Overlay Ads and the Streaming Ad Tech State of Play
IAB Tech Lab VP of product Jill Wittkopp reviews the state of streaming ad tech innovation and emerging ad formats and discusses evolving definitions and standards for squeezebacks, side-by-sides, double boxes, and other types of overlay ads in this discussion with Ring Digital, LLC principal analyst Brian Ring at Streaming Media Connect 2026.
Finding Commonalities to Jump-Start Standardization
Ring suggests diving into overlays, asking Wittkopp to talk “about the state of play of that particular element of the Ad Tech Hero format, but, of course, [the] big picture as well.”
Wittkopp acknowledges the innovations in CTV ad formats in the past several years, noting that they’ve prompted IAB Tech Lab to focus on standardization. The organization asked, “What’s going on in the market, what’s everyone using, what’s active, [and] what’s getting spend?” To find commonalities, her team used the 80/20 rule—that is, if “80% of the experiences are like this, let’s try and move towards whatever that looks like so that there’s a lot of gains to that,” she notes. “It’s really helpful from an advertiser perspective. They can make one piece of creative and it fits with multiple publishers instead of having to create multiple unique experiences for each publisher. And that really helps scale spend.”
IAB Tech Lab received submissions from people who are “actively participating in some sort of CTV ad format in the market. And we reviewed those with a working group,” Wittkopp says. The working group categorized the submissions into eight experiences and then cut that down to six in the final publication. One of the cuts was shoppable experiences because almost any format can be made shoppable, she asserts. “So that was just a feature on top of everything as opposed to a format itself.” The publication went out for public comment, and now, “we’re just wrapping up the final technical details from public comment, and we hope to get those out to you guys shortly.
Representing the Options Appropriately to Get the Creative Right
The next part of the project will address a “missing piece,” which “is what we call signaling standards,” she shares. “So what makes an overlay, what makes an L-bar or a squeezeback. And then the next step is like, ‘Okay, I now know that I have a squeezeback where the content squeezes back to the left. How do I signal that that’s the opportunity for this ad break and make sure that I get the right creative?’”
Wittkopp explains that “especially with a squeezeback situation, a lot of the creative are actually designed for a very specific experience, whether the content has squeezed back on the left or right, whether it’s that double box-type scenario with some sort of framing around it that’s in the advertiser’s branding. There’s just a lot of cool options and we want to make sure that they’re represented appropriately from both the buy and sell side so you get a match.”
Ring replies, “I think that’s the big challenge with the overlays, L-bars, squeezebacks. We’re talking about, right there, multiple formats. And I think to your point, as I’ve always said, we talk a lot about media buying and channels and tech, but the advertising creative in a 30-second spot really makes an impact. And if all of a sudden that creative’s blended in with the content, it could be a really disruptive thing if it’s not sort of harmonized.”
How IAB Tech Lab Addresses Various Types of Ads
Ring wonders if there’s standardizations around the types of ads: “Are we headed towards some standards so people know, hey, squeezeback looks like this, Aston Band looks like that, L-bar looks like that, or is there too many? Give us your top line on that particular element.”
Wittkopp gives the example of two subsets of overlays: a corner overlay (on any of the four corners of the screen; it doesn’t have to be a square, and transparency is an option) and a lower third (IAB Tech Lab did standardize its size). With corner overlays, she notes, “there’s the ability to still make it a custom experience even though there is a formula in how the actual asset is assembled.” With squeezebacks, “we did L-bar content to the right, L-bar content to the left. We did the double box, which is, like, the content is one side and the ad is the other side, and then the double box plus the advertiser’s branding covering the back of the screen.”
“Awesome, awesome,” Ring replies.
Join us May 12–14, 2026 for more thought leadership, actionable insights, and lively debate at Streaming Media Connect 2026! Registration is open!
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