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Video ad serving

Video content provides many advertising opportunities. There is a distinction between linear and non-linear video advertising.

  • Linear video ads (or in-stream video ads) are shown before, after, or in the middle of the video clip.
  • Non-linear video ads (or overlays) are shown parallel to the video fragment and are typically text or static images.

You can also choose to advertise outside the video player (for example, an autoplay video ad within a content article or a branded video player) and enhance the advertiser's visibility.

Please refer to Video advertising for a complete overview of video advertising formats.

VAST

If a publisher wishes to serve ads to video players, it must develop distinct video ad tags based on each video player's technology. The IAB has created a standard for video advertising, VAST, which allows for scalable delivery of ads to video players from different vendors.

VAST enables ad servers to utilise a single ad response format, independent of the video player's technology. The video player must be capable of requesting and parsing XML documents. Therefore, by utilising XML, VAST serves as a universal solution for video ad serving, comparable to HTML for browser-based ad serving.

Since the initial release of VAST, online video technology has advanced, enabling more sophisticated possibilities for online video advertising. To support this evolution, VAST has been enhanced with additional features and functionality. VAST 4.0 represents the current industry standard.

Adhese fully supports VAST: we are compliant with VAST 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 and can help you adopt its guidelines.

How to add a video campaign?

To add a video campaign:

  1. Go to the Campaign overview. Click Campaigns in the left navigation menu of Adhese.
  2. Click the campaign for which you want to upload a video ad.
  3. Click the Creatives tab.
  4. Click the Add Advar button. A New creative screen opens for an Advar template where you specify the following details:
    • Enter a name for the creative in the Name field.
    • Click the Select a format link in the Format field. Choose a video format, such as a pre-roll, from the list in the List of formats modal window.
    • In the Template field, click the Add advar template link and select the Advar template that accompanies the specified format.
    • Enter the URL of the ad's landing page in the URL field.
    • (Optional) Insert the third-party tracking URL in the Tracking URL field.
    • Upload the video file. Adhese supports the .mp4 and .flv extensions and automatically recognises the duration of the video file.
  5. Click the Save button.

Should your video ad fail to display the video content and only play the sound, please verify that the video file has been encoded with the correct codec. The video file should be encoded with H.264. If this is not the case, it must be re-encoded using H.264.

Tracking video ads

In addition to monitoring the number of click-throughs, VAST also tracks a number of events related to the playback of the video ad and/or initiated by the viewer:

  • Time progress tracking events, for example, mid-point, video ad completion, first and third quartile;
  • Viewer initiated events:
    • The viewer mutes or unmutes the sound of the video.
    • The viewer pauses the playback of the video.
    • The viewer switches the player to its full-screen mode.
    • The viewer skips the playback of the ad creative.
    • The viewer clicks a button to close a non-linear ad creative within the video player.

For a complete overview of the VAST implementation details and its tracking features, refer to http://www.iab.com/guidelines/digital-video-ad-serving-template-vast-4-0/.

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