Working media

Working media is the portion of an advertiser's programmatic budget that pays for the impressions actually delivered to consumers, after platform fees, data and verification fees, and waste are removed; the ANA reports it as the share of each dollar entering a DSP that reaches the publisher and the consumer.

The ANA's Programmatic Transparency Benchmark, as reported by ExchangeWire, found that of one dollar entering a DSP in 2024, 43.9% reached the consumer, 29.8% went to transaction costs and 26.3% was lost to "media productivity," meaning impressions that were non-viewable, invalid or on made-for-advertising sites; the Q2 2026 quarterly benchmark put working media at 45.1% (ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026). The ISBA and PwC audit in the UK found 15% of spend unaccounted for in 2020 and 3% still unresolved in 2022 (ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026).

Working media is the number an in-house programmatic team is judged on. Raising it means fewer intermediaries (SPO), direct deals and PMPs, log-level data to audit fees, and inclusion lists to cut waste. It is also the number behind the build-or-rent decision: a stack that takes no fee on media changes the denominator. The quarterly figure is tracked on our working media benchmark page.

Example: an advertiser's $1 million programmatic budget at 45.1% working media buys $451,000 of viewable, valid impressions; at 60%, reached by cutting two resellers and a data vendor, the same budget buys $600,000.

Related: ad tech tax, take rate, SPO, log-level data.

Source: ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark (2024 and Q2 2026 figures) as reported by ExchangeWire (16 September 2026).

1. ExchangeWire, 16 September 2026