Advertising

Advertising is a powerful way to monetize your content while keeping it free for viewers. Vidori supports server-side ad insertion (SSAI) for seamless, buffer-free ad experiences.

Ad Types

Pre-roll

Ads that play before your content starts.

Best practices:

• Keep under 30 seconds total
• Skip option after 5 seconds improves experience
• Higher CPMs than mid-roll

Mid-roll

Ads inserted during content playback.

Best practices:

• Insert at natural break points
• Space at least 8 minutes apart
• Avoid interrupting key moments

Post-roll

Ads that play after content ends.

Best practices:

• Lower completion rates
• Good for sequential content (episodes)
• Lower CPMs

Setting Up Ads

1. Go to Monetization → Advertising

2. Toggle Enable Advertising on — this is the master switch that controls whether the ad SDK loads in the player

3. Enter your VAST URL — the Video Ad Serving Template endpoint used to fetch video ads — and click Save

4. Configure the ad settings described below

Tip

When advertising is disabled, no ads will be shown and the ad SDK will not load in the player at all, reducing player load time.

Ad Settings

The advertising page lets you configure the following settings:

Setting	Range	Description
Preferred Interstitial Ad length	5–120 seconds	The preferred length of individual ads displayed during breaks
Ad break frequency	1–60 min/hour	How many minutes of ad time are scheduled per hour of content. Higher values mean more frequent breaks.
Preferred Ad break duration	15–300 seconds	Target duration for each ad break. Multiple ads may play consecutively depending on individual ad length.
Pre-rolls	On/Off	When enabled, an ad break plays before the video starts for both on-demand and live content. Uses the ad length configuration above.

Mid-roll Guardrails

Regardless of the ad break frequency setting, Vidori enforces the following guardrails to protect the viewer experience:

• Ad breaks are spaced at least 7 minutes apart
• A maximum of 6 ad breaks per hour
• Mid-roll ads are only inserted in content longer than 8 minutes
• Seek behavior: When a viewer skips ahead, the most recent ad break before their new position is shown. To prevent ad fatigue, subsequent ad breaks within 60 seconds of the seek position are skipped.

Ad Network Integration

Google Ad Manager (GAM)

Most common integration for premium inventory.

1. Create a GAM account at admanager.google.com

2. Set up your ad units

3. Generate a VAST tag URL from your GAM ad unit

4. In Vidori, paste the VAST tag URL into the VAST URL field at Monetization → Advertising

5. Click Save

Ad Units and Targeting

The VAST URL above applies to your whole catalog. Individual channels, events and groups can each refine it, so different content can serve different ads.

A Google Ad Manager VAST tag names the ad unit it requests in its iu parameter, and carries key-value targeting in cust_params:

https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?iu=/21775744923/mychannel/default&cust_params=tier%3Dfree&sz=640x480&...

Two fields let you change those per piece of content:

Field	What it does	When to use it
Ad Unit	Replaces iu — the request goes to a different GAM ad unit	You want separate inventory, separate reporting, or a direct-sold deal for this content
Ad Targeting	Adds key-values to cust_params	You want to slice one ad unit by channel, genre, sponsor or anything else, without creating new ad units in GAM

Everything else in your VAST URL — sizes, macros, your own cust_params keys — is left exactly as you configured it.

Tip

Ad units and targeting are complementary. Ad units are the right tool when you need per-content revenue reporting or separately-sold inventory, because GAM reports on ad units natively. Targeting is the right tool for everything else: key-values need no changes to your GAM inventory tree, and several can apply to the same request.

Where to set them

1. Channels — Catalog → Channels → select a channel → Publishing tab

2. Events — Catalog → Events → select an event → Publishing tab

3. Groups — Catalog → Groups → edit a static group → Advertising section

Leave a field empty to inherit. Clearing a field that was set removes the override.

Note

Only static groups carry advertising settings. A dynamic group is a saved search rather than a fixed list of content, so there is no fixed set of assets for its ad unit to apply to.

Which setting wins

An asset can inherit from both its own settings and any group it belongs to. The two fields resolve differently, because GAM treats them differently:

• Ad Unit — the group wins. A request carries exactly one ad unit, so a group’s ad unit replaces whatever the channel or event sets. This is what makes sponsor and partner groups work: put content in the group and it all serves from the sponsor’s ad unit, whatever the individual channels say.
• Ad Targeting — everything merges. The asset’s key-values and the group’s are combined. If both set the same key, the group’s value wins.

If an asset is in several groups with settings, the group ordering decides.

A worked example — a channel in a sponsored group:

	Ad Unit	Ad Targeting
Channel “Sports 1”	/21775744923/mychannel/sports	channel=sports1&type=live
Group “Acme Sponsored”	/21775744923/mychannel/sponsor	sponsor=acme
Ad request	/21775744923/mychannel/sponsor	channel=sports1&type=live&sponsor=acme

Ad unit format

Enter the full GAM ad unit path, including your network code:

/21775744923/mychannel/sports

The network code must match the one in your VAST URL. An ad unit from a different GAM network is ignored and the tenant VAST URL is used instead — requesting a unit your network does not own would simply return no ads.

Targeting format

Enter key-value pairs the way GAM writes them, joined by &:

channel=sports1&type=live

Use a comma for a key with several values: genre=sport,news.

Caution

Free-form key-values can be targeted by line items but do not appear as a breakdown in GAM reports unless you define them as predefined values in GAM first. If you need per-channel or per-group revenue reporting, use an ad unit.

Verifying

Play the content and inspect the outgoing ad request in your browser’s network tab. Check that iu shows the ad unit you configured and that cust_params contains your keys. In GAM, the request appears under the ad unit you set.

Note

VOD2LIVE channels honour their ad unit and targeting on both the pre-roll and the mid-roll breaks stitched into the channel. Because their playlists are cached, a change there can take up to an hour to appear.

Analytics

Track ad performance at Analytics → Advertising:

Metric	Description
Impressions	Total ad views
Fill rate	% of requests filled
CPM	Revenue per 1000 impressions
Completion rate	% watched to end
Revenue	Total earnings