Editorial Team CTV programmatic buying was sold on the promise of efficiency, automating ad buys across the whole connected TV space. But now, in 2026, advertisers and analysts are getting louder about the opacity of it all, questioning whether the promised efficiency comes at the cost of genuine transparency. Are hidden fees and unclear inventory sources simply undermining trust?
Key Takeaways
- An ANA study found advertisers are losing as much as 30% of their CTV spend to hidden fees and middlemen.
- DSPs are starting to offer direct publisher deals, a good way to clean up the supply path by cutting out some of the ad tech chain.
- The IAB Tech Lab’s Project Rearc for CTV is trying to standardize data and fight fraud, which should help.
- Buyers need to get their hands on log-level data and run constant supply path audits to find where the money’s leaking.
- Server-side ad insertion (SSAI) is making it harder to track impressions, so we need better verification tools to keep up.
Challenges in CTV Ad Tech
Of course programmatic advertising in connected TV is appealing. It lets you target specific audiences and scale campaigns for what should be a better ROAS. But the supply chain is a mess. It’s crowded with DSPs, SSPs, exchanges, and verification vendors, and this complexity makes it almost impossible to see the real cost and source of an impression. The late 2025 ANA report really put a number on it, showing that buyers are watching up to 30% of their CTV budget vanish into a black box of hidden fees and middlemen. That’s a huge piece of your budget that could’ve gone to better creative or just buying more media.
A big part of the problem is the total lack of standardized reporting. Yes, platforms like The Trade Desk and Magnite give you analytics, but the really important stuff, the impression’s origin, the bid details, what each middleman took, is either rolled up into a useless summary or just isn’t there. This makes real supply path optimization (SPO) nearly impossible, and without SPO you can’t make sure your money is actually getting to good inventory. With no visibility into each hop an ad request makes, buyers are just supposed to trust their partners are doing the right thing. That trust is wearing thin.
Advertiser and Publisher Impact
This opacity means advertisers are wasting money and can’t properly attribute performance. If you have no idea where your ads actually ran or what percentage each player in the chain took, how can you possibly know what worked? The problem is worse in CTV because the inventory is so expensive to begin with. So now brands are pushing for direct deals with publishers or at least cleaner paths with fewer middlemen. It’s not just talk: an eMarketer survey from late 2025 found that almost 60% of buyers are planning to cut back on murky programmatic channels by the end of 2026, moving that money into PMPs and direct deals.
Publishers are getting hurt by this too. When buyers can’t prove the value they’re getting, they get skittish and pull back on spending, which directly hits a publisher’s revenue. And with so many intermediaries in the mix, all taking their slice, the value of that premium inventory gets watered down before the publisher even sees a dime. It’s created a weird situation where one partner’s “efficiency” is just another’s revenue loss. The whole industry has to stop saying “just trust us” and start providing data that can actually be audited. That’s a perfectly reasonable demand.
Moving Forward: Scrutiny and Standardization
Thankfully, some things are moving in the right direction to fix these transparency holes. The IAB Tech Lab is pushing forward with updates to OpenRTB and projects like Project Rearc, which are designed to standardize data and fight fraud specifically in CTV. These updates, which we should see get more traction during 2026, are all about giving buyers better signals on inventory quality and who they’re actually buying from. In response to all the pressure, some DSPs are also finally offering direct integrations with big CTV publishers, which cuts down the supply path and the number of hops an impression makes.
But advertisers can’t just wait for the industry to fix itself. You have to get proactive. Demanding log-level data from your partners and running your own supply path audits are now table stakes. Using verification tools is also essential. The tech from companies like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science is getting much better at tracking what’s really happening with CTV impressions and spotting fraud. It’s on the buy-side to push hard, ask the uncomfortable questions, and demand clear answers. If buyers don’t force the issue, the efficiency we’re all supposed to get from CTV programmatic buying will never materialize from behind the transparency problems.
The future of CTV programmatic really comes down to accountability. Advertisers have to demand total visibility into where their money goes. That means pushing for standard reports and cleaner supply chains with fewer middlemen. It’s the only way the industry will ever deliver on the actual efficiency and performance that connected TV advertising is capable of.
So what exactly is CTV programmatic buying?
It’s the automated way of buying and selling ad spots on smart TVs and streaming platforms. Instead of manual deals, it uses software and data to place ads in front of specific audiences in real time which is supposed to be more efficient.
What’s the big deal with transparency in CTV?
The supply chain is a tangled mess of middlemen. Because of this complexity, it’s easy for hidden fees to pile up and for your ads to run on inventory you can’t identify, making it impossible to know where your money truly went. A big chunk of your budget can just disappear.
What do people mean by supply path optimization (SPO)?
SPO is just the work an advertiser does to clean up their buying process. You analyze all the different routes your bids can take to get to a publisher and then cut out the unnecessary middlemen to reduce fees. The goal is simple: make sure more of your dollar ends up with the publisher and not lost in the ad tech tax.
What can buyers actually do to get more transparency?
You have to be demanding. Insist on getting log-level data from your DSP. Run your own supply path audits constantly. Use third-party verification partners. And when possible, just bypass the open market by doing direct deals or setting up PMPs with publishers you trust.
Will industry standards actually help with this?
Yes, they’re a big piece of the puzzle. Groups like the IAB Tech Lab are creating the rulebooks for how data should be shared and how ads are delivered, which helps fight fraud. Having everyone agree on these standards is how we get consistent reporting and clearer signals about who is selling what, which builds trust back into the system.
