Advertising in the video player

Section: Settings → Media → Advertising in the video player and Media → Video ads. Ads are off by default: until you turn the switch on and confirm that you show ads only in your own or licensed videos, the player plays the film without a single ad request. The confirmation is written to the change log.

What the viewer sees

• A clip over the picture with a yellow “Ad · 1 of 1” label and the time left. The film waits on pause; its position and “resume” are kept.
• The “Skip in N s” button: disabled at first, after 5–30 seconds (set by the source) it becomes “Skip ad”. Keys: Space — pause, M — sound, S — skip; the film cannot be scrubbed during an ad.
• A “Visit the advertiser’s site” link (rel="noopener sponsored nofollow", new tab). After the click the clip waits on pause with a “Play” button and resumes by itself when the viewer comes back.
• Any trouble — the network did not answer within 3 seconds, the clip did not start within 5, the file is broken — and the ad is silently skipped; the film plays. The viewer never notices an ad that was not found.

How to turn it on

1. In Settings → Media → Advertising in the video player turn on “Video ads: show clips” and tick “I show ads only in my own or licensed videos”.
2. Choose the scope: only in marked videos (a video in Media has an “Ads in the player” panel with a tick) or in all my videos.
3. Set the breaks: a clip before the film; in the middle — minutes separated by commas (10, 25, up to six) or “every N minutes” (from 5); after the end. For a series — “once per visit” or “before every episode” (a series collection does not show the “after” clip: the next episode starts by itself).
4. Connect a source: a clip in Banners (the “video” place, a file from Media) or an ad cabinet material, or an ad network by URL (below).

A “before the film” clip is shown to a viewer no more than once in ten minutes (remembered only in the viewer’s browser, without cookies and without the server). The server checks the schedule, impression limits and audience of your own clips when it hands them out; the player decides nothing about advertising by itself.

Where the clips come from

• Own clips — a “Video clip” banner in the Banners module: a file from Media (mp4 or webm, up to 10 MB and 60 seconds), a link, skip after N seconds, schedule and impression limits. The “Impressions and clicks” report shows starts, completions, skips and clicks.
• Ad cabinet — a “video clip” package: the advertiser sends a material, you review it, then it runs as a banner of the “video” place.
• An ad network by URL (VAST/VMAP) — a fallback source when there are no own clips: in Settings enter the tag URL (https), the list of allowed hosts (one per line) and, if needed, hosts for counters. Without a list of hosts the network will not turn on.

How it is protected and what goes to the network

• The network response is parsed as data only: responses with “DOCTYPE”/“ENTITY”, larger than 256 KB or too deep are dropped as a whole; VPAID and network scripts are never run and never reach the page.
• Requests to the network go only from the site server: https, port 443, a host strictly from your list (exact name or with “www.”, no suffixes), at most three links in a chain, five seconds for the whole chain, 40 requests a minute; the response is cached for 45 seconds.
• The viewer gets a cleaned clip: a file from a listed host, our signed click address (the real advertiser address lives in the site database, not in the page) and an impression key. Events (start, quarters, end, skip, error) are sent by the server after the viewer has been answered — without cookies, without the viewer’s IP and User-Agent; the network only sees requests of the site server.
• The viewer downloads the clip file itself from a listed host, and that host sees the viewer’s IP address — as with any file from a third-party host. Where a click leads is decided by the ad network: choosing the network is your responsibility. Add a line about the ad network to your privacy policy.
• One impression key — one counted event of each kind and one click; the key lives three hours; a forged, foreign or expired key does not work. Clip delivery is limited to 24 requests a minute per address.

Test request and report

In Media → Video ads: the state (whether ads are on, which hosts are allowed), a “Check” button — one request to the network for the chosen break (no more than six in ten minutes) showing the steps of the chain and the clip found, nothing is shown to visitors — and a 30-day report by host: starts, quarters, completions, skips, clicks, errors.