The latest numbers from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) are in and they paint a sobering picture for marketers investing heavily in programmatic media.
According to the ANA’s Q2 2025 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark Report, waste in programmatic ad spend has climbed 34% in just two years, reaching a staggering $26.8 billion in inefficient ad spend.
This number is up from $20 billion in 2023.
For all the progress the industry has made on transparency, supply path optimization, and cleaning up “made-for-advertising” (MFA) inventory, programmatic buying still has a massive efficiency gap. And as the ANA’s own data shows, while certain problem areas like MFA have been dramatically reduced, other inefficiencies are eating into media productivity faster than they can be recaptured.
The Real Cost of Programmatic Inefficiency
The ANA’s data shows troubling trends:
- Loss of media productivity has risen. In Q2 2025, it accounted for 37.8% of spend inefficiency, up from 32.9% in Q1.
- Transaction costs remain stubbornly high, consistently above 25% of total spend.
- The TrueAdSpend Index dropped from 41.0 in Q1 to 37.0 in Q2, a sign that fewer of the dollars flowing into programmatic are turning into actual working media.
- TrueCPM Delta, the gap between what you pay per thousand impressions (CPM) and the cost per thousand true impressions, remains high at 36.5% in Q2.
What does this mean in plain terms? Even as marketers are buying more premium inventory and increasing Connected TV (CTV) programmatic investment, a significant portion of every programmatic dollar never reaches a real, engaged audience. The sheer scale of that loss should make every performance-focused marketer sit up and take note.
Why This Problem Persists
Some inefficiency is structural. The programmatic supply chain is complex, and not every player is adding value proportionate to their cost. Some of it comes from targeting inefficiencies, over-reliance on historical platform-reported metrics, and an inability to quickly measure and optimize toward actual business outcomes.
The bottom line: too many marketers are optimizing to proxy metrics like CTR or platform-attributed conversions without knowing if those touchpoints caused any incremental business impact.
As a result, budgets continue to flow toward channels, formats, or audiences that may look good on paper but fail to deliver genuine growth.
How Incrementality Testing Closes the Gap
Incrementality testing gives marketers a way to break this cycle. By running controlled experiments, such as geo-based holdouts, marketers can directly measure the true lift driven by a campaign or tactic. Instead of relying on correlation-heavy attribution or “last-click” logic, you see exactly what portion of your spend generated results that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
When incrementality test results are fed into a Causal Media Mix Model (MMM), they become the foundation for smarter optimization:
- Identify waste in real time: Know which programmatic buys are driving incremental results and which are simply taking credit for organic or non-paid conversions.
- Reallocate to high-return tactics: Move budget toward placements, formats, and audiences that have proven incremental lift.
- Calibrate platform-reported metrics: Adjust inflated KPIs down to their actual business contribution, so you’re optimizing to reality, not reporting bias.
Applying This to Programmatic
Imagine applying ANA’s waste lens directly to your own programmatic mix, not just knowing where inefficiency exists broadly, but pinpointing exactly which buys in your portfolio are failing to produce incremental returns.
Here’s how it plays out:
- Run geo-based tests on your largest programmatic tactics such as CTV, display retargeting, open exchange buys to isolate true lift.
- Feed those results into your Causal MMM to recalibrate the contribution of each channel, including untested ones, based on real-world performance.
- Optimize weekly instead of quarterly, shifting dollars toward the highest verified ROI opportunities.
In practice, brands using this approach often find that certain high-cost programmatic buys produce little to no incremental revenue, while other undervalued segments (e.g., certain CTV deals or curated PMPs) quietly outperform.
Redirecting just 5–10% of programmatic spend based on these insights can reclaim millions in wasted budget.
Beyond Waste Reduction to Continuous Optimization
The ANA’s new “Online Benchmark” tool aims to help marketers spot inefficiencies faster. That’s a step forward, but data access alone doesn’t guarantee better results. The real advantage comes from pairing that transparency with an always-on measurement system grounded in causal proof.
Measured’s incrementality testing and Causal MMM methodology does exactly that:
- Weekly model refreshes ensure your spend allocations reflect the latest performance data, pricing shifts, and market changes.
- Granular optimization recommendations show exactly where to cut waste and where to double down.
- CFO-ready reporting links your programmatic investments to incremental revenue, not just impressions or clicks.
The Takeaway for CMOs and Media Leaders
The ANA’s latest report confirms what many marketers already suspect: waste is still a massive drag on programmatic ROI, and the problem isn’t going away on its own. But unlike in years past, you’re not powerless to fix it.
By embedding incrementality testing into your programmatic measurement and optimization workflow, you can:
- Quantify and cut waste at the tactic level
- Reinvest savings into proven growth drivers
- Turn programmatic from a black box into a transparent, high-performance channel.
When billions are being lost industry-wide, the brands that master this approach will gain a competitive edge, not by spending more, but by spending smarter. Get in touch with a Measured expert today.