The Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST)

What is VAST? (The Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST))

The digital video ad serving template (VAST) provides a standardized method for communicating the status of a video ad back to the ad servers in the case where the ad is served from a dynamically selected ad server. It is specifically designed for on-demand videoplayer where the ad response is parsed prior to play.

VAST is applicable to Linear Video Ads (such as "pre-rolls"), Non-linear Video Ads (such as "overlays") and Companion ads as defined in the IAB Digital Video Ad Format Guidelines.

History

Due to both strong industry adoption and an evolving marketplace, VAST has continued to be updated in order to stay relevant.

VAST 1.0

The initial version of VAST was released in September 2008.

VAST 2.0

Released in November 2009, this formalized support for multiple creatives, linear and non-linear ads, and companion ads.

VAST 3.0

The upcoming version of VAST aims to include extensive industry feedback. :  http://www.iab.net/media/file/VASTv3.0.pdf

Compliance Program

The IAB allows members who have self attested to compliance with the VAST guidelines to obtain and post a VAST Complianceseal.

This Video Ad Serving Template (“VAST”) includes a standard XML-based ad response for in-stream video as well as an XML Schema Definition (“XSD”) for developers. It is meant to accommodate the majority of current practices within the online digital video advertising business.

VAST is designed for any on-demand video player where the ad response is parsed prior to play. For example, use of this standard would be appropriate within an Adobe Flash player if the ad response was requested and parsed in ActionScript but would not be appropriate if contained directly within a SMIL playlist directly sent to the player. It may be possible to use this XML format for applications other than on-demand viewing such as live video streaming, downloadable video players, set-top boxes, etc, but those applications are explicitly beyond the scope of the current effort.

The goal of this specification is to be compatible with any video player framework that has the ability to be scriptable. It will be up to each Secondary Ad Server to develop its own implementation of the standard and it will be up to each publisher or vendor to implement the standard in their Primary Ad Server and their Video Players.

Compliance Program for IAB members:

The IAB VAST Compliance Seal program has been designed to integrate into compliant member sites with ease. The IAB suggests that compliant member sites post the compliance seal in their online media kit as well as in their print versions. Media buyers will be educated about the benefits of VAST and be encouraged to look for the seal. The compliance seal must be placed according to IAB standards and should not be altered in any way. 

VAST Compliance Defined

 

Publishers who are VAST compliant self attest that they have implemented the standard XML-based ad response for in-stream video ad serving, as well as the XML Schema Definition (“XSD”) for developers.

How to Obtain the Compliance Seal:

In order to obtain the seal, a member company should download and fax theIAB Compliance Seal Application. Once the form has been received and reviewed, and assuming compliance, an attachment with the seal will be received by the compliant IAB member-company’s site.

Reference : http://www.iab.net/wiki/index.php/VAST

Search engine optimization & Search engine marketing

Difference between  Search engine optimization and  Search engine marketing

Search engine optimization

SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

Search engine marketing

A form of Internet Marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine result pages.

Unique Browser & Unique visitor & Unique user & Unique Device & Unique Cookie

Unique Browser

An identified and unduplicated Cookied Browser that accesses Internet content or advertising during a measurement period. This definition requires taking account for the potentially inflationary impact of cookie deletion among certain of the cookied browsers that access Internet content.

Unique Cookie

A count of unique identifiers…that represents unduplicated instances of Internet activity (generally visits) to Internet content or advertising during a measurement period.

Unique Device

An unduplicated computing device that is used to access Internet content or advertising during a measurement period. A count of unduplicated devices necessarily accounts for multiple browser usage on an individual computer or other computing device.

Unique user

Unique individual or browser which has accessed a site or application and has been served unique content and/or ads such as e-mail, newsletters, interstitials or pop-under ads. Unique visitors can be identified by user registration, cookies, or third-party measurement like ComScore or Nielsen. Reported unique visitors should filter out bots. See iab.net for the audience reach measurement guidelines.

Unique visitor

Unique individual or browser which has accessed a site or application and has been served unique content and/or ads such as e-mail, newsletters, interstitials or pop-under ads. Unique visitors can be identified by user registration, cookies, or third-party measurement like ComScore or Nielsen. Reported unique visitors should filter out bots. See iab.net for the audience reach measurement guidelines.

Unique listeners/streamers : A metric specific to Digital Audio

The size of the audience for a given audio program, piece of content, or advertising message. Typically ‘listeners’ and ‘streamers’ are interchangeable.

NAI - (Network Advertising Initiative)

A cooperative group of network advertisers which has developed a set of privacy principles in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission. The NAI provides consumers with explanations of Internet advertising practices and how they affect both consumers and the Internet. See networkadvertising.org for more information.

Video Ads

In-Banner Video Ads

Leverage the banner space to deliver a video experience as opposed to another static or rich media format. The format relies on the existence of display ad inventory on the page for its delivery

In-Page Video Ads

Delivered most often as a stand alone video ad and do not generally have other content associated with them. This format is typically home page or channel based and depends on real estate within the page dedicated for the video player.


In-Stream Video Ads


Played before, during or after the streaming video content that the consumer has requested. These ads cannot typically be stopped from being played (particularly with pre-roll). This format is frequently used to monetize the video content that the publisher is delivering. In-Stream ads can be played inside short or long form video and rely on video content for their delivery. There are four different types of video content where in-stream may play, UGC (User Generated Content/Video), Syndicated, Sourced and Journalistic.

In-Text Video Ads

Delivered from highlighted words and phrases within the text of web content. The ads are user activated and delivered only when a user chooses to move their mouse over a relevant word or phrase.

Cache busting

The process by which sites or servers serve content or HTML in such a manner as to minimize or prevent browsers or proxies from serving content from their cache. This forces the user or proxy to fetch a fresh copy for each request. Among other reasons, cache busting is used to provide a more accurate count of the number of requests from users.

What is Cache?

Memory used to temporarily store the most frequently requested content/files/pages in order to speed its delivery to the user. Caches can be local (i.e. on a browser) or on a network. In the case of local cache, most computers have both memory (RAM), and disk (hard drive) cache.

Behavioral targeting

Using previous online user activity (e.g., pages visited, content viewed, searches, clicks and purchases) to generate a segment which is used to match advertising creative to users (sometimes also called Behavioral Profiling, Interest-based Advertising, or online behavioral advertising). Behavioral targeting uses anonymous, non-PII data.

What is the Web crawler?

A web crawler (also known as an automatic indexer, bot, Web spider, Web robot) is a software program which visits Web pages in a methodical, automated manner.

This process is called Web crawling or spidering, and the resulting data is used for various purposes, including building indexes for search engines, validating that ads are being displayed in the appropriate context, and detecting malicious code on compromised web servers.

Many web crawlers will politely identify themselves via their user-agent string, which provides a reliable way of excluding a significant amount of non-human traffic from advertising metrics. The IAB (in conjunction with ABCe) maintains a list of known user-agent strings as the Spiders and Bots list. However, those web crawlers attempting to discover malicious code often must attempt to appear to be human traffic, which requires secondary, behavioral filtering to detect.

Most web crawlers will respect a file called robots.txt, hosted in the root of a web site. This file informs the web crawler which directories should and shouldn't be indexed, but does not enact any actual access restrictions.

Technically, a web crawler is a specific type of bot, or software agent.

Ad Serving Options

Ad Serving Options 

There are two methods by which the winning bidder can return ad markup to the exchange. In either case, the ad markup is either XHTML if the bidder is responding with a banner or VAST XML if responding with a VAST video.

1 Ad Served on the Win Notice

In this method, ad markup is returned to the exchange is via the win notice. In this case, the

response body of the win notice call (e.g., invoking the “nurl” attribute) contains the ad markup

and only the ad markup; there must be no other structured data in the response body. Using

this method, the “adm” attribute in the “bid” object must be omitted.

2 Ad Served in the Bid

In this method, ad markup is returned directly in the bid itself. This is accomplished via the

“adm” attribute in the “bid” object. If both the “adm” attribute and win notice return data, the

“adm” contents will take precedence.

3 Comparison of Ad Serving Approaches

Each of the ad serving methods has its own advantages that may be of varying importance to

either the exchange or the bidder.

            3.1 Ad Served in the Bid

                   1   Potential Concurrency: The exchange can choose to return that ad markup and
                        call the win notice concurrently, thereby improving user experience.

                   2  Reduced Risk of Forfeiture: A forfeit is the scenario in which a bidder wins, but

                       forfeits due to technical failure serving the ad. This can occur when serving on

                       the win notice (e.g., win notice call failure), but is mitigated by including the ad

                       in the bid.

               

            3.2 Ad Served on the Win Notice

1 Reduced Bandwidth Costs: Serving ad markup only upon winning can save large

                    amounts of bandwidth usage, the costs for which can mount up over high volumes.

2 Additional Bidder Flexibility: Bidders may typically know the ad they will serve

                           at the time of bid, but this provides an additional optional decision point after

                           the settlement price has been established.

Mobile Interstitial

Banners are small ads that when touched typically take the user to some form of full-screen in-app browsing experience.

Interstitials, on the other hand, immediately present rich HTML5 experiences or "web apps" at natural app transition points such as launch, video pre-roll or game level load. Web apps are in-app browsing experiences with a simple close button rather than any navigation bar—the content provides its own internal navigation scheme. Interstitial ads are typically more expensive and subject to impression constraints.