Streaming executives demand linear-style ad standards as CTV measurement gap persists

The immediate pressure to replicate linear ad standards reflects a critical maturation phase for CTV; advertisers will not fully commit budgets if basic controls like frequency capping and competitive exclusion remain unreliable. For the broader ecosystem, this signals a shift toward technical consolidation where interoperability between proprietary and third-party ad tech becomes a competitive necessity. As streaming inventory scales via FAST and AVOD, the lack of a holistic measurement view across these varied environments threatens to cap total market growth. Watch for whether emerging attribution standards can solve the 'walled garden' problem where purchase data is siloed between device manufacturers and publishers.

The push for standardized CTV measurement comes as global ad spend on the medium is projected to rise 10.7% throughout 2024, surpassing $1 trillion for the first time, according to WARC data from late 2023. This growth is increasingly driven by the entry of major players like Netflix and Amazon into the ad-supported space. Despite the influx of capital, fragmentation remains a significant pain point; per Mediaocean's 2025 H2 Market Report, over half of marketers cite a lack of cross-channel visibility and data silos as their primary hurdles in CTV investment.

Recent standard-setting efforts by the Media Rating Council (MRC) illustrate the ongoing technical struggle. In early 2026, the MRC updated its Digital Advertising Auction Transparency Standards to better address outcomes and attribution. Furthermore, an April 2025 report from Innovid found that while CTV impressions grew 18% year-over-year, the average campaign reach remained under 20% of households, largely due to inefficient frequency management. Advertisers are increasingly looking for 'cross-publisher capping'—a capability that prevents the same ad from appearing repeatedly to one household across different streaming apps, a common viewer complaint that erodes brand value.

By mid-2025, EMARKETER forecast that US CTV ad spending would exceed $33 billion, representing nearly 10% of all digital ad spend. This scale is forcing a move away from the 'spray and pray' tactics of early digital video toward high-engagement formats like interactive shoppable ads and QR code overlays, which Innovid notes can drive 71 seconds of additional earned time compared to standard pre-roll spots. As the industry moves toward 2026, the focus is shifting from simple impression counting to multi-touch attribution (MTA) and market mix modeling (MMM) to prove the direct impact of CTV spend on lower-funnel conversions.