What is a Supply Path Review?
A supply path is the chain of companies between your budget and the publisher: an agency or trading desk, a buying platform, exchanges, resellers and the selling platform. Each one takes a fee or a margin. A Supply Path Review follows your programmatic and CTV spend through that chain, from budget to impression, and tells you in writing where the money went and what to change.
What does the review cover?
The written report has five parts.
- Where every dollar goes. Every supplier between your budget and the publisher, and what each one takes.
- What you are actually buying. Where your ads ran, including made-for-advertising sites and spoofed CTV.
- What is really working. How conversions are counted, and how to test whether your media caused them.
- What your contracts allow. Data ownership, how rebates are handled and your right to audit.
- What to change. A ranked plan: keep, cut, renegotiate, test.
How does it work?
You give us read-only access to your media reporting, invoices and contracts. We follow the spend and check the placements. You get a written report and a working session with our team.
What do I keep?
You keep the report, whether or not you hire us. It names every supplier on your path, ViSTARS entities included. After that you can act on it yourself, hand it to your current agency, or ask us to run the plan.
You should know who we are. ViSTARS Agency, LLC runs media for brands. It is affiliated with ViSTARS, Inc., which builds programmatic infrastructure. The two companies are under common ownership. That is why the report names ViSTARS entities if they appear on your path.
Who is it for?
- Brands that buy programmatic and CTV through an agency, a trading desk or their own platform seat, and cannot see line by line where the budget goes.
- Finance and procurement leads who want an outside read before a renewal or a new agency contract.
- Marketing leaders who suspect a gap between what was reported and what was delivered.
It is not for brands with no programmatic or CTV spend, or for teams that cannot share reporting, invoices and contracts.
Why would there be a gap?
The ANA Programmatic Transparency Benchmark for Q2 2026, released August 6, 2026, measured how much programmatic spend reaches a qualified impression. The market level was 45.1 percent. Top performers reached 52.3 percent. Lower performers reached 31.1 percent. A qualified impression is measurable, viewable, fraud-free and not on a made-for-advertising site.
These are benchmark levels from the ANA, not results from ViSTARS Agency clients. You can model your own budget on the home page.
How much does it cost?
Tell us your monthly programmatic and CTV spend on the request form and we reply to every request.