What Counts: Hard Truths About Streaming, Digital Ad Fraud, and Making Good Impressions

Fresh off moderating a panel at Possible 2026 called quotStreaming Won Now Whatquot he took the guest seat himself on an Insider Interviews episode captured during the Miami conference to explain how adsupported streaming specifically wonAdsupported streaming won Full stopThe adfree era is effectively over he says More than half of new streaming subscriptions are to adsupported tiers And free adsupported television FAST such as platforms like Pluto Tubi and Roku is growing and increasingly the consumer goto especially with sports and news now appearing regularly on streaming platforms Even viewers paying for ostensibly adfree tiers are seeing ads if they39re watching live sports Today 95 of CTV viewers see ads on their home screen before they even select contentquotIt39s not even necessarily about the platform There39s a lot of thirst for content and the content that they want to seeamp8221 he says amp8220People want to be able to pick their content diet and that obviously lends itself to a lot more advertising inventoryquotTo maximize the effectiveness of that inventory Wiese welcomes the industry39s shift away from demographicbased buying and toward datadriven audiencebased programmatic approaches Firstparty data and quality thirdparty sources offer amp8220a good benchmark to understand impressions and who you39re reachingamp8221That part is going in the right direction But two things can be true Wiese then brought up a phrase he uses that stopped the conversation cold quotcrisis of realityquotThe Illusions of the InternetThe reality check is the framing behind a recent VAB report The Illusions of the Internet which identifies 20 hard truths across four components of the digital ecosystem audiences advertising inventory products and services and contentThe numbers from the audience component alone warrant attention Fiftyone percent of internet traffic is nonhuman Of that 37 is malicious bots engaged in website spoofing device spoofing fake clicks and fraudulent apps quotAnd in the age of AIquot Wiese notes quotthat number is only going to go higherquotSocially speaking according to Wiese who is a savant for saving numbers in his head one in ten Instagram profiles is fake In 2024 Facebook banned 43 billion accounts more than its entire active monthly user base of three billion And because Facebook operates on not a amp8220three strikes but an 8to32strikesamp8221 policy before banning an account the real number of problematic accounts is likely considerably higherOn the advertising inventory side global ad fraud reached an estimated 111 billion last year representing roughly 22 of total digital ad spend That figure is projected to climb to 172 billion by 2028 Mobile is particularly exposed with ad fraud estimated at approximately 30 of mobile ad spendThen there is the transparency question Wiese points to Alphabet39s 10K filing which includes 45 billion in what he characterizes as quotundefined platformsquot a figure larger than the global ad spend for print outofhome or radio combined It encompasses Google Network partnerships that offer buyers no visibility into where their ads actually run as well as revenue categorized under quotsearch and otherquot quotThis comes back to a lack of transparency with buyersquot Wiese says plainlyThe Case for Premium VideoThe antidote to opacity in Wiese39s framework is premium video which he is precise in defining by VAB standards because vagueness has historically allowed it to mean very little Their fivepillar definition requires premium be professionally produced longform content emotional engagement and high attention a brandsafe environment crossplatform accessibility and transparent ad placementsShortform video can meet the bar but everything must ladder up to performance transparency and brand safety quotIf you39re not delivering that we don39t consider you premium videoquotBack to making good and bad impressions quite literally the practical implication for media buyers is equally direct not all impressions are equal and some are worse than neutral quotA bad ad environment can devalue a brandquot Wiese says quotIt39s not even a flatline thing It devalues a brandquot The value of an impression comes down to content context viewer experience and the quality of the ad environment a framework that holds whether you39re evaluating a 30second spot or a shortform placementA Note on AIWiese is not antiAI The twoletter acronym amp8220should never be a fourletter wordquot he says quotAt its best it makes life efficient and allows you to do a lot more strategic workquot But he raises a concern that deserves wider attention in media planning circles AI tools and large language models have an inherent bias toward digital platforms simply because digital data is more visible and more abundant in the models Traditional media including video is underrepresentedThe implication for marketers using AI to develop media allocations and recommendations is significant An AIgenerated media plan may not be wrong but it may be systematically skewed and a planner who accepts it without applying their own knowledge their client39s objectives and a healthy dose of skepticism is leaving real value on the table quotUse it as a starting point a guide a benchmarkquot Wiese advises quotBut bring in your own experience and intelligence to fully shape what the allocation should really bequotThe throughline across the entire conversation is the same the numbers matter but only if they39re real transparent and measuring the right things In a media environment where 51 of traffic isn39t human and 45 billion sits in an undefined column of a major platform39s annual report that standard is worth holdingJason Wiese39s research and insights are available at thevabcom This conversation was recorded as part of the POV Possible miniseries of Insider Interviews captured at POSSIBLE 2026 in MiamiPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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What Counts: Hard Truths About Streaming, Digital Ad Fraud, and Making Good Impressions

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E.B. Moss

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