Redefining Inventory Quality: The Evolution & Intent of PIQ

In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the need for robust, transparent, and user-centric quality assessment tools has never been greater. With that in mind, we developed PIQ (Picnic Inventory Quality) - a data-driven, inventory intelligence solution designed to help publishers and advertisers better understand the environments in which they serve their ads.

What is PIQ?

PIQ is the culmination of over four years of innovation and refinement. It is designed to measure inventory quality through a comprehensive evaluation of site user-friendliness and publisher reputation. Unlike other media effectiveness metrics, PIQ does not (and was never intended to) assess campaign performance or advertising outcomes. Instead, it offers a clear, independent measure of the quality of the website - that's it.

PIQ is purposefully built without inputs from any campaign-related data, such as viewability, conversions, clicks, attention scores, eye-tracking studies or brand uplift. This deliberate design choice ensures that PIQ remains solely as a measure of inventory quality, completely separate from advertising and media performance.

This is distinct from Attention scores, which provide an invaluable solution to advertisers by providing a trustworthy KPI to measure a campaign’s success. Attention models, often trained on outcomes like conversions or brand uplift studies, show how effective a campaign is and allow you to compare different media channels. These are problems that PIQ is not built to solve.

What PIQ is Not

To provide further clarity, it’s important to outline what PIQ is not:

1. Not a Campaign Effectiveness Tool – PIQ does not measure campaign success or assess campaign results.
2. Not a Proxy for Performance Metrics – Unlike tools designed to predict or evaluate advertising results, PIQ does not function as a benchmark for campaign success.
3. Not Campaign Outcome-Driven – PIQ is not a model trained toward outcomes.
4. Not a Currency for Media Comparison – PIQ is not intended to be used as a universal metric to compare media channels or ad placements.

A Commitment to Transparency and Quality

At its core, PIQ is a new approach to understanding the quality of inventory on the internet. Our commitment has always been - and will always be - to build a tool that provides independent, reliable, and transparent insights into inventory quality, empowering publishers to create better user experiences and advertisers to make informed decisions on where they deliver their campaigns.

In an industry that is constantly evolving, maintaining clarity on the intent and application of tools like PIQ is crucial. By focusing on user experience and publisher reputation, we continue to deliver what we genuinely believe: that real results start with quality.
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Want to learn more about how PIQ can help assess the quality of your inventory? Click here to request a free PIQ demo.

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