It is all about fill-rate. At a given point in time an ad-server may not have inventory to return a VAST response with an available creative included. Fill-rate for an ad campain can be anywhere between 5% to 95%. Fill-rate may vary based on country, audience, ad-type (in-stream vs. out-stream) or your contract with the ad service provider. On top you must account for potential network errors as the VAST process typically requires several HTTP requests to complete.
A solution to maximise fill-rate is to use ad waterfalling. This can either be a player-side or server-side
process.
For client-side waterfalling you can use the adTagWaterfall setting to maximise fill-rate and
thus revenue with Radiant Media Player.
Using this setting requires you to use at least 2 different ad service provider so that the player can
waterfall from one to another.
Radiant Media Player supports two modes for ad waterfalling:
adTagWaterfall player setting: VAST tags for
waterfalling are passed to the
player as a configuration option. The player will
sequentially run through all available VAST tags until it finds one that is suitable or has
no more VAST tags to waterfall upon.
adTagWaterfall: Array
Specifies an array of backup VAST tags if the first
adTagUrl produces an error. The player will cycle
through all available VAST tags (in order) in
adTagWaterfall until one is available or will resume
content if no valid response is found (e.g. no inventory). Default: [].
When the player
tries to load a
new VAST tag with the adTagWaterfall setting, a
adclientsidewaterfallrequested API event fires
Player code example:
<!-- Include Radiant Media Player JavaScript file in your <body> or <head> --> <script src="https://cdn.radiantmediatechs.com/rmp/10.1.4/js/rmp.min.js"></script> <!-- Player container element --> <div id="rmp"></div> <!-- Set up player configuration options --> <script> // Streaming source - HLS in this example const src = { hls: 'https://your-hls-url.m3u8' }; // Player settings const settings = { licenseKey: 'your-license-key', src, width: 640, height: 360, ads: true, adTagUrl: 'https://your-ad-tag-url', // Here comes our waterfall array with fallback adTag urls adTagWaterfall: [ 'https://your-fallback-ad-tag-url-1', 'https://your-fallback-ad-tag-url-2' ], contentMetadata: { poster: [ 'https://your-poster-url.jpg' ] } }; const rmp = new RadiantMP('rmp'); // Initialization ... and done! async function initRmpPlayer() { try { await rmp.init(settings); } catch(error) { console.error('Radiant Media Player failed to initialize', error); } } initRmpPlayer(); </script>
The player will automatically follow any VAST redirect information (VAST Wrapper) until it finds a suitable VAST response or has no more redirect to follow. This may be configured with your ad service provider.
If you use Google Ads refer to this article for more information on video fallback.
When no valid VAST
response after one or more Wrappers is available the player will fire an aderror event.
The
adVastErrorCode getter shall provide the error code 303 (Empty VAST response returned).
See
VAST 3 video error
codes for more information.
The player will
always look for VAST-embedded waterfall before using data in the
adTagWaterfall setting when both waterfalling options
are available.
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