Rewarded video delivers 95 percent-plus completion rates, near-zero accidental clicks, and audiences who have actively chosen to watch. Despite these numbers, most programmatic buyers treat it as a secondary format. Our data explains why that is a $2 billion mistake.
The underpricing of rewarded video comes down to a measurement problem. Most media buyers optimise toward CTR, viewability scores, or last-touch attribution, and rewarded video performs poorly on all three by design. The format is opt-in and full-screen, so clickthrough rates are low because users are not accidentally clicking. It runs inside apps, so last-touch attribution often credits the retargeting banner that ran later in the session.
The result: buyers look at their attribution reports, see rewarded video generating few direct conversions, and cut budgets. They are optimising for the wrong signal entirely.
The advertisers winning with rewarded video are not optimising for clicks. They are optimising for memory encoding and brand preference, and measuring lift accordingly.
Attention measurement changes the picture completely. When you measure active attention time (defined as eyes-on-screen duration combined with audio-on and no multitasking signals), rewarded video generates attention scores 4 to 6 times higher than standard display and 2 to 3 times higher than standard pre-roll video.
The opt-in mechanism is responsible for most of this difference. A user who chooses to watch a 30-second video to earn an in-game reward has made a deliberate decision to engage. Their attention quality is categorically different from a user who is waiting for a pre-roll to skip. Neuroscience research on attention and memory encoding consistently shows that voluntary engagement produces stronger brand memory than involuntary exposure.
Our analysis of clearing prices across 500 million rewarded video auctions in Q1 2026 shows that rewarded placements clear at an average of $8.40 CPM in gaming environments. Compare that to connected television pre-roll, which clears at $22 to $35 CPM for broadly similar audience demographics and completion rates.
The 2 to 4 times price gap is not justified by performance data. It is a market pricing inefficiency driven by buyer unfamiliarity with the format and the measurement friction described above. Advertisers who solve the measurement problem and reallocate budgets accordingly are buying premium attention at a significant discount.
The inefficiency is most pronounced in specific verticals. Financial services, automotive, and CPG advertisers are paying $15 to $25 CPM for display ads that generate under 2 seconds of average attention. The same budgets in rewarded video would buy 30-second completions with an average of 28 seconds of active attention. The math is not subtle.
Rewarded video audiences are not just "mobile gamers." They are a deliberately engaged subset of your broader audience who are making micro-transactions of attention for in-game value. Target by app category, engagement depth (session length, return frequency), and contextual signals rather than demographic proxies. These signals are better predictors of attention quality than age or income estimates.
Rewarded video creative needs to be engineered for the opt-in context. The user knows they will watch 15 to 30 seconds. They are not trying to skip. Build creative that uses the full duration deliberately: establish brand context early, deliver the core message in the middle third, and close with a value statement that benefits from having been watched in full. The last 5 seconds are uniquely powerful in rewarded formats because the user knows the reward is imminent. Use them.
Run brand lift studies specifically on your rewarded placements. Measure aided recall, message association, and purchase intent lift at 7-day and 30-day windows. These metrics will show performance that last-touch attribution completely misses. Once you have this data, you can build an accurate model for rewarded video's contribution to your overall media mix.
Rewarded video CPMs will not stay at $8 to $12 indefinitely. As measurement methodologies improve and more buyers adopt attention-based planning, the pricing gap between rewarded video and CTV will compress. The advertisers buying significant scale today are locking in favourable positions before demand normalises.
We estimate 18 to 24 months before rewarded video CPMs correct to reflect true attention value. That window is closing. The question is whether your media plan reflects attention economics or 2020-era click metrics.
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