CTV Budgets Keep Growing, Trust Still Hasn’t Caught Up.

Connected TV has won the budget battle. Now it must win the credibility battle. As marketers demand stronger evidence of business impact, measurement, not inventory, is emerging as the industry’s next competitive battleground.

New research from performance CTV platform JamLoop suggests the industry’s biggest obstacle is no longer adoption but trust. While half of marketers increased their CTV spending over the past year, only one-third say they fully trust the performance claims reported by advertising platforms. That gap between investment and confidence may define the next phase of CTV’s evolution.

Based on a survey of 120 senior brand and agency marketers, JamLoop’s report, CTV Is Winning Budget. Trust Is Still Catching Up., paints a picture of a channel that has successfully transitioned from experimental media buy to mainstream investment. What marketers are asking for now is not more inventory or better dashboards—they’re asking for evidence that connected TV delivers business outcomes they can confidently defend.

Budget Growth Is No Longer the Story

For years, the conversation around connected TV centered on adoption. Could streaming television become a meaningful alternative to traditional linear TV? Would advertisers shift meaningful budget into the channel? Those questions now appear to be largely settled. According to the survey, 50% of marketers increased their CTV budgets year over year, while nearly two-thirds say CTV already plays a strong performance role in their media mix or is becoming a more accountable performance channel.

At the same time, more than 63% of respondents report seeing at least some diminishing returns from lower-funnel channels such as paid search and paid social. As acquisition costs continue to rise and incremental performance becomes harder to find, marketers are looking for channels capable of delivering both brand building and measurable business outcomes. CTV increasingly occupies that role, moving from an awareness channel to a more central component of performance marketing strategies.

Trust Is Becoming the New Battleground

Growing investment, however, has not translated into growing confidence. Only 33% of marketers surveyed said they fully trust most platform-reported performance claims, while 62% expressed at least some level of skepticism. More than 60% also reported concerns about fraud or misrepresented inventory within CTV environments.

Those findings suggest the industry’s next challenge is no longer convincing marketers to buy connected TV. Instead, it is convincing finance teams, executive leadership, and procurement organizations that the results being reported accurately reflect business impact. That shift mirrors broader changes occurring across digital advertising, where marketers increasingly demand independently validated measurement rather than relying solely on platform-reported metrics.

Performance Is Becoming More Than Media Metrics

The research also highlights how marketers’ definition of performance continues to evolve. Rather than focusing exclusively on impressions, completion rates, or click-through activity, marketers increasingly want to understand how campaigns influence qualified leads, online sales, store visits, appointments, revenue, and broader business outcomes.

That emphasis on measurable business impact is driving changes throughout the advertising ecosystem. Earlier this year, Basis integrated Cint’s brand lift measurement directly into campaign execution, allowing advertisers to evaluate awareness, recall, and purchase intent while campaigns remain live rather than waiting until they conclude. Retail media platforms continue investing heavily in closed-loop attribution, while digital out-of-home providers are expanding measurement capabilities designed to demonstrate incremental business results rather than audience delivery alone.

The same shift is reshaping connected TV. Greg Lieber, Head of Platform Partnerships at Universal Ads, recently pointed to a campaign with Slice that measured performance against comparable control stores rather than relying on platform-reported metrics. Participating independent pizzerias generated a 5% incremental increase in orders and a 3.2% lift in sales. “CTV investment now has to go beyond metrics trending in the right direction and prove outcomes an advertiser can actually defend,” Lieber told Street Fight.

“If the model holds up for a single pizzeria, it has the potential to hold up for advertisers at any scale.”

Taken together, these developments suggest the competitive battleground is shifting away from media metrics and toward independently verifiable business outcomes.

Accountability Is Raising the Bar

Despite growing confidence in connected TV as a marketing channel, accountability standards remain inconsistent. Only 42% of respondents believe CTV is currently held to the same measurement standards as search and social advertising, while just 39% say they feel highly confident defending CTV investments to senior leadership based on current attribution and reporting.

According to Jeff Fagel, Chief Marketing Officer at JamLoop, the industry’s biggest opportunity isn’t convincing marketers to experiment with connected TV. It’s giving them enough evidence to confidently expand their investment. “The biggest takeaway from this research is that the budget is there if the business can actually feel the impact,” Fagel told Street Fight.

“More than 70% told us they would increase CTV investment if they had stronger confidence it was driving results beyond the dashboard.”

That finding may be the report’s clearest takeaway. More than 70% of marketers indicated they would increase CTV spending if measurement, attribution, and proof of business outcomes improved. The industry’s next growth opportunity therefore appears to depend less on attracting new advertisers than on giving existing advertisers stronger evidence that connected TV is driving meaningful commercial results.

The Next Phase of CTV

The survey also reveals that marketers remain divided on what successful CTV performance should actually look like. Some prioritize qualified leads, others focus on online sales or revenue lift, while others define success through store visits, appointments, or phone calls. That lack of consensus makes standardized benchmarking more difficult, but it also reflects the reality that connected TV increasingly serves multiple roles across the customer journey.

If there is one consistent message emerging from the research, it is that CTV no longer needs to justify its place in the media mix. The channel has already earned that position. What marketers increasingly want is proof that streaming television contributes to business outcomes leadership teams recognize and value.

As Fagel summarized, “The next battle in CTV is not about awareness or access. It is about whether CTV shows up in the numbers that matter, from appointments and site traffic to online, in-store sales and real business growth.”

That observation extends well beyond connected TV. Across retail media, digital out-of-home, search, and social, marketers are demanding stronger links between media investment and measurable business performance.