As I wrote in my response to rndgermandude [1], only some advertisers work this way. If you put up pictures of standing desks, people click through those ads, land on your site, and purchase desks, then it does not matter how scummy the publisher is because you can accurately measure the quality of traffic you are getting from them. On the other hand, if your ads aren't expected to lead to an online purchase (beverages, cars, political ads) this model doesn't work.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25430585