Working Media Benchmark: Programmatic Transparency Tracker

This page tracks one number each quarter: the share of programmatic spend that buys a fraud-free, measurable, viewable impression, as measured by the ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark. It was 36% in the 2023 study and 45.1% in Q2 2026 (ANA via Fiducia, 6 August 2026). Every datapoint below carries its data window, sample size and source.

The ANA series is the only recurring, log-level measurement of the supply chain; one-off studies (ISBA, CMA, Adalytics, eMarketer) sit in a second table for context. Definitions and the fee chain are explained in The Ad Tech Tax 2026.

All figures are the ANA cost waterfall (sequential averages across contributing advertisers) unless marked median. "n/d" means the ANA has not published the figure outside its gated report.

The ANA began reporting higher- and lower-performing cohorts in late 2025. The gap is the most useful number on this page for an individual advertiser, because it shows what the same market yields to buyers with and without control of quality, price and supply.

These are not comparable with the ANA series (different scope, geography and method) and are listed for context. The method differences are explained in The Ad Tech Tax 2026.

What the ANA measures. The benchmark is a joint initiative of the ANA, TAG TrustNet and Fiducia, launched at Cannes on 17 June 2024 to "collect, reconcile, and analyze ANA members' loglevel data to establish supply chain metrics", with aggregated data "released on a quarterly basis" (TAG TrustNet, 17 June 2024). The cost waterfall is "built using sequential calculations based on average data from advertisers where log-level data (LLD) is matched between a DSP and an Ad Verification platform" (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025). Transaction costs are deducted first (DSP platform, DSP data, DSP additional, SSP platform), giving seller revenue; media productivity losses are then deducted (IVT, non-measurable, non-viewable, MFA), giving TrueAdSpend.

What it leaves out. "Agency fees, ad serving fees, managed service fees, and brand safety metrics are not part of the Cost Waterfall" (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025). Seller revenue in this series is therefore higher than the publisher share in ISBA, which included agency fees.

Averages versus medians. The waterfall uses sequential averages; the detailed findings tables use medians per metric, which "should not be compared to the Cost Waterfall" (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025). Where this page quotes a median it says so. Median TrueAdSpend across advertisers in Q3 2025 was 68.8%, against the 39.0% waterfall figure, because the median is calculated per metric from a base of 100% rather than in sequence (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025).

CTV changed the series. The 2023 study was web and mobile only. CTV was partly in the Q4 2024 data at 27.9% of spend and fully in from Q1 2025 at 30.4%, rising to 45.6% in Q3 2025 (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025; ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025). The Q1 2025 report attributes the fall from 43.9% to 41.0% primarily to "the inclusion of CTV in this report, with 3.8 and 3.5 percentage-point increases in non-measurable and non-viewable ad spending respectively", partly offset by a 3.7-point fall in transaction costs (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025). From Q2 2025 the ANA publishes a web-and-mobile series alongside the all-environment one (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025).

Sample and selection. Participants are ANA members who have asked their suppliers for log access; contributors are those who were granted it. In 2025 the count was 39 and 21 to 23 (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025); in Q1 2026 it was 86 and 66 (ANA, 27 May 2026). Spend analyzed was $142 million to $242 million per report, against a global open-web market the ANA sizes at $104 billion for 2024 and $123 billion for 2025 on Madison and Wall estimates (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025; ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025). The sample is large advertisers who fought for their logs, not the whole market; the "waste" dollar figures ($22 billion in 2023, $26.8 billion in Q2 2025, $13.6 billion "recovered" by Q3 2025) are extrapolations from it (ANA, December 2023; Measured, 15 August 2025; ANA, 5 November 2025).

Third-party inputs. MFA classification comes from DeepSee.io and carbon from Good-Loop (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025); a change in either, or in the MRC-based viewability standard the verification vendors apply, would break the series.

Index versus percentage. The ANA reports the TrueAdSpend Index both as a number (36.2, 43.9) and as a percentage (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025); they are the same quantity. This page uses percentages.

What we could not obtain. The ANA's report pages are gated. The Q4 2025 market-level figure appears in no press release or partner post we could find; the ANA says only that in Q1 2026 "overall efficiency has rebounded" after "Q4 2025's volatility" (ANA, 1 June 2026). Q1 and Q2 2026 sample sizes and the Q2 2026 seller revenue line are also not public; those cells are n/d, not estimated.

Compare your own waterfall to the all-environment series if you buy CTV, or to the web-and-mobile series if you do not. If you cannot build your own waterfall, that is the first finding: the method is in The Ad Tech Tax 2026, the contract terms are in the DSP RFP template and the Microsoft Invest playbook, and the fee lines are in DSP Pricing Explained 2026. If your TrueAdSpend sits near the lower cohort (31.1% in Q2 2026), note that the lower cohort's CPM was actually lower ($6.55 against $7.90), so the gap is quality and supply, not price (ANA via Fiducia, 6 August 2026). Operating levers: 12 ad tech cost optimization strategies; agency-side controls: Executive actions on rebates and kickbacks.

The Q3 2026 release, expected in November 2026 on the timing of the Q3 2025 release of 5 November 2025 (ANA, 5 November 2025), will show whether 45.1% was a peak or a step. Three things could move it. Pricing: the ANA flagged rising CPMs in Q2 2026, and ExchangeWire's September 2026 reading of the series was a chain that is cleaner but not cheaper (ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026). Participation: a larger, less self-selected sample could lower the average. Supply: the SSP fee line fell from 14.7% to 12.8% between Q2 and Q3 2025 on supply path optimization (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025); whether that continues as curation grows is open. The case for owning the data behind these numbers is in The real cost of cloud DSPs and data ownership and why brands are bringing programmatic in-house; the in-house programmatic hub collects the series.

What is the ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark? A quarterly measurement of where programmatic spend goes, built from advertisers' own impression-level logs matched between their DSPs and verification vendors, run by the ANA with TAG TrustNet and Fiducia since June 2024 (TAG TrustNet, 17 June 2024). Participants get confidential monthly metrics; the aggregated results are published quarterly. It follows the ANA's 2023 one-off study (ANA, December 2023).

What is TrueAdSpend? "The ad spending going to TrueImpressions", where a TrueImpression is "non-IVT, measurable for viewability, and viewable" (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025). It is the share of each dollar left after transaction costs and media productivity losses. It was 45.1% in Q2 2026 (ANA via Fiducia, 6 August 2026).

Why did working media fall in Q1 and Q2 2025? Mainly because connected TV entered the data. CTV rose from 27.9% of reviewed spend in Q4 2024 to 30.4% in Q1 2025 and 44.2% in Q2 2025, and CTV impressions were less measurable and less viewable by the web standard, which outweighed a fall in transaction costs (ANA Benchmark, Q1 2025; ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025). The web-and-mobile series kept rising, to 47.1% in Q3 2025 (ANA, 5 November 2025).

How does the ANA number compare with ISBA and the CMA? It does not, directly. ISBA measured the share reaching publishers (51% in 2020) including agency fees and an unknown delta (ISBA, May 2020); the CMA measured the same thing from vendor fee data (about 65% in 2019) (CMA, Appendix R, 1 July 2020); the ANA's nearest equivalent is seller revenue (76.2% in Q3 2025) which excludes agency fees, and it then goes further to remove wasted impressions (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025).

How can I benchmark my own campaigns? Obtain impression-level logs from your DSP and verification vendor, match them, and compute transaction costs, seller revenue and TrueAdSpend in the ANA's sequence; then compare with the row for the same quarter above. ANA members can join the benchmark directly (TAG TrustNet, 17 June 2024). The ANA found that only 21 of 39 participating marketers had been granted log access by their suppliers in Q3 2025 (ANA Benchmark, Q3 2025), so the first step is usually contractual.

1. Fiducia, "ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark: Q2 2026 Working-Media Efficiency Reaches a Record 45%" (ANA release of 6 August 2026). https://www.fiducia.eco/post/ana-programmatic-transparency-benchmark-q2-2026-working-media-efficiency-reaches-a-record-45
2. ANA, "Programmatic Transparency Benchmark: Q2 2026 Benchmark Findings" (26 August 2026, gated). https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2026-08-programmatic-transparency-benchmark-q2
3. ANA, Research Reports index (entries dated 1 June 2026 and 26 August 2026; accessed 17 October 2026). https://www.ana.net/magazines/index/id/survey-reports
4. ANA, "ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark Reveals Widening Gap Between Top and Bottom Advertisers" (27 May 2026). https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/pr-2026-05-programmatic
5. ANA, "ANA Introduces Brand Safety & Suitability Metrics, Achieves 99.1% Low-Risk Programmatic Spend" (5 November 2025). https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/pr-2025-11-transparency
6. ANA and TAG TrustNet, "Programmatic Transparency Benchmark: Q3 2025 Benchmark Findings" (November 2025). https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.mediapost.com/uploads/Q32025ProgrammaticTransparencyBenchmark.pdf
7. ANA and TAG TrustNet, "Programmatic Transparency Benchmark: Q1 2025 Benchmark Findings" (data to 31 March 2025). https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.mediapost.com/uploads/ANAQ12025Programmatic.pdf
8. Measured, "ANA Finds $26.8B in Programmatic Waste: What Marketers Can Do Now" (15 August 2025). https://www.measured.com/blog/ana-finds-26-8b-in-programmatic-waste-what-marketers-can-do-now/
9. ANA, "ANA Releases 2024 Programmatic Benchmark Study" (12 December 2024). https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/pr-2024-12-programmatic
10. ANA, "Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study: Complete Report" (December 2023). https://www.adslot.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ana-programmatic-media-supply-chain-transparency-study.pdf
11. TAG TrustNet, "Research and Findings" (accessed 17 October 2026). https://www.tagtrust.net/insights
12. TAG TrustNet, "ANA, TAG TrustNet Launch Programmatic Transparency Benchmark" (17 June 2024). https://www.tagtoday.net/pressreleases/ana-tag-trustnet-launch-programmatic-transparency-benchmark
13. ISBA and PwC, "Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study, executive summary" (May 2020). https://www.isba.org.uk/system/files/media/documents/2020-12/executive-summary-programmatic-supply-chain-transparency-study.pdf
14. ISBA, "Second programmatic supply chain transparency study" (18 January 2023). https://www.isba.org.uk/knowledge/second-programmatic-supply-chain-transparency-study
15. UK Competition and Markets Authority, "Appendix R: fees in the adtech stack" (1 July 2020). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fe49625e90e071207e10eff/Appendix_R_-_fees_in_the_adtech_stack_WEB.pdf
16. Adalytics, "How much in fees are ad tech companies charging publishers & advertisers?" (April 2022). https://adalytics.io/blog/adtech-supply-fees
17. eMarketer, "eMarketer's New Ad Tech Tax Estimates Show One-Third of Spending Goes to Intermediaries" (August 2019). https://www.emarketer.com/content/emarketer-s-new-ad-tech-tax-estimates-show-one-third-of-spending-goes-to-intermediaries
18. AdExchanger, "eMarketer: Ad Tech Gets A Tax Cut As Programmatic Fees Decline" (5 August 2019). https://www.adexchanger.com/analysts/emarketer-ad-tech-gets-a-tax-cut-as-programmatic-fees-decline/
19. ExchangeWire, Shirley Marschall, "The Ad Tech Toll Road" (16 September 2026). https://www.exchangewire.com/blog/2026/09/16/the-ad-tech-toll-road/

• 18 October 2026: aligned the title and heading and applied recorded source-URL corrections where needed. Factual research cutoff remains 17 October 2026.

• 17 October 2026. First edition. ANA series from the 2023 study to Q2 2026 (eight rows, Q4 2025 market-level n/d), cohort-gap table (three rows), seven non-ANA datapoints 2017 to 2023. Next review 1 December 2026 for the ANA Q3 2026 release.