Connected television advertising has become one of the fastest-growing channels in digital media, but it is also one of the most complicated to navigate. A new Digiday+ Research report released this week takes stock of where marketers stand with ad-supported streaming in 2026, and the picture is mixed: opportunity is massive, but execution is hard.

The Platforms Marketers Are Watching

YouTube continues to dominate the CTV conversation. The platform has moved beyond measuring pure reach and is now being evaluated on what it can deliver across the full funnel. Advertisers use it for awareness campaigns as well as direct response, and many report treating it as a hybrid channel rather than a traditional TV replacement.

Peacock has gained ground among brands looking for premium inventory at scale. The NBCUniversal platform has been building its ad-supported tier steadily, and the 2026 numbers show it becoming a regular part of media plans rather than an experimental add-on. Roku remains a top choice for reaching household-level audiences, particularly in the living room environment where programmatic buying has matured.

The fragmentation problem, however, has not gone away. Marketers still face the challenge of managing multiple platforms with different measurement standards, different audience data, and different creative requirements. There is no universal currency for CTV impressions, and that creates friction at every stage of the planning and buying process.

What Advertisers Say Is Broken

Three challenges come up repeatedly in the Digiday+ Research survey of over 200 marketing leaders:

Measurement is the top complaint. Advertisers say they cannot reliably compare performance across platforms because each one reports differently. Some count a viewable impression differently than others. Some share attribution data while others keep it behind a wall. Getting a consistent picture across YouTube, Peacock, Roku, and the rest of the field requires significant manual effort and often third-party analytics tools that add cost and complexity.

Cost follows close behind. CTV advertising has become more expensive as demand has increased. The CPMs on premium inventory have risen faster than the overall market, and marketers are finding that testing small budgets on new platforms is no longer cheap. The economics that made CTV attractive to brands a few years ago have shifted, and advertisers are rethinking how they allocate spend across channels.

Budget allocation rounds out the top three. Many marketing teams entered 2026 with a specific CTV budget, only to find that the actual cost of executing their plan exceeded expectations. Some have moved spend back to linear TV. Others are holding off on CTV investments until there is more clarity on pricing and measurement.

AI in CTV: Slow Adoption Despite the Hype

One of the more striking findings in the report is how little AI has penetrated CTV buying workflows. Only a small fraction of surveyed marketers said they are using AI tools to optimize their CTV campaigns in real time. Most are still relying on human planners and buyers to make decisions, and the automated tools available through DSPs have not yet lived up to the promises made by technology vendors.

The hesitation comes from a lack of trust in the data. AI optimization only works when the underlying data is clean and comprehensive, and CTV data is neither. Audience segments vary in quality across platforms, and there is no standard way to connect a household identifier to an actual purchase outcome. Until that problem is solved, AI will remain a supporting tool rather than a primary decision-maker in CTV campaigns.

There are bright spots. Some advertisers have built custom measurement frameworks that combine CTV data with first-party customer data from their own databases. These hybrid approaches allow them to see how CTV exposure correlates with downstream conversions, even if the path is not always clean. But these solutions require significant investment and technical expertise, putting them out of reach for smaller brands.

Where the Market Goes From Here

The direction of travel is clear. More inventory will be sold through programmatic pipes. More measurement will happen through connected dashboards that pull data from multiple platforms. And more brands will treat CTV as a performance channel rather than purely a brand awareness vehicle.

The timeline is less clear. The structural issues in CTV advertising, particularly around measurement standardization and data portability, will take years to resolve. In the meantime, marketers need to make decisions with imperfect information, which favors those with strong testing frameworks and flexible budgets.

The platforms that win in this environment will be the ones that make life easier for advertisers. Simplifying the buying process, providing transparent reporting, and offering clear audience guarantees will go further than adding new features or expanding inventory volumes. The era of complexity as a barrier to entry is ending, and the platforms that recognize that shift earliest will capture the most budget.

The platforms themselves are aware of the problem and are investing in solutions. YouTube has rolled out cross-screen attribution tools that connect TV ad exposure to conversions on other devices. Peacock has been building brand lift studies that measure ad recall and purchase intent rather than relying on direct response metrics. Roku has introduced a clean room product that lets advertisers match their own customer data against Roku's household-level audience segments without sharing raw data.

For brands looking to navigate the CTV landscape more effectively, the path forward requires a combination of smart testing, realistic budgeting, and a willingness to demand better measurement from platform partners. Those who approach CTV with clear expectations and flexible strategies will be best positioned to capture its growing audience.

Sources: Digiday+ Research — The marketers' 2026 guide to a shifting CTV landscape

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