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A third-party Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) tag URL is a code snippet that enables an advertiser to serve their video ads to a publisher's website or app, through a third-party ad server. VAST tag URLs provide a standardized way for video ads to be delivered and tracked across different platforms and devices.
When an advertiser creates a video ad campaign, they typically provide the ad creative (such as the video file and accompanying text and graphics) to an ad server. The ad server then generates a VAST tag URL that corresponds to the ad. This URL can be sent to publishers or ad servers to serve the ad on their inventory.
The VAST tag URL contains information about the ad, such as the ad type, duration, and tracking URLs for impression and click tracking. It also specifies the location of the ad creative, which is typically hosted on the ad server.
Third-party VAST tag URLs provide a way for advertisers to serve their video ads on a wide range of publisher inventory while providing detailed reporting and tracking capabilities.
Synamedia Iris Ad Manager supports multiple types of ad formats, such as HLS or DASH streaming, as well as .mp4 files which can be later transcoded by the Synamedia Iris transcoding services. Synamedia Iris also supports VAST tag URLs generated from third-party ad servers.
Standard third-party ads are pre-rolls, mid-rolls, and post-rolls that come from external providers such as ad networks, another ad server, or an SSP service.
Synamedia Iris supports adding a URL to a VAST ad served by an external system. The URL leads to an XML response that contains all information about which video files to play and what tracking is available. You may include Synamedia Iris Macros in the URL to provide more information to the third party and enable them to send a customized response based on the values in the Macros.
You can also include third-party trackers to the VAST tag URL for verification purposes.
Advertisers benefit from VAST tag URLs in the following ways:
Allows creative changes and optimization from the Ad Server, instead of going directly to Iris Ad Manager
Enables creative A/B and multi-variant testing
Tracks ad viewability, using trackers placed in the VAST tag URL
Tracks ad engagement
After you add VAST tag URLs to Iris Ad Manager, they are automatically wrapped with impression-tracking Macros. With these Macros, you can measure the number of impressions and viewing duration quartile associated with specific creatives in the reports generated by the Iris Report Manager.
You must ensure that the VAST tag URLs are reviewed correctly and are in compliance with the operator's creative policies and any inventory sources with explicit creative requirements. If the user is working with Iris SSAI, then the system can transcode the creative using the Just-in-Time Transcoding (JITT) method. To enable this feature when working with SSAI, perform the following:
Ensure JITT as the tenant configuration for both Linear and VOD.
Establish transcoding profile requirements from the user/customer to configure JITT.
Third-party video VAST tags in Synamedia Iris may be used for creatives added to direct sold Line Items. If you are using the clash management features of Synamedia Iris, the advertisers and brands associated with Campaigns and Line Items to which the third-party video VAST tags have been added, are used to restrict which other advertisements can appear within the Clash Window for the same viewer.
Third-party video VAST tags allow the advertiser to optimize and change the creative that is returned to the VAST tag. It is important to confirm with the third-party that the VAST tag will always return creative for the same advertiser (and brand, if used for clash purposes).
Synamedia Iris does not support clash for third-party video VAST tags which rotate creative for different advertisers or brands (for example, from an ad network). If multiple advertisers and brands are returned, only the advertiser and brand used in the Campaign and Line item set-up can be used in a Clash Group and will be applied to whenever the creative using the third-party tag is selected.
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