Global advertisers wasted $26.8 billion on programmatic in Q2: ANA

by Chris Powell August 15 2025

The association’s Programmatic Transparency Benchmark report found “incremental progress” is being made, but there’s still work to be done.

“Persistent inefficiencies” within the programmatic advertising ecosystem led to $26.8 billion in wasted global ad spend in the second quarter, according to the Association of National Advertisers’ most recent Programmatic Transparency Benchmark report.

The report found that 36.5% of programmatic spending went towards impressions that failed to meet standard quality metrics, representing a slight improvement from 37.8% in the Q1 report. The ANA said that marks “incremental progress,” but there is still substantial opportunity to increase the share of impressions that meet standard criteria.

But the report did also highlight some positive developments, including a drop in median spend on made-for-advertising (MFA) websites, which fell below 1% (0.8%) from 2.3%. That reflects what the ANA described as “continued positive momentum” in efforts to reduce waste and prioritize higher-quality media.

But while the spend to MFA sites is trending downward, the report also noted that some marketers are still “overexposed” to sites created for the sole purpose of generating ad revenue. According to the report, 25% of marketers had MFA investment ranging from 5.2% to as high as 28.7%.

“This highlights the ongoing need for vigilance,” said the report. “An always-on strategy—including the use of inclusion lists and specific MFA avoidance tactics—is essential.” It also pointed out that not all ad tech tools characterize MFA sites in the same way, and urged marketers to evaluate how each platform tracks or filters this inventory against current industry standards.

Read More