Authored by Emma Sainsbury, Research Analyst

Most CTV ads are still fighting the same battle linear TV lost decades ago: interrupt the show, hope the viewer sticks around. In-show ad insertions — formats like split screen, dynamic overlay, and product integration that appear within the content instead of during a break — take a different approach. And the data suggests that approach holds attention longer, not just at the moment of exposure.

Standard :15s and :30s spots ask viewers to tolerate an interruption. Attention during that window is a coin flip because viewers tune out, look at their phones, or skip if they can. Repetition doesn’t help: running the same spot twice produces diminishing returns on recall and awareness.

In-show placements integrate into the program itself, so the ad experience doesn’t compete with the content, it rides alongside it. That distinction shows up directly in attention data. In eye-tracking research on TripleLift’s Pause Ads, a related non-disruptive format, 100% of viewers saw the ad, for an average of 24 seconds of continuous attention. For an In-Show holiday campaign from a national CPG brand, an eye-tracking study found 94% aided recall and a 43% lift in brand perception, with 98% of viewers recalling the brand’s seasonal messaging. Separately, Sticky Eye Tracking studies found 98% of viewers recalled In-Show ads, resulting in a 43% increase in purchase intent.

Viewer sentiment reinforces this: in a campaign for Visit Savannah using In-Show CTV formats, over half of respondents said the ad wasn’t intrusive to the show and didn’t distract from it.⁴ That’s the mechanism behind the attention data — when the ad doesn’t fight the content, viewers don’t tune out.

The “over time” question matters because attention to a single exposure is only half the story. Pairing in-show formats with standard spots appears to extend engagement rather than just repeating it — TripleLift’s Split Screen and Branded Video combination campaign found the two units reinforced each other: Split Screen drove awareness while Branded Video lifted purchase intent, with both improving message association and brand perception.⁵ Rather than attention decaying with repeated standard exposure, layering in-show formats onto a campaign appears to sustain and build it across touchpoints.

In-show CTV insertions don’t just avoid the drop-off that comes with interrupting a show — they hold attention long enough, and consistently enough, to move recall and purchase intent in ways standard spots alone don’t. For brands still running only :30 spots, the eye-tracking data makes the case for adding in-show formats to the mix, not replacing the spot but reinforcing it.