Let’s stop calling it a problem. CTV’s “transparency crisis” isn’t a bug — it’s a business model. Big Ad Tech has figured out how to thrive on ambiguity, and no one at the top is rushing to fix it.
Advertisers scream about not knowing where their ads run. Platforms shrug and serve up genre labels and bundled deals. Meanwhile, everyone else — SSPs, agencies, publishers — is too busy counting their commissions to care. Transparency slows things down. Ambiguity keeps margins fat.
If you’re wondering why no one fixes fragmentation, it’s because fragmentation pays.
Everyone Eats — Except the Advertiser
Let’s start with SSPs. These guys get paid whether they fill inventory or not. In what other world do you get a cut just for showing up? Fill rates below 20%? Doesn’t matter. The invoice still lands.
Then there’s the agency world — the original gatekeepers of confusion. If programmatic ever became truly transparent, brands might take it in-house. Agencies know this. So they play nice with platforms, spin complexity into “strategy,” and nod along while buyers ask for data they’ll never get.
Publishers? Don’t even get started. They’ll blame privacy regulations for not telling you which app your ad appeared on, as if GDPR has a clause explicitly banning “Tubi” from being mentioned in a report. The real fear? If advertisers knew which apps performed, they’d cherry-pick, and suddenly, all that “premium” filler content loses its sparkle.
And let’s not forget the bundlers. NBCU slaps Peacock in a deal with their FAST content. Paramount+ gets bundled with Pluto. Coincidence? Hardly. It’s a shell game to prop up underperforming inventory without admitting it.
Advertisers Hold the Power — But Won’t Use It
The irony? Advertisers could shut this all down. They control the budget. They could demand log-level data, pull back on murky buys, and force a reckoning. But most don’t. Why? Because even broken systems deliver enough results to get through Q4 planning without anyone getting fired.
Sure, a few brave buyers are pushing for more direct deals, programmatic transparency, and bypassing SSPs altogether. But until that becomes the rule, not the exception, nothing changes. Media dollars will vanish into the void while platforms promise “genre-level” reporting like a gift.
Skip’s Take
Let’s not sugarcoat it — the CTV transparency game is a hustle. It’s the ad tech version of “don’t look behind the curtain.” Every layer in the stack is incentivized to keep buyers confused just long enough to collect the check.
So what’s the move? Simple: follow the money, cut the fluff, and demand receipts. If your media partner can’t tell you what show your ad ran on, maybe don’t hand them a seven-figure IO.
Because until buyers stop playing nice and start asking real questions, the only thing transparent about CTV will be the excuses.
