned. It simply stops making economic sense.

Why this isn’t just about cleaning up waste

It’s easy to view the collapse of MFA as a budget hygiene story — wasted impressions removed, cleaner placements secured. But the real transformation runs much deeper. When MFA spend drops, it doesn’t just stop bad money flowing to bad sites. It upgrades the entire optimization engine.

MFA sites, many analyses show, tend to be ad-heavy, content-light arbitrage environments with high ad density and poor user experience. Several industry reports argue that MFA contributes a disproportionately large share of wasted ad spend because technically viewable inventory may be widely ignored or deliver no real value. By excluding MFA inventory and favoring quality publishers, advertisers can reduce waste and improve the overall quality of their supply, shifting from “cheap reach” to genuine value.

Higher ID absorption can lead to more precise matches. Lower clutter can drive stronger viewability and better attention curves. Shorter, cleaner supply paths help reduce latency and increase bid eligibility. And critically, higher quality log data gives AI models more reliable inputs — the kind that can compound into better predictions, smarter bidding and more efficient spend.

Signal quality as the new performance lever

With MFA fading from the ecosystem, programmatic is entering its signal-efficiency era, a phase where the quality of the inputs determines the quality of the outcomes. The most meaningful performance levers today aren’t just audience segments or bid strategies; they’re the signals flowing through the supply chain.

Identity absorption sits at the top of that list. The more users a publisher can match, the more stable and scalable the audience becomes. Ad clutter and A2CR have a measurable impact on attention, CPM competitiveness and ROAS. Supply path hygiene like fewer hops, fewer resellers and shorter chains reduces latency and improves eligibility. Publisher UX quality, from page weight to refresh rates, influences time in view and overall attention. And above all, predictability matters: Fewer anomalies give AI-driven optimization clearer, more reliable training data.

The impact on advertisers: real, tangible efficiency gains

For advertisers, the collapse of MFA is more than a supply chain cleanup: It’s a performance upgrade.

But the collapse of MFA is a milestone, not a finish line. The next phase of programmatic will likely be defined by quality benchmarking becoming standard practice, with buyers expecting transparent, comparable metrics across exchanges, publishers and resellers.

Reseller chains could face sharper scrutiny, pushing the market toward cleaner, more direct paths. Publishers, seeing the revenue benefits, will continue investing in UX improvements and signal readiness, from page performance to identity absorption.

Most importantly, the conversation is shifting from “brand safety” to signal strategy, with buyers increasingly focused on environments that improve model performance rather than just avoiding unsafe URLs. With cleaner supply, AI models can optimize more accurately, driving better outcomes with less waste.

MFA collapsing from 15% to near zero is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of the open internet’s signal advantage — and the start of a far more efficient era of programmatic performance.