Introduction
Online video advertising is growing rapidly. While playing a video on Youtube and Metacafe there are various kinds of ads which comes in the be-gaining of content , mid of content, ending of content. These ads are having different categories like Banner Ads, Skippable Ads and full screen Ads.
As online video advertising industry is growing Ads are making more user friendly for viewers. Which increases the CTR (Click Through Rate) and Viewing Time Duration results more beneficial for advertisers as well as for publishers.
So in this article we will cover What is VAST and Working Of VAST.
What Is VAST
VAST stands for Video Ad Serving Template. It was developed by IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). It was first launched in the 2008. VAST enable us to insert the video ads in the video streams. These video ads are served by the video ad server and played in client side video players. Where client side devices or can be called as subscriber end devices can be Mobile, Tablet and Laptop.
So VAST is video ad serving protocol. A communication standard between ad server and client player.
Working Of VAST
Earlier there was a problem with advertisers that sometimes their ad server do not support the publisher’s video player. So advertisers needs to customize their ads according to publisher’s video player to play their ads properly in subscriber end devices. So this is a complex process and also consume lot of time in customization of ads according to publisher’s video player.
So VAST is used to overcome this problem between advertisers and publishers. It is a standard protocol between ad servers and video players.
# VAST is used to perform following actions,
(1) While playing the content by video player , what should be position of Ads in the content.
(2) what should be duration of Ads.
(3) The should be skippable or not.
(4) What should be destination URL of Ads after clicking the ads by subscriber.
(5) What ad should be displayed to particular subscriber according to data collection.
Versions Of VAST
As we have discussed above it was first launched in the 2008 year. Then version by version improvements are done mentioned below,
# VAST Version 1.0
It supports the three formats .MP4, .MOV and .3GP.
It enable us for play, stop and pause functions.
It Supports Linear Ads only.
# VAST Version 2.0
It supports the three formats .MP4, .MOV and .3GP.
It also supports Flash and JavaScript.
It enable us for play, stop and pause functions.
It supports Linear, Non Linear and companion ads.
It Supports Player tracking and Quartile Event.
# VAST Version 3.0
It supports the five formats.
It supports skippable Ads so user can skip the ads when he want.
It supports OBA (Online Behavioral Advertising) which gives alerts to advertisers that ads are not played properly.
It supports Ad Pod which is sequence of ads.
# VAST Version 4.0
It support Ad Stitching function which bypass the Ad Blocker and show the Ads to the subscribers.
It supports skippable Ads so user can skip the ads when he want.
It supports Mezzanine File.
It supports separate video and interactive files.
It supports verification of ads and its views.
It supports different ad categories.
Conclusion Of Video Ad Serving Template
VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) works as a communication language between ad serving server and client’s video player. So it is a standard of compatibility between ad server and video player. Online advertising have done growth by showing relevant ads to subscribers. Now these advertising platform depends upon the searching behavior of users by collection its searching data and interests. This is called niche targeted advertising for a targeted audience. All of these conditions are fulfilled by Video Ad Serving Template.
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