Pause ads are having a moment. On October 26, 2026, French broadcaster sales house TF1 PUB said it had started selling its AdPause format on the TF1+ streaming service through programmatic pipes, with a first campaign for Vorwerk's Thermomix run by marketing group Heroiks through The Trade Desk. For publishers with streaming apps or video players, the news matters because a format that used to be sold only by direct deals can now be bought by any DSP that plugs into your supply.
This guide explains how the format works, what the newest attention research actually found, the creative specs buyers expect, how programmatic deals are set up and seven proven steps to start selling the screen your viewers already look at when they hit pause. Every number below comes from a named source, and we flag where the data has limits.
Table of Contents
What Pause Ads Are and How They Work
A pause ad is an ad experience that starts when a viewer uses the remote to pause the program. IAB Tech Lab's draft TV Ad Format Guidelines, released for public comment in December 2025, describe it as viewer initiated. The creative can be static or animated, and it can fill the full screen at 1920 x 1080 pixels or take a partial screen slot at 600 x 600 pixels.
The experience ends when the viewer dismisses the message, resumes the show, exits the app or turns off the TV. It can also end when the device takes over, for example when a screen saver kicks in. Some placements refresh the ad after a set time, and the seller is expected to signal refresh or autoplay behavior in the bid request.
What makes the format different from a mid roll is simple. The viewer is not being interrupted. They already chose to stop the content, and when they come back to resume it, their eyes return to the screen. That is the core of the value story that buyers are now testing with real attention data.
The format is not entirely new to streaming. What is new is how it is bought. Until recently, most of this inventory was sold through direct insertion orders, which limited demand to buyers willing to negotiate one publisher at a time. Programmatic access changes that equation.
Why Pause Ads Are in the News
TF1 launched AdPause at the start of last year, about a year after it relaunched its streaming service as TF1+. As VideoWeek reported, every pause campaign until now had been sold directly. Opening the format to programmatic demand, TF1 PUB says, gives advertisers audience targeting, frequency management, optimization during the campaign and centralized measurement.
VideoWeek also placed the move inside a wider shift. Over the past year, CTV home screen formats and interactive mid roll formats have also come to programmatic trading. The appeal for buyers is that they can add the format to an omnichannel plan through the DSP they already use, with the same audiences they target elsewhere, instead of buying one more format by hand.
The search and social signals match the news cycle. In our Google Trends pull on October 26, 2026, US interest in "pause ads" over the last 14 days ran between 9 and 25 on the 90 day scale, against a 90 day average of 3.1. Interest in "ctv advertising" hit its 90 day peak of 100 the same day. On X, we counted 50 original public posts mentioning pause ad terms or AdPause in the seven days to the morning of October 26.
The longer view is more modest. Weekly interest in the term over 12 months peaked in the week of June 7, 2026, and recent weeks sit below the 12 month average of 48.5. In other words, this is a format with steady industry attention and a fresh catalyst, not a sudden consumer craze. That is a good setup for publishers, because buyers are still forming their plans.
What the Attention Data Says
The most detailed new study came on October 14, 2026, from Omnicom Media's Partner Intelligence unit and Amazon Ads. The study recruited 183 Prime Video streamers into a living room setting where they chose their own content. Computer vision tracked visual attention at 30 frames per second, producing more than 1.3 million data points across 574 measured ad exposures.
According to Omnicom's summary of the study, pause ads reached a 92% visual attention rate. That beat 30 second video ads at 87% and 15 second video ads at 76%. The format also held 9.9 seconds of attention, 38% more than 15 second video ads, and 98% of solo viewers looked at the pause ad when they resumed their content.
A separate dataset points the same way. In June 2026, WunderKIND Ads released what it called the first measurement benchmarks for programmatic CTV pause inventory. Using TVision attention data, it analyzed millions of programmatic CTV impressions from its campaigns run through the OpenGlass platform, across premium publishers on Dish, Philo, Plex and others.
TV Tech reported that pause ads beat traditional 60 second CTV spots in all 13 verticals analyzed. Automotive was strongest, with 34.2 seconds of attention versus 12.2 seconds for standard CTV video, a lift of 180.3%. Technology followed at 33.3 seconds versus 12.8 seconds, and restaurants posted 34.0 seconds versus 13.5 seconds.
Two caveats matter. Both studies were run or funded by companies that sell or buy the format, and the Omnicom sample was a lab style setting rather than live campaign logs. Attention time also measures how long an ad sits on a paused screen, which naturally favors a format that stays up until the viewer returns. Treat these numbers as a strong signal, not a guarantee of results on your own inventory.
Contextual Creative and Repeat Exposure
The Omnicom and Amazon work also looked beyond attention. When pause creative was paired with video, the combination produced an 11 point increase in brand connection, an outcome that video only conditions did not achieve. Even viewers who gave a pause ad five seconds or less still showed better brand connection results than video only conditions.
Context made the biggest difference. When the creative matched what viewers were watching, the study found a 29 point increase in search intent, a 20 point increase in purchase intent and a 15 point increase in perceptions of the advertiser as a premium brand, compared with video only conditions.
Relevance also made repetition easier to accept. In the study, 53% of viewers said they would not mind seeing contextual pause creative multiple times, compared with 39% for standard call to action executions. Existing customers spent 43% more time viewing the ads than other consumers, 12.9 seconds compared with 9.0 seconds, and recorded a 24 point increase in both brand favorability and search intent.
For a publisher, this is a packaging lesson. The format sells better when buyers can match creative to the show, genre or moment. That means your content metadata, genre labels and episode data are not just editorial housekeeping. They are a reason a buyer would pay more for your pause inventory than for a generic placement.
The Specs Buyers Expect
Specs are still messy across sellers. VideoWeek noted that pause and home screen placements have appeared at many sellers with different specifications, so a buyer running one pause campaign across several streaming platforms may need to adapt creative for each one. IAB Tech Lab is developing recommended common specs to fix that.
The IAB draft guidelines set a useful baseline. Fullscreen pause creative is 16:9 at 1920 x 1080, partial screen creative is 1:1 at 600 x 600, static files should weigh under 350kB and the default execution does not require audio. Optional interactivity can include QR codes or actions through the remote control.
The Trade Desk's seller documentation adds detail from the buy side. Its pause placements appear one to three seconds after the viewer pauses, stay visible until playback resumes and may refresh after a set interval during a long pause. Creative can be a PNG or JPG image up to 2 MB, with 500 KB recommended, or an MP4 cinemagraph or single frame video up to 30 MB.
Layout rules matter as much as file size. The Trade Desk asks for a 10% buffer zone at the top corners and sides for ad timers and badges, plus a 15% buffer at the bottom for player controls and dismiss prompts. Logos, text, calls to action and embedded QR codes should sit within a centered 1536 x 810 region, and embedded QR codes must stay within a 250 x 250 region outside the buffer zone.
The practical takeaway is to design your player around these zones now. If your pause screen covers the bottom 15% with your own controls or branding, a buyer's creative may clash with it, and that is the kind of friction that sends budgets to sellers who followed the common specs.
How Programmatic Pause Ads Are Sold
On The Trade Desk, pause ads are transacted through deals, such as private marketplace deals and programmatic guaranteed deals, rather than the open auction. The documentation also notes that the format is not supported on VAST 2. Accepted protocols are VAST 3.x and 4.x, using non linear VAST creatives as a full screen takeover or a partial screen overlay.
That deal based model suits publishers. It lets you set a floor, choose which buyers see the inventory and keep the format scarce enough to protect its premium. If you are new to curated deals, our guide to private ad exchanges covers how invite only marketplaces work and why buyers pay more for them.
Signaling is the other half of the job. The bid request needs to tell DSPs that the slot is a pause placement, whether it is full or partial screen, and whether the ad refreshes or autoplays. IAB Tech Lab's guidelines say the seller should signal refresh and autoplay behavior, and The Trade Desk points sellers to the IAB CTV ad format signaling proposal for field values.
Without clean signals, a buyer cannot target pause inventory on purpose, and your best placement gets valued like any other impression. Check with your SSP which fields it passes for CTV placements before you announce anything to buyers.
7 Proven Steps to Sell Pause Ads
The steps below are built from the specs and research above. They assume you control a streaming app, a CTV app or a video player where a pause state exists. If you are still deciding whether connected TV is worth the build, start with our guide to CTV advertising for publishers first.
1. Audit your pause state
Check what viewers see today when they pause. Note whether the player shows controls, a progress bar, recommendations or nothing at all. Map those elements against the 10% top and 15% bottom buffer zones buyers expect, and decide whether you can offer full screen, partial screen or both.
2. Start with the IAB baseline specs
Support 1920 x 1080 fullscreen creative, a 600 x 600 partial option if your layout allows it, and static files under 350kB. Matching the common baseline keeps the creative a buyer already has usable on your app, which removes one of the biggest reasons buyers skip smaller sellers.
3. Confirm VAST and signaling support with your SSP
Ask your SSP whether it can pass a pause placement signal, full or partial screen, and refresh behavior, and whether it supports non linear VAST 3.x or 4.x. If it cannot, programmatic demand for the format will be thin no matter how good the placement is.
4. Sell through deals first
Package pause inventory as private marketplace or programmatic guaranteed deals, the routes The Trade Desk uses for the format. Deals protect pricing and let you learn which buyers value the placement before you widen access.
5. Package by context
The 29 point search intent lift for contextual creative is your sales pitch. Group pause inventory by genre, show or daypart so buyers can match creative to content. Clean metadata is what makes that possible.
6. Set frequency rules and a refresh policy
Decide how long a pause must last before the ad refreshes and how often one viewer can see the same advertiser. The 53% receptivity figure applied to contextual creative, so do not assume viewers will accept unlimited repeats of generic ads.
7. Measure and report attention honestly
Track how often viewers pause, how long pauses last and how many pause impressions are rendered. Share those numbers with buyers. Independent attention data like the TVision figures in the WunderKIND benchmarks carries more weight than self reported claims, so consider a measurement partner once volume justifies it.
Risks and Limits to Keep in Mind
Viewer experience comes first. A pause is a moment the viewer controls, and an ad that covers the screen with clutter, plays loud audio or hides the resume prompt can turn a premium moment into an annoyance. The IAB default execution does not require audio for a reason.
Supply is also limited by behavior. You only earn when viewers pause, so pause inventory will always be a small slice of total impressions. That scarcity helps pricing, but it also means the format adds to your video revenue rather than replacing mid roll or other placements. Our comparison of outstream vs in stream video ads is a good refresher on where the bulk of video revenue still comes from.
Finally, the research base is young. The two main datasets come from industry players, use different methods and compare against different benchmarks. Expect buyers to ask for your own numbers within a few campaigns, and plan your reporting before you need it.
Who Should Prioritize This Format
Pause ads fit publishers with long form video, streaming apps or CTV distribution, where viewers watch whole episodes and pause naturally. Broadcasters like TF1 are the obvious example, but any publisher with a meaningful library of long videos and a player it controls can test the format.
They are a lower priority for sites where video is short, mostly muted or autoplaying in a feed. If viewers rarely pause, there is no inventory to sell. For those publishers, the better move is to improve existing video placements first and revisit the format once longer viewing sessions exist.
For everyone else, the timing is good. A major broadcaster just proved programmatic demand can buy the format, The Trade Desk has published seller specs and IAB Tech Lab is working on common standards. Getting your player, signals and deals ready now puts you in the first group of sellers buyers can reach.