The marketing industry spends more than $4,000 per U.S. household every year.
Analysts estimate that 20–30% of that spend may be lost to waste, inefficiency, and outright fraud — tens of billions of dollars annually.
So here’s the uncomfortable question:
If everyone knows the plumbing is broken… Why does the system keep running?
In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Sarah Caputo & David Nyurenberg to unpack what rarely gets said out loud: the persistence of media waste isn’t just a technology problem — it’s an incentive problem.
From opaque take rates and arbitrage models to CTV supply path manipulation, from procurement-driven CPM pressure to vanity metrics masquerading as performance — this conversation pulls back the curtain on how the ecosystem actually works.
Sarah and David bring firsthand experience from agencies, holding companies, publishers, and the brand side. They share real stories of:
Arbitrage margins north of 80%
Inventory labeled one way and delivered another
Contract loopholes that block transparency
The career risk of asking the wrong questions
And the quiet pressure to “not rock the boat”
The uncomfortable truth? Silence is often rewarded. Transparency can be punished. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We dig into what brands can do right now — from contractual protections and audit rights to internal capability building — to regain leverage and reduce exposure to hidden inefficiencies.
If you work in AdTech, MarTech, CTV, programmatic, or media buying, this episode will feel very familiar.
If you’re on the brand side, it may change how you think about your next RFP.
Read the companion article:
👉 https://www.signalandnoise.ai/post/the-cost-of-keeping-quiet
Subscribe for more candid, operator-level conversations about advertising, media, technology, and the incentives shaping what’s next.
No hype. No spin. Just signal.
