VPAID (Video Player-Ad Interface Definition)

VPAID — Video Player-Ad Interface Definition — was the IAB Tech Lab's spec for interactive video ads. A VPAID ad shipped as JavaScript loaded into the player; the player handed it a runtime context and let it draw interactive overlays, run measurement scripts, and emit custom events. VPAID 2.0 (2012) was the dominant version through the mid-2010s.

VPAID has been deprecated industry-wide since 2020. Three reasons. First, JavaScript inside a video player is a security and performance disaster — VPAID ads were the largest source of CTV crashes and battery drain. Second, VPAID's measurement model was tightly coupled to the creative, which meant verification vendors had to ship their own VPAID ads rather than instrumenting any ad. Third, the rise of OMID solved the measurement-script problem cleanly and the rise of SIMID solved the interactive-overlay problem cleanly.

In 2026, most major SSPs reject VPAID creatives outright. Trillboards screens do not run VPAID — the edge SDK rejects VPAID Wrappers with error code 901. The replacement is VAST 4.x for delivery + OMID for measurement + SIMID for interactivity.

The term still appears in older RFPs and partner integration docs; safe to treat any "VPAID required" line as a signal the doc is pre-2020 and should be re-negotiated.