CTV Programmatic: Driving Trust and Transparency in a Fast-Growing Market

Things are moving (pardon the pun) FAST in CTV programmatic advertising. Total spend topped $21 billion in 2023, representing roughly 4x growth over the last five years.

But if we want to ensure those ad dollars translate into outcomes, we collectively need to slow down and make time to proactively address fraud and transparency concerns before they get worse.

Media-buying platforms should be aggressively validating impressions before bids are placed. Advertisers can do their part by asking a simple—but tough—question:

How do you know your impressions are reaching the right (real) people?

Rapid Growth in CTV Is Driving Increased Fraud Risk

With double-digit growth every year, CTV ad spend is outpacing every other major ad format and now accounts for one in 10 U.S. ad dollars, according to eMarketer. A full 90% of that spend is programmatic.

As we’ve seen across other programmatic formats, fraud follows the dollars.

• DoubleVerify reports CTV bot fraud is growing 69% year-over-year
• Pixalate found nearly 1 in 5 CTV ad impressions are invalid traffic (IVT)

This surge highlights a critical issue: impression quality and ad fraud are becoming major risks in CTV programmatic advertising.

The Bigger Question: How Are You Validating Impressions?

Bot fraud is only part of a larger challenge around CTV impression validation.

This is not a single-fault issue – it’s a byproduct of the fast-moving, fast-growing programmatic ecosystem.

The current reality:

• Media-buying platforms are moving quickly to maximize bidding efficiency
• Advertisers are often relying on post-campaign validation
• Fraud and wasted spend are identified after budgets are already spent

This reactive approach to ad verification creates unnecessary risk and inefficiency.

Why Pre-Bid Validation Matters in Programmatic CTV

Media-buying platforms, in their push for speed and scale, too often fail to authenticate impressions before bidding.

Meanwhile, advertisers working with third-party verification vendors are often stuck in a “wait-and-see” model, where:

• Fraudulent impressions are detected too late
• Irrelevant audiences are identified post-campaign
• Ad dollars are already lost

Validation should happen before the bid—not after the spend.

Media-Buying Platforms Must Lead with Proactive Validation

Third-party validation plays a critical role in CTV fraud detection and brand safety. But it shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of advertisers.

Media-buying platforms must take the lead.

These partners have a responsibility to ensure that ad dollars are spent:

• Responsibly
• Ethically
• Effectively

They should be:

• Proactively authenticating impressions pre-bid
• Leveraging fraud detection partners and data signals
• Improving targeting accuracy and audience quality

Advertisers Can Drive Industry Accountability

For better or worse, economics fuel the ethics of the digital advertising ecosystem.

Advertisers play a key role in shaping the future of programmatic CTV transparency by:

• Demanding proof of impression validity
• Prioritizing partners with fraud prevention programs
• Investing in platforms that deliver real, addressable audiences

Those with additional resources should implement third-party validation as a second layer of protection.

Strong media-buying platforms will see this not as a threat—but as an opportunity to:

• Collaborate
• Improve outcomes
• Build trust

Learning from History: Unlocking the Full Potential of CTV

The trajectory of CTV programmatic advertising mirrors the evolution of other digital channels:

• Rapid growth
• Early hype
• Delayed accountability

Without pressure to deliver transparency and performance, inefficiencies can quickly become the norm.

Today, advertisers face a familiar reality:

Nearly 20% of CTV ad spend is wasted—most just don’t know which 20%.

A Critical Moment for CTV Programmatic Advertising

We are at a pivotal moment.

CTV programmatic spend is set to surge even further. But growth without accountability risks undermining its full potential.

To move forward, the industry must commit to:

• Proactive fraud detection
• Pre-bid impression validation
• Greater transparency across the supply chain

Advertisers and ad tech partners must work together to ensure:

The right ads reach the right people—real people—every time.

Originally published in AdExchanger