While video advertising remains perhaps the most lucrative niche for publishers in 2018, the market is only likely to grow further in the upcoming years.
Namely, the amount of video ad spend is likely to increase by double-digit percentages every year and top $22 Billion by the end of 2021 only in the U.S., according to eMarketer forecasts.
However, the video ad market growth doesn’t necessarily result in higher website ad revenue. Moreover, if integrated poorly, adding video to publisher’s ad stack may even downgrade user experience and the amount of their advertising yield, accordingly.
Conversely, using a top-quality video ad player solution can make the integration of video ads much less exhausting.
Setting video ad player benchmarks
In brief, the key features a publisher should be looking for in a high-quality video ad player include the following:
- IAB-compliant video ad serving technology
- Flawless video ad delivery across screens
- Smooth integration with the current ad stack
- Access to native, e.g. outstream video ad inventory
- Ad player customization options
- Built-in ad optimization capabilities, and more.
Let’s dive into each feature a little deeper.
IAB-compliant video ad serving technology
Quite obviously, the primary task a video ad player should cope with is the fast & smooth loading and delivery of video ads.
Thus, compliance with all global video ad standards, like VAST, VPAID and Google IMA, along with support of major video ad formats are the key factors affecting publishers’ video ad revenue.
Flawless video ad delivery across screens
Since mobile, undoubtedly, remains the booming advertising channel across all niches, delivering compelling ad experience to mobile viewers is a primary task for all publishers, especially in the video segment.
A video ad player should, thus, be responsive, lightweight and cross-browser compatible to ensure flawless ad delivery on all devices and screens, regardless of external factors, like Internet speed, or else.
Smooth integration with the current ad stack
Smooth integration of video ad player technology into the publisher’s ad stack is vital for ensuring their sustainable ad revenue growth without deteriorating viewers’ advertising experience.
Fortunately, the HTML5 video player technology helps simplify the integration of current demand sources and expanding the video ad stack in future.
Access to native, e.g. outstream video ad inventory
While monetization of video content using mostly the in-stream video ad formats seems quite straightforward, a stellar video ad player should enable extra monetization options, too.
Namely, premium publishers of editorial or other non-video content would definitely benefit from working with outstream video ads, natively-integrated into their website content using their video ad player solution.
In this respect, the AdPlayer.Pro video ad player, for instance, supports a variety of outstream video ad formats, including:
– InPage video ads
– InView video ad format
– Sticky video ad unit
– InBanner video ads.
Ad player customization options
Being HTML5 driven and VAST/VPAID/Google IMA compatible, superb video ad player solutions usually enable customizing ad player size, skins and features, like button scaling or event triggering, just to name the few.
More importantly, the ad player configuration and setup via API shouldn’t be an issue either.
Built-in ad optimization capabilities
Some of the key video ad optimization capabilities, available in a top-notch video ad player include:
– Ad waterfalling, skipping & targeting setup
– Video header bidding support
– Effortless integration with various ad server solutions, etc.
Reporting & analytics
A cutting-edge video ad player solution should enable a publisher to browse video ad campaign stats, create & export data reports (e.g. in a CSV file) on video ad placements, video ad campaigns, their fill rate & CPM, and much more.
Pricing
Last but not least, superb video ad player technology should be affordable to publishers.
Namely, the AdPlayer.Pro video ad player solution is free for publishers monetizing with AdPlayer.Pro premium demand, while offering compatible pricing* to those working with third-party advertising partners.