Editor’s Note: While the IAB does never explicitly included an attribute for outstream in the OpenRTB specification, many companies within the ad tech ecosystem commonly refer to two key formats within video advertising: in-stream and outstream. For more information about the IAB Tech Lab’s ad format guidelines, click here.
There's a ceiling on outstream, and most publishers are already bumping their heads against it.
Outstream video — the kind that autoplays in a banner between paragraphs, expands in a sidebar, or floats over the page corner — has been a reliable revenue layer for publishers who don't produce video content. No studio, no editorial team, no licensing deals required. Just drop in a player, let a third-party fill it with ads, and collect a CPM that beats display.
The problem is that "beats display" is a low bar, and the gap between what outstream delivers and what a video player with content commands is wide enough to reshape a publisher's entire video revenue picture.
Why Outstream Has a Ceiling
Outstream players exist to serve ads. There's no content underneath — just an ad unit wearing a video player's clothing. Demand partners know this. DSPs know this. And increasingly, advertisers know this too.
The result is persistent CPM pressure. Outstream inventory is abundant and, from a brand safety and viewability standpoint, inconsistent. A video ad that autoplays silently while a user scrolls past it doesn't perform the same way as an ad that runs before a piece of content a viewer actively chose to watch. Buyers price that difference, and they do it aggressively.
Pre-roll and mid-roll ads running inside genuine video content — routinely trade at 3x to 5x the rate of comparable outstream placements. On certain verticals and with certain audience profiles, the gap is even wider. That delta isn't about the ad format. It's about context, intent, and whether a human being actually watched the content that preceded the ad.
Without owned content, publishers are locked out of that pricing tier.
What a Content Library Changes
Access to licensed video content doesn't just give publishers something to show viewers. It reclassifies the player itself.
When a video player has content — real content, curated for the audience, running in a structured playlist — it stops being an ad unit and starts functioning as a destination. That shift has downstream effects on everything:
CPM classification. Inventory that carries a pre-roll or mid-roll tag against actual content qualifies for higher in-stream pricing in most demand stacks. The same player with the same placement on the page commands a materially different floor.
Session behavior. Viewers who engage with content stay longer. Longer sessions mean more ad opportunities per visit, higher engagement metrics, and better signals for algorithmic audience targeting — all of which improve yield over time.
Brand safety posture. Content-adjacent advertising is more defensible to brand safety filters than content-free outstream. Publishers with a defined content environment can make stronger direct sales pitches and attract advertisers who won't touch run-of-site outstream at any price.
First-party data. A viewer who watches three videos has demonstrated interest in a way that a user who scrolled past an outstream ad hasn't. Content engagement is a signal. Signals build audience segments. Audience segments command premiums.
None of this requires a publisher to build a production studio. It requires having something worth watching in the player.
One option publishers often overlook
Building or licensing a content library doesn't have to mean negotiating individual deals with content providers. EX.CO offers a content marketplace that gives publishers instant access to thousands of daily videos from premium sources such as Cheddar News, National Geographic, Bloomberg, and Rolling Stone across 25+ verticals — sports, news, entertainment, lifestyle, and more — ready to run in the player without any production overhead.
For publishers evaluating the outstream-to-content move, it's often the fastest path to qualifying inventory for more premium pricing. The content is already there. The player is already there. The lift is minimal.
The Questions Publishers Should Ask
The assumption that "we don't have a content strategy" is often premature. Most publishers have more infrastructure for video than they realize, and the gap between where they are and where they'd need to be is frequently a licensing question, not a production question.
Before writing off true video content as out of reach, publishers should work through a short checklist:
What content does our audience already consume? Niche publishers often discover that licensed content libraries in their vertical — news clips, sports highlights, lifestyle or how-to programming, documentary segments — are available at price points that make sense against projected CPM improvements.
What's the minimum viable content volume to qualify our player? This isn't a trick question. Some demand partners require a minimum video length or a certain ratio of content to ads. Knowing the threshold helps publishers evaluate whether a lightweight licensing arrangement gets them over the line.
Do we have editorial video we're not monetizing? Interviews, event recordings, founder explainers, even high-quality social clips — publishers routinely sit on video assets that aren't being surfaced in a monetizable player. An audit of existing content is step one before any licensing conversation.
What would the CPM improvement need to be to justify the cost? The business case for a content library should be modeled, not assumed. Take current outstream volume, apply a realistic content rate (use conservative estimates — even 2x is compelling), back out the content licensing cost, and see what the net looks like. For publishers above a certain traffic threshold, the numbers often surprise.
The Bigger Picture
Outstream isn't going away, and it isn't worthless. But publishers who treat it as a ceiling rather than a floor are leaving significant revenue on the table.
The video advertising market continues to shift premium budgets toward content-adjacent environments. CTV took the high end. In-stream on the open web is the next tier. Publishers who can credibly operate a video destination — not just a video-shaped ad unit — are better positioned for that shift than those who can't.
The gap between outstream and a video-forward strategy isn't a technical problem. It's simply a content problem. And content problems, unlike infrastructure problems, have a licensing solution.
If you haven't modeled what a content library would do to your video revenue, it's worth spending an afternoon on the math before assuming the answer is no.
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