Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Video Ad Serving Template

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VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) is a specification released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) that sets a standard for communication requirements between ad servers and video players.

Contents

It is a data structure declared using XML.

VAST has 6 versions: 1.0 (deprecated), 1.1 (deprecated), 2.0, 2.0.1, 3.0 and 4.0

Request

In order to play a video ad in a video player, the video player sends a request to a VAST ad server.

It is a simple HTTP based URL that typically appears as follows: http://www.example.com/?LR_PUBLISHER_ID=1331&LR_CAMPAIGN_ID=229&LR_SCHEMA=vast2-vpaid

Response

The ad server responds with a VAST data structure that declares these parameters:

  • The ad media that should be played
  • How the ad media should be played
  • What should be tracked as the media is played

    • For example, the above request returns the following response (trimmed):

    References

    Video Ad Serving Template Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA