At some point in the second half of last year, in-banner video kicked off an open internet revival tour that nobody wanted. Yet, we’re all forced to attend.
In-banner video (IBV) isn’t a new ad experience. But in 2024, multiple SSPs rolled out refreshed video “products,” joining others, including Google, who already supported the format. Today, nearly every SSP in the market has an in-banner video offering.
The result has been a deluge of cheap video supply flooding the open web, driving down CPM rates for dedicated video inventory and creating user experience and ad quality concerns.
The user experience challenge
In-banner video is an advertising creative that’s served in a standard display ad unit. This is different from a traditional video ad experience that’s served in a publisher’s hosted video player.
When appropriately labeled in a bid request with creative that fits within the ad slot, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with in-banner video. The problems become apparent in a live environment where the IBV unit showcased in isolation now sits on a page with at least one other display ad, sometimes more than one.
Multiple ads may be serving different in-banner video creatives. Often, they may even sit alongside a publisher’s dedicated video placement. Bonus points if one of the video creatives was cut off to fit in a 728×90 window or is forcing you to desperately seek the mute button. These examples are egregious but not uncommon.
As publishers, we are ultimately responsible for our own monetization choices. But that accountability doesn’t capture the nuance and difficulty of controlling IBV, which represents a step backward for everyone involved.
The mediation and inventory quality challenge
On paper, blocking IBV sounds straightforward. In practice, SSPs often enable IBV by default, and managing ad-slot-level blocking across every SSP and supply path is either unsupported or extremely challenging.
When IBV inevitably slips through the cracks, even with detailed reporting, identifying the culprit is complicated and time-consuming. Blocking via reseller paths is even more convoluted. SSPs are frequently advocating for the format by reminding publishers of the revenue they’re leaving on the table by blocking or limiting exposure.
If you find UX challenges and SSP blocklist Whac-A-Mole uninspiring, consider that serving multiple videos (yes, IBV counts as video) on a page goes against DSP inventory best practices. If IBV can impact performance at the DSP level, undermine UX and devalue your dedicated video inventory, is the potential for incremental revenue worth it?
The economic challenge
According to Burt Intelligence monthly benchmarking, open internet video performance has declined by double digits since November.
Blaming this decline solely on IBV isn’t fair. CTV expansion, macroeconomic factors and the shift to video.plcmt signals all play a role. However, nothing spiked low-quality web video supply or created the opportunity for budgets to shift to low CPM rates like IBV’s resurgence.
This comes precisely when publishers are being pushed to better classify video inventory. To be clear, the shift to accurate video.plcmt categorization is positive and necessary. But accurate classification is only sustainable if the market rewards it. Right now, inventory not labeled instream often monetizes no better – or worse – than IBV. This imbalance disincentivizes responsible categorization.
Unchecked, IBV isn’t just inconvenient. It undermines publisher control, user trust, buyer outcomes and the open internet ecosystem. It’s a race to the bottom that nobody wins.
Recommendations for industry improvement
Publishers should evaluate their video experience against the video.plcmt spec and accurately define it in the bid request. Anyone who monetizes a dedicated video placement should (attempt to) block IBV at the category level or only allow it in a single ad slot that renders in non-video environments.
If you’re unwilling to surrender the “yield” associated with IBV, at least A/B test for UX impact and be aware of DSP policies that increase inventory scrutiny.
SSPs should assess the increase in their No Content/Standalone (plcmt=4) video ad requests year over year. How much of that is driven by publisher video placements vs. in-banner video? Is this putting your customers’ best interests first?
SSPs should require publisher opt-in for IBV rather than enabling it by default. And they should enable and enforce slot-level targeting, limiting IBV to one ad unit or response per page.
DSPs should stop accepting video requests for standard display sizes (320×50, 300×250, etc.) or disallow video supply repurposed in display slots entirely. They can also mandate SSP support for slot-level IBV targeting. And stop responding to deprecated video placement signals.
The IAB Tech Lab also has a role to play. It could reestablish a dedicated IBV type under the video.plcmt specification like what existed in the old “video.placement” spec. It could also establish a signal that publishers can include in their display request to explicitly opt in or out of IBV creatives in this slot – and that SSPs need to respect.
Finally, Google should update its video quality guidelines to support and include No Content/Standalone (plcmt=4) video inventory signals. This would enable publishers to transparently communicate their video offerings to buyers.
We all want an open internet that’s sustainable, high-performing and valuable for publishers, buyers and users.
Innovation in web formats and monetization is essential. But in-banner video repurposing inventory intended for video players into display ad slots isn’t the path forward.
The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can constrict web video supply and end the race to the bottom through collective action, business outcomes and change.
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community.
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