Big question
How much of the money you commit buys an impression a person could have seen?
The position
You cannot answer it from any platform report. Buy the right to log-level records at renewal, and price on quality-adjusted cost rather than on the quoted CPM or a working media percentage.
Why it is live
Several layers take a cut before a pound reaches an auction, and the plan carries no field that records it. The ANA found a wide gap between leading and lagging buyers in the share of spend reaching qualified impressions, then reported renewed price pressure in its Q2 2026 benchmark on 26 August 2026.
The case for it being knowable
Trade reportedAdvertisers who obtained log-level records have produced the number, and a trade body now publishes a benchmark it can be read against.
The case against
UnknowableFees are taken in at least six places, most contracts carry no right to the records, no platform report has the field, and settling it needs a fee audit rather than an experiment.
Where the weight sits
Against, for almost everybody. This is a contracting problem rather than a measurement problem, and the small number of advertisers who solved it solved it at renewal.
What would change this
A large advertiser publishing a fee audit run on log-level records, or a competition authority ordering fee disclosure as a remedy.
Where this is taught
Programmatic
Sources
- ANA programmatic transparency study Q1 2026, 27 May 2026secondary
- ANA programmatic transparency benchmark Q2 2026, 26 Aug 2026secondary