Pause Before You Chase the Next CTV Ad Format
Interactive CTV has spent years as the industry’s favorite demo reel: impressive onstage, elusive at scale. That’s finally starting to change. In 2026, interactive CTV formats are increasingly transactable, with early standards taking shape, and, especially in the case of pause ads, proving their appeal to both viewers and advertisers.
And yet, just as pause ads are gaining traction, the industry conversation is rushing toward what comes next: home screens, menu ads, arrival ads, and overlays layered onto existing video inventory.
CTV has always been driven by novelty, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We haven’t come close to exhausting the performance potential of pause ads.
Pause ads solved the hardest problem first
Pause ads have succeeded where many interactive formats stalled because they solve the hardest problem in advertising: earning attention without disrupting the experience.
Pausing is an intentional, opt-in behavior. It happens frequently, and it’s initiated by viewers. Research conducted by Magna and DirecTV shows that 92% of viewers remain paused for over 30 seconds, often without leaving the room. That’s an extraordinary amount of dwell time in a medium historically optimized for 15- and 30-second interruptions.
Just as importantly, pause ads are easier to standardize than most emerging formats. They don’t require radical UI redesigns, they translate across publishers, and they align well with the industry push toward clearer signaling and interoperability in CTV.
From a supply-side perspective, pause ads are already a hit. From a performance perspective, they’re just getting started.
The mistake: treating pause ads as premium signage
Most pause ads today are sold and evaluated like premium digital out-of-home placements: static creative and high CPMs, with success measured by impressions served or QR codes rendered.
That’s a reasonable entry point, but it reflects an inventory-first mindset in a channel that advertisers increasingly expect to behave like performance media.
Advertisers buy pause ads because they represent a rare moment of receptivity, a break in content when attention is available and unguarded. Treating that moment as static signage undersells its value.
The opportunity lies in what you do with the placement itself.
When pause ads become performance media
Pause ads become true performance tools when four things happen.
- Creative stops being static. With AI-driven optimization, pause ads can adapt in real time based on engagement signals, changing messaging, offers, or calls-to-action depending on what viewers actually respond to.
- Engagement is tied to outcomes. Site visits, session depth, conversions, and downstream behavior matter more than initial QR scans or remote clicks.
- Interaction isn’t siloed to the TV screen. Since most pause ad engagement already involves a second device, connecting CTV exposure to mobile and desktop behavior is essential to understanding true impact.
- Measurement evolves beyond surface-level metrics. Completion rates and impressions tell us that an ad was seen, but only outcome-based measurement tells us whether it mattered.
None of this requires inventing a new format. Instead it requires exploring an existing one further than the industry has so far done.
The risk of moving on too fast
The industry’s instinct is to keep searching for the next scalable placement. Home screens and menu ads may well become part of that future. But they also introduce new UX sensitivities, creative fragmentation, and standardization challenges — many of which pause ads have already avoided.
If we rush past pause ads before unlocking their full performance value, we risk repeating a familiar pattern: declaring a format “played out” before we’ve fully understood it.
Pause ads arrive at the most organic moment in the viewing experience, offering more time, more space, and more permission than other CTV formats can bring. With the right creative intelligence and measurement discipline, they can finally align television’s brand heritage and digital’s performance expectations.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Emodo. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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