This blog post highlights Varrando’s video out-stream ads implementation. Let’s start with some background info first. If you wanna go straight to the goodies go here.
What’s In-stream?
Video in-stream ads are commercials that appear before, during and after videos. Basically, the “pre-roll”, “mid-roll” or “post-roll” you keep hearing about. Duration of these ads vary between 15 – 30 seconds and are comparable to TV commercials. They are run by the same video player.
Why In-stream might not be enough?
In-stream ads are associated with video content. Video production can be expensive. This limits available inventory.
What’s Out-stream?
Out-stream video ads play outside of video content. They are usually served between two paragraphs of an article, between two images of a slideshow or, in a newsfeed on a smartphone.
Why now?
Mobile consumption is rising at unprecedented levels, yet ad revenue not so much. Selling advertising on mobile devices is proving somewhat difficult. Traditional ad formats (eg. banners) do not perform well. Out-stream may be a good solution to mobile advertising.
How it works?
Out-stream aims to build a more elegant, respectful option for brands. Goals:
- design something that looks nice (especially on mobile)
- where the user is in charge
- advertisers can see higher engagement
- placed in the heart of any editorial content for an optimal performance
Out-stream ads are videos that play automatically as soon as more than 50% of it appears in reader’s view. If the video ad is not visible, it pauses. Once the ad is completed, it totally fades away and the the article reappears.
In some ways, Facebook has contributed to consumers getting accustomed to autoplay, in-feed video.
Benefits
New and exciting locations for video ads integration is enabled by out-stream. As a result, available video ad inventory can be expanded far beyond current In-Stream model. This new inventory benefits brand advertisers.
Out-stream advertising model is the perfect fit for publishers proficient in creating high quality written content. Now they can insert video ads within their content without worrying about producing any videos.
According to a recent Nielsen study, various metrics such as ad likeability and purchase intent have increased significantly among users when interacting with out-stream ads compared in-stream ads.
Is anybody using it?
Adopted by the world’s leading publishers such as The Washington Post, Reuters, Forbes, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian etc.
Out-stream by Varrando
How do you implement Out-stream?
It depends on who provides out-stream solutions. Basically, you need the tech to play out-stream and ad inventory.
Video ad tech companies with only an out-stream solution partner with Video SSPs to offer the complete stack. On the other hand, Video SSPs may bring advertisers as well as publishers to their platform. Brand advertisers can upload a video creative and the SSP makes sure it’s distributed across its publisher inventory as out-stream ad. This approach works for premium publishers and advertisers. But, what about small and medium publishers?
Various out-stream implementations support VAST/VPAID protocols. This enables sources of video ad inventory for publishers without direct deals with advertisers. Publishers might think that this is all great but, on a closer look, existing out-stream implementations are rather limited.
Required features for a publisher are: fill rate and revenue maximization.
Publishers moving from in-stream are accustomed to put in competition multiple video ad sources. We covered a discussion on fill rate optimization in blog posts: one, two.
Why should you use Varrando Out-stream solution?
- Varrando out-stream enables to put in competition multiple video ad sources.
- Waterfall calls every ad network in parallel. And use CPM price to select the winning ad.
- Broadcast sends a parallel ad request to ad networks tags. The first in X seconds wins the bid
- Varrando implementation is the smallest and awesome in performance. For out-stream, load time and performance, are critical.
- We actually implement IAB VAST 3.0 to the letter. Here are some highlights.
Varrando out-stream, given its feature set, is the best tool for any publisher that wants to expand inventory from in-stream and/or capitalize on video advertising inside written content.
