New research from Peer39 shows signal poverty, not scale, is the core issue holding CTV back
The rapid growth of connected TV has outpaced the signals required to support effective optimization, accountability, and performance. So CTV scale will hit a ceiling unless buyers adopt reliable program-level signals. That’s the main conclusion from the data in the new industry report Peer39 released today, “How CTV Transparency Is Dragging Down Performance.”
CTV’s troubles came about because automation ramped up before anyone knew what was actually onscreen. When content is invisible or mislabeled, performance signals collapse.”
— Peer39 CEO Mario Diez
As CTV budgets accelerated away from linear television, automation moved in before the ecosystem had established consistent, program-level visibility. In the absence of reliable content signals, buyers leaned on proxies such as app names, Deal IDs, and completion rates, creating an illusion of control that masked growing structural risk.
“CTV’s troubles don’t stem from bad tools or bad actors,” said Peer39 CEO Mario Diez. “They came about because automation ramped up before anyone knew what was actually onscreen. When content is invisible or mislabeled, performance signals collapse.”
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Peer39’s analysis shows that approximately 60% of CTV bid requests contain no usable program-level data. More than 25% of open-exchange CTV supply is “Fake CTV”: inventory that is sold as CTV content, but appears on mobile, wallpaper, screensavers, or utility apps for televisions.
The report details how:
* App-level buying and curated deals hide content variability and risk
* Completion rate is a misleading proxy for quality and attention
* Fake CTV thrives in signal-poor environments, often delivering ‘perfect’ completion amid little to no engagement
Program-level authentication dramatically reduces risk and improves performance outcomes
Using Peer39’s industrywide benchmarks and campaign data, the report demonstrates that authenticated CTV environments closely resemble traditional television, in that they are dominated by professionally produced drama, news, comedy, and reality programming. Unauthenticated supply, on the other hand, drives spending on filler content, mobile-app leakage, and misclassified inventory.
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Crucially, the findings challenge the assumption that quality requires higher cost. The report heart5highlights how buyers using program-level pre-bid signals increase scale, reduce effective CPMs, and outperform curated private marketplace strategies by removing opaque layers.
“How CTV Transparency Is Dragging Down Performance” offers practical remedies for buyers and publishers, including transparency audits, rethinking publisher deal structures, adopting “no tech, no buy” standards for open-exchange CTV, and redefining success metrics around authenticated reach rather than completion rate alone.
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