Our Take
The stat is alarming but comes from an industry roundtable sponsored by a measurement vendor with a financial interest in solving this exact problem.
Why it matters
CTV ad spend continues growing while basic attribution remains broken, forcing marketers to buy media blind in a channel that demands premium pricing.
Do this week
Media buyers: audit your CTV campaigns this week to identify which inventory sources provide app-level transparency before Q1 budget planning.
Measurement chaos defines CTV advertising
Connected TV advertisers cannot identify which apps their ads run on 40% of the time when buying programmatically (per TVision's CEO Yan Liu). For the remaining 60%, advertisers still lack visibility into which specific shows carry their ads.
The transparency problem stems from fragmented measurement approaches across the CTV ecosystem. Walled gardens measure themselves, linear TV relies on Nielsen, and open internet CTV platforms fall somewhere between with inconsistent standards.
Viant recently acquired TVision, a company that uses cameras to track CTV engagement through eye tracking and room occupancy detection. The acquisition positions Viant to offer what COO Chris Vanderhook called "a unified, independent measurement system" that marketers want but currently lack.
Supply-side opacity blocks effective scaling
The measurement gap creates operational problems for both buyers and sellers. Spark Foundry's SVP Jen Duensing emphasized that scaling CTV campaigns requires transparency into supplier data and inventory sources. Without clear attribution, advertisers cannot optimize or replicate successful placements.
Publishers compound the problem by obscuring supply details while pushing audience-based buying. Marriott International's Elizabeth Latham argued publishers need to balance transparency about their actual inventory with their "buy the audience, not the supply" value proposition.
Creative strategy suffers when advertisers cannot match ad tone to content context. Vanderhook noted that attention levels increase when creative aligns with show content, but this optimization requires knowing where ads actually appear.
Demand inventory transparency from partners
The current state forces marketers to rely more heavily on creative execution since media attribution remains unreliable. Chobani's David Isaac recommended focusing on authentic messaging that creates genuine viewer connection rather than chasing impression metrics.
Molson Coors' Anna Johnson described segmenting audiences by drinking behavior and category engagement to deliver relevant messages despite placement uncertainty. This approach treats creative as the primary optimization lever when media transparency fails.
For immediate action, buyers should audit existing CTV partnerships to identify which demand-side platforms and supply sources provide app-level and show-level reporting. The 40% blind spot (company-reported) represents wasted optimization opportunities that competitors may already be capturing through more transparent inventory sources.