If a dealership cannot clearly identify where its streaming ads ran, how much of its budget purchased actual media, which formats received the money, and how often the intended households saw the message, it is not buying accountable advertising.
It is buying a story.
Streaming television has become a core automotive marketing channel. It combines the sight, sound, motion, and large-screen impact of television with the targeting and measurement capabilities dealers expect from digital advertising.
The opportunity is enormous—but so is the accountability gap.
In July 2026, Pasch Group collected 102 survey responses from dealers. After screening for dealership employment and response quality, the study analyzed 74 usable responses. We also conducted in-depth interviews with automotive marketing leaders who have purchased streaming campaigns from multiple providers.
The results reveal a market that is growing quickly while its reporting, measurement, and financial controls struggle to keep pace.
Here are five findings every dealership marketing manager should understand.
1. Streaming is no longer an experimental budget
Among respondents providing a six-month budget outlook, 94% said they expected their streaming investment to remain stable or increase.
Dealers are not walking away from streaming. They increasingly recognize that audiences have shifted away from traditional linear television and toward connected television platforms.
But spending more money does not automatically create better results.
As streaming becomes a permanent budget category, dealers must stop managing it like an experimental digital add-on. It requires the same financial scrutiny, placement verification, pacing controls, and performance discipline applied to paid search and other mature media channels.
The question is no longer whether dealers should invest in streaming.
The question is whether they can verify what they received.
2. “OTT” can hide several completely different products
One of the most important survey findings was nearly unanimous: 45 of 46 respondents—98%—said substituting display advertising or online video for streaming television constitutes a different product.
They are correct.
Connected television, online video, display, audio, and retargeting do not have the same media costs, viewing environments, screen sizes, or consumer experiences. Yet dealers are sometimes sold an “OTT” campaign that quietly includes multiple formats inside one blended budget.
That makes a low blended CPM look attractive while concealing where the money actually went.
One marketing executive interviewed for the report described a prior campaign in which approximately 50% of a large “streaming” budget was allocated to online video and display advertising, including placements on low-quality gaming and foreign websites.
That is not a minor optimization decision. It is a material change to the product the dealer approved.
Every proposal and monthly report should separate:
- Connected television
- Online video
- Display advertising
- Audio
- Retargeting
- Data, platform, verification, creative, and service fees
If money is moved between formats, the dealer should approve the change in writing.
3. Placement reporting is still far too vague
Sixty-four percent (64%) of applicable respondents said they had been frustrated by reports listing unfamiliar channels. Fifty-eight percent (58%) had not received show-level reporting.
This is one of the clearest signs that streaming accountability has not reached the level dealers should expect.
A presentation containing the logos of Hulu, Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock, or other recognizable platforms does not prove that meaningful delivery occurred on those platforms.
Dealers should receive reporting that clearly shows:
- Which publishers and applications received impressions
- How many households were reached by each publisher
- CPM by publisher
- Television-screen versus mobile and desktop delivery
- Geography and ZIP-level delivery
- Reach and frequency distribution
- Deal type and supply path
- Blocked, invalid, or credited impressions
“When an agency says that they buy ‘direct,’ that is not a sufficient answer.”
Direct to the publisher? Direct through a private marketplace? Direct through an authorized reseller? Direct through a managed-service platform?
The commercial path matters because every additional layer can introduce cost, duplication, data loss, and less accountability.
4. Quality and quantity are not interchangeable
A campaign generating a massive number of impressions at an unusually low CPM may look efficient.
It may also be buying the wrong inventory.
Not all streaming impressions have equal value. A commercial appearing during premium studio programming or live sports is not necessarily comparable to an impression delivered through a long-tail application, embedded web player, mobile screen, duplicated auction, or poorly disclosed reseller path.
The research found that dealers frequently assumed familiar platform names meant their commercials would appear within those platforms’ most recognizable programming. That inference can be wrong.
The right question is not simply, “How many impressions did we receive?”
Dealers should ask:
- Did the ads reach the intended households?
- Did they run on television screens?
- Which programming environments received the delivery?
- Was the household frequency sufficient?
- Did the placement support the campaign’s objective?
- Was the inventory quality consistent with the price?
A higher CPM is not automatically better. A lower CPM is not automatically more efficient.
Price must be evaluated alongside audience quality, content environment, screen, reach, frequency, supply path, and business objective.
5. Dealer reporting must rise to a Google Ads or Meta standard
Ninety-six percent of applicable survey respondents said streaming vendors should provide Google Ads– or Meta-style transparency into fees and tactics.
That expectation is reasonable.
Dealers have been trained to expect detailed information from digital advertising platforms. They should not accept a single invoice line labeled “media” when that amount may include agency compensation, platform fees, data, identity resolution, verification, creative services, reseller margin, and publisher inventory.
A monthly streaming report should answer five basic questions:
- How much of the invoice became working media?
- Where did the advertising run?
- Did the campaign remain live and pace properly throughout the month?
- Did the intended households receive sufficient frequency?
- What happened after exposure—and how certain are we that the advertising contributed?
The interviews showed why pacing deserves particular attention.
Richard del Rosario described a prior campaign with relatively flat delivery followed by approximately $13,000 of a $20,000 budget being spent during the final three days of the month. He questioned whether that sudden volume represented the intended in-market audience and stopped the campaign.
Spending the entire budget is not, by itself, evidence of success.
Pacing is a standard programmatic control. Dealers should see daily planned spend, actual spend, remaining budget, projected completion, zero-delivery days, and explanations for material changes.
Attribution also requires discipline. A household that saw an ad and later visited a website or purchased a vehicle may have encountered paid search, social media, direct mail, OEM advertising, marketplace listings, email, or other campaigns.
A match-back identifies overlap. It does not automatically prove causation.
The standard must change
The dealer interviews in our study demonstrate what becomes possible when streaming campaigns are managed with stronger controls.
Marketing leaders described:
- Clearer publisher and channel reporting
- Greater emphasis on premium inventory
- Smaller, targeted campaigns for specific audiences and profit centers
- Better use of first-party and website audiences
- More disciplined pacing
- Explicit limits on lower-cost formats
- More frequent real-world recognition of dealership commercials
These findings do not mean any provider should be accepted without verification.
They show that dealers can—and should—demand more.
Streaming television has too much potential to be hidden behind vague invoices, blended CPMs, logo slides, unfamiliar channel reports, and attribution claims that cannot distinguish correlation from causation.
The biggest automotive streaming problem is not a lack of reach.
It is not reaching the right people—and not having enough evidence to verify what the dealer actually purchased.
The new Pasch Group research report, The Streaming Accountability Gap, examines the survey results, dealer interviews, media economics, inventory-quality differences, reseller risks, pacing controls, attribution challenges, and the reporting standards dealers should require.
It also includes a monthly dealer dashboard, a 90-day pilot framework, a Dealer Stream research scorecard, and 12 questions every dealer should ask before approving another streaming budget.
