Dive Brief:
- Advertisers are skeptical about the quality of connected TV inventory, with 43% of buyers expressing somewhat or no confidence despite using trusted buying methods like programmatic guaranteed, the Interactive Advertising Bureau found in a new report.
- Fifty-five percent of respondents showed somewhat or no confidence for private marketplaces for CTV while over two-thirds said the same for open exchange and real-time bidding. Similarly low levels of trust were apparent with retail and commerce media.
- Two culprits are causing CTV’s trust gap: bad actors deploying invalid inventory and advertisers being unsure of the origin and placement of legitimate inventory. The findings, included in the second installment of a report on video ad spending, also emphasized how targeting and live content are affecting buying trends.
Dive Insight:
Concern among buyers around the quality of CTV inventory comes as U.S. ad spending on the channel is expected to rise 11% this year to $29.3 billion, per previously published IAB data. The CTV market has become more saturated in recent years due to an influx of ad-supported streaming platforms and a larger uptick in cord-cutting. High levels of growth have seemed to exacerbate fraud and a lack of visibility for advertisers, problems that have long plagued other pockets of digital marketing.
“Buyers are wondering ‘where is my ad actually running, where does the inventory come from, and how much of it is invalid traffic (IVT),’” Chris Bruderle, vice president of industry insights and content strategy at the IAB, said in a statement attached to the report.
Breaking down the CTV trust gap by buying methods, retail and commerce media networks come off poorly, with 59% of advertisers showing little or no confidence in this space. Retail media networks have made a concentrated push into premium video to expand beyond the lower funnel, including through acquisitions, but still have a ways to go in rounding out their sophistication.
That said, advertisers are not paying the premium to safeguard against fraud and improve campaign performance and accountability, the IAB claims.
The trade group, working with partners Advertiser Perceptions and Guideline, identified cost and audience delivery as the leading reasons advertisers decide to reduce or pull spend from a specific streaming platform, with both cited by 47% of buyers to share the No. 1 spot. Brand safety was cited by 41% of buyers, up from 39% last year, while placement transparency landed in last place, cited by 34% versus 29% in 2025.
Along with the bigger spotlight on trust, CTV is evolving in other respects. When selecting the top-five criteria for spending TV and video dollars, 49% of buyers pointed to targeting capabilities, up 10 percentage points over last year’s survey, to overtake content quality in the No.1 slot.
Live digital video, including sports, awards programs and breaking news, is also top of mind, with 93% of buyers believing the category is more valuable than other formats due to superior viewer engagement and the potential to drive business outcomes, such as site traffic. Sports, in particular, dominated the TV upfronts presentations this year, reflecting the popularity of cyclical events like the FIFA World Cup and brands viewing sports as a dependable avenue for engaging consumers at scale.
Still, one-third advertisers do not believe live content justifies its premium price tag. That cohort pointed to gaps in realizing business outcomes, real-time measurement and interactive capabilities.
