The State of CTV Inventory & Impressions in Q1 2024

Fake CTV Inventory is still on the rise and other advertiser benchmarks you need for success in CTV

As ConnectedTV (CTV) continues its dominant ascent - with estimates that it will overtake all over viewing in 2025 - benchmarks for performance, delivery, and safety & suitability are vital for advertisers that want to stay ahead of rapid changes.

Since our Q3 2023 CTV Benchmark, our team continues to manually review sensitive CTV channels, analyze live post-bid campaign impression data, as well as perform a global review of the bid requests seen by Peer39 is Q1 2024.

As CTV Burgeons, So Does Fake Content

With upfront season on the horizon, marketers are looking for more decisioned media on biddable inventory, making the need for better transparency, suitability controls, and insights as important as ever. 

Concerningly, as CTV gets more attention from viewers and advertisers alike, Fake CTV inventory such as screensavers, mobile, wallpapers, and games is also growing - not exactly what CTV buyers expect their ads to run on. 

In the six months since our previous benchmark report, we've recorded a 28% increase in total bid requests originating from Fake CTV content, and observed a similarly sized 27% increase in Fortune 500 advertisers buying this type of inventory in Q1. 

Since Q2 2022, there is a whopping 107% increase in bid requests for Fake CTV content.

With Fake CTV content on the rise, it's important that advertisers are not only aware but have access to suitability controls to keep their campaigns safe.

As the U.S. Presidential Election Gets Closer, Divisive News Heats Up

We categorized 3% of CTV bid requests in Q1 as coming from Divisive News channels and we expect to see this number increase in the coming months. This is supported by the 5x increase of political web content we have observed since January.

• What is Divisive News Content? CTV channels that present and promote divisive news and are not fact-checked or satirical, and are politically biased. These channels can veer into hyperpartisan political programming and even misinformation

When compared to our Q3 2023 CTV Benchmark, we observed an 8% increase in Fortune 500 advertisers on Divisive News content in Q1.

What Time Is It? Introducing Daypart Benchmarks

CTV buyers can access dayparting insights through Peer39's Analytics. The dashboard shows the time periods ads run and compare to these benchmarks to ensure campaigns aren't running excessively overnight.

We found that on average, 11-15% of all impressions run in overnight hours (defined as 1am - 6am).

Protection Against Risks: Peer39's Solutions

• Brand Safety & Suitability: Advertisers can leverage our Safe from CTV categories to avoid the myriad types of content such as Anime or Legal & Military content that might be unsafe. The Fake CTV content category enables advertisers to run on the kind of content that is the CTV content you expect.
• Analytics Dashboards: Use our CTV Analytics Dashboard to get campaign insights on metrics that matter for your CTV campaigns, including Daypart. View performance metrics across key dimensions to determine what targeting to add or remove to maximize your campaign including:
  • Show
  • Channel Category
  • Channel
  • Unsafe Content
  • Fake Content
    

Our quarterly benchmark report arms buyers with data on how to best invest in CTV media and drive results.

Download the Q1 2024 Programmatic CTV Benchmark Report now!