Connected TV (CTV) has emerged as one of the biggest growth drivers in digital advertising, with both viewership and ad spending surging year over year. As a result, the creative canvas for advertisers is expanding—with immersive, interactive, and dynamic formats designed to enhance the viewer experience. But while innovation is booming, a lack of standardization is holding the industry back.
In Q4 2024, the IAB released the report, Connected TV (CTV) Ad Format Landscape: How Standardization Can Drive Programmatic Growth and Innovation. The report revealed just how fragmented the current landscape is. Based on industry-wide research, the report identified 15 ad formats that are supported by more than 40% of providers—yet the majority of these are only available through direct deals. While 75% of CTV inventory is transacted programmatically, 92% of the most innovative formats are locked in non-programmatic channels.
Advertisers and publishers alike are pushing the boundaries of creativity, yet programmatic infrastructure hasn’t caught up. This gap between innovation and scalability is not just a technical challenge—it’s a business blocker.
That’s where IAB Tech Lab steps in. In 2024, IAB Tech Lab launched the Ad Format Hero initiative, a first-of-its-kind effort to standardize emerging CTV ad formats that are already common enough to warrant shared definitions in the bid stream and consistent telemetry data. The goal? To enable “build once, serve everywhere” ad formats that reduce friction and increase efficiency across platforms.
The industry has responded enthusiastically. By the close of submissions in January 2025, more than 100 ad formats had been submitted by 36 companies, reflecting a wide spectrum of innovation and creative potential. These were reviewed by a newly formed Ad Format Hero Task Force, composed of over 20 companies spanning DSPs, SSPs, SSAIs, broadcasters, and MVPDs.
Out of the review, seven key CTV ad format types and one feature were identified as priorities for standardization:
- Pause Ads
- Menu and Home Screen Ads
- Screensaver Ads
- Overlay Ads Over Content
- In-Scene Insertion Ads
- Ads Alongside or Adjacent to Content
- Squeeze Back Ads Within Ad Breaks
- (Feature): Immersive and extendable elements
These units represent a cross-section of the formats advertisers are most eager to scale—which viewers increasingly engage with.
As IAB Tech Lab prepared to launch during IAB’s Newfronts week (May 5-9) all the technical standards of these units and features, you can see below examples of how these creatives function in real-world settings.
In an industry where innovation often outpaces infrastructure, the path to sustainable growth lies in standards. Through collaborative efforts like Ad Format Hero, IAB Tech Lab is helping the CTV marketplace transform from fragmented opportunity into scalable, programmatic reality.
