What’s that one thing that captures the audience’s attention in just a span of a few seconds? That’s right: storytelling!
And ever since marketers have realized the importance of approaching prospects with thoughtful ideas, storytelling has become the crux of advertisements. If done engagingly, it can attract more audiences.
Now, amidst this mobile-centric and hectic lifestyle, people prefer digesting information in a more condensed way. Thus, instead of those blocks of texts, they prefer consuming the details through videos! Video advertisements are on their way to becoming the driving force of digital marketing in the forthcoming years.
But before we delve into what exactly is video marketing, let’s highlight some facts first:
A report suggests that almost 2/3rd of video advertising revenue is generated from mobile phones. Nearly 75% of brands are on their way to increasing their online videos over the next year. So, that makes it evident that major businesses are focusing on implementing video ads to boost profitability.
Now, as you’ve read the reports and are familiar with the rising popularity of video marketing, let’s understand how it gets done. Here’s an explanation of what video marketing is in a nutshell.
Introducing You to the Concept of Video Marketing: What’s Video Advertising?
Video advertisement is a process of showcasing ads inside video content made using an ad maker. It’s usually done during, after, or before the video gets streamed. They are known as mid-roll, post-roll, and pre-roll, respectively. Alternatively, it might be a standalone ad itself! Most video ads are sold, displayed, and bought programmatically through different targeting methods and may use some interactive components.
How Do Video Ads Get Served?
Before we explain to you the process of how video ads get served, let’s learn the format first. So, the serving formats of video ads have been envisioned, and they are:
1. Linear video advertisements: These ads get displayed during, before, or after video content. The format is similar to the commercials used on television.
2. Non-linear video advertisements: These ads run simultaneously with video content such that users can see ads while viewing that content.
3. Companion advertisements: These ads encompass texts, rich media, or texts that do not interrupt the overall video experience.
Video ads get displayed across multiple mediums and channels. They are:
- In mobile applications (or in-app video advertisements)
- In web browsers on mobile devices or laptop/PC
- On OTT (over-the-top) platforms
Understanding the Video Ad Serving Procedure
The video ad serving method encompasses perspectives of marketing technologies. In simple words, if you’re familiar with what display ads are, you wouldn’t face too many challenges in understanding video ads. The only difference between the two lies in the fact that one gets displayed on the screen.
Now that you have learned about the nitty-gritty of video ads, here’s presenting the ultimate video ad serving procedure in detail. Given the complexity associated with video ad serving, you can simplify the process by performing the following steps. You can use a video ad maker according to your preference.
Step 1: Generally, the user visits a website with the video player that requests the webserver to retrieve video content. As soon as the server responds with the code, the browser knows where to receive the video content and how to format it. The video player must support the HTML5 video and VAST tags, thereby communicating with the ad servers.
Step 2: As soon as the video content is fetched, the player will send the request to the publisher’s ad server. This way, it retrieves the video advertisement. The procedure involves sending the VAST request. The ad service of the publisher would count as an impression. The ad server decides which ads to display in the space and sends back the link directing to the location to be displayed to a user in the video player. Most of the time, the ad gets hosted on the CDN or content delivery network.
Step 3: Now, the video player will send the request to CDN, after which the CDN returns the ad file, and the video ad gets displayed to the user.
Things to Learn About VAST or Video Ad Serving Template
VAST happens to be the common video advertisement template by the IAB. Upon different changes and iterations, the IAB introduced the VAST 4.2. The most current version introduces the significant solutions for video ads’ complicated problems, including verification, measurement, and interactivity.
Sadly, multiple video players have been lagging. And that makes it evident for the ad industry to embrace the adoption of VAST 4.2.
Like the software updates that prevent phones from being hacked, VAST updates are needed across the industry to streamline delivery methods and curtail advertisement fraud – the online ad’s perennial bane!
Here are the benefits of the adoption of VAST:
- Seamless implementation because of standardized macro-centric and requests that enable the video players to display ads more effortlessly
- Enhanced support for the OTT and mobile platforms
- Combined video and audio standards with DAAST’s inclusion (where DAAST is the Digital Audio Ad Serving Template)
VAST 4.2’s introduction refers to the VPAID’s killing-off, the format that was not met originally with decent reception. Additionally, it may be the reason behind the common schema’s slow adoption.
VPAID provided limited transparency and created multiple issues in the industry associated with vulnerabilities, trust, negative UX or user experiences, and poor fill rates.
How Does the VAST Request Work?
To play the video ad, that video player should send the VAST request to the ad server for the information concerning:
- What should get tracked as that ad gets played
- How that ad must get played
- The ad that must get played
After Everything Else
Video ads are gaining paramount prominence in today’s marketing sphere. Thus, understanding how video ads get served is the first consideration a marketer would ever want to consider. Now that you have learned the information, you can proceed accordingly.
