• Report: Global Programmatic CTV Ad Spending More Than Doubled in Q4 ’20

    Global programmatic CTV ad spending increased 2.2x from Q1 ’20 to Q4 ’20, according to the new CTV Ad Supply Trends Report from Pixalate, an ad fraud and marketing compliance platform. Pixalate estimates that 78% of U.S. households were reachable with programmatic CTV ads in Q4 ’20, up from 50% in Q4 ’19.  Separate, eMarketer has said that programmatic CTV ad spending in the U.S. was $4.36 billion in 2020 and will jump to $6.73 billion in 2021.

    Geographically, Latin America experienced the fastest growth in programmatic CTV ad spending in 2020, up 317% from Q1 to Q4. North America was next (up 123%), followed by Asia-Pacific (up 106%) and EMEA (up 56%).

    Roku had 46% of programmatic TV ads in Q4 ’20, far outpacing all other devices. Samsung followed with 11%, then Apple (9%), Amazon (8%), Vizio (4%) and Chromecast (2%). The total number of CTV apps with programmatic ads was up 11% during 2020. The number of apps in Roku that support programmatic ads was up 47% during the year, while those in Amazon Fire TV were up 13%.

    Hulu was the top app in Roku in Q4 ’20 for programmatic ads, followed by Sling TV, Pluto, Tubi and FilmRise. In Fire TV, Sling TV was the top app for programmatic ads, followed by Tubi, Pluto, Fawesome and Crackle.

    CTV ad fraud, or Invalid Traffic “IVT,” rates were in a range from a low of 19% in Q2 ’20 to a high of 24% in Q4 ’20. IVT is defined per the MRC as traffic that does not meet certain ad serving quality or completeness criteria, or otherwise does not represent legitimate ad traffic that should be included in measurement counts.”

    The Pixalate report is drawn from programmatic ad activity across 300 million plus CTV and OTT devices and 30,000 programmatic supported CTV apps, from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020. The data sets used are predominantly open auction programmatic traffic sources.

    More data is available in the full report which is available for complimentary download.