Summary
Overview
Most common sizes
Demo
Compliance
Creatives
Creative template parameters
Features
Metrics
Limitations
Known issues
Release notes
Overview
Formerly named "Smart Video-Interstitial" / "RTB+ Smart Video-Interstitial". The "Video interstitial" creative template displays a full-screen video ad above the page content. Users can close (skip) it or it can disappear automatically.
Most common sizes
Most common RTB sizes of this ad format: 320x480, 300x250, 800x600, 768x1024.
Demo
Video interstitial demo
Compliance
| Criterion | Compliancy |
|---|
| RTB | ✅ |
| VAST 4.2 and lower | ✅ |
| VAST wrapper | ✅ |
| VPAID | ✅ |
| SIMID | ❌ |
| Creative rotation | ✅ |
| Responsive web design | ✅ |
| IFrame buster | ❌ |
| Friendly iFrame | ✅ |
Creatives
This section applies for the direct creative template only.
Supported files:
- mp4, webm, mp3 (use files with high resolution and bitrate)
- any VAST redirect containing the formats: mp4, ogg, webm, javascript (for VPAID only), mp3
- background file (optional): jpg, png, gif
Note: In case of VAST redirects, use the "Paste script" creation method and paste the URL or the entire XML into the "Creative script" field. Please make sure to specify the size of the creative.
Creative template parameters
| Name | Description | Default value |
|---|
| Player options |
| Max ad's container width (px/%) | Specifies the max. width of the ad's container; make sure you add the unit, e.g. 750px, 100%; Note: the percentage value refers to the max. width of the browser viewport; there is no height parameter (this creative script calculates it by itself); if the calculated height of the video is bigger then the height of the viewport, the height of the video is set to the height of the viewport and the width is calculated automatically (blank spaces might occur because of differences between screen and video ratio). | 100% |
| Bar mode | Specifies the bar mode. | FLOATING |
| Bar opacity | Specifies the opacity of the control bar. "0" means fully transparent, "1" means not transparent at all. | 0.5 |
| Duration label |
Specifies the duration label; Note: Use {0} in label, this characters will be changed to count down time until the end of the ad.
| End of break ads in {0}s |
| Start muted | Specifies if the video starts muted. Attention, according to the latest ad standards, the autoplayed & unmuted videos may be blocked by browsers. | true |
| Mute on tab change | Mute the video when user's changing the active tab. | true |
| Skipping options |
| Skip delay |
Specifies the duration before the ad is allowed to be skipped; "-1" means not skippable; "0" means skippable right away; Note: VAST wrappers can overwrite this value.
Set to -1 for rewarded ads.
| 0 |
| Skip label |
Specifies the countdown message until the ad becomes skippable; Note: do not remove {0} since it is a counter.
| You can close this ad in {0}s |
| Buttons options |
| Fullscreen button | Specifies if the player has a full screen button. | false |
| Sound button | Specifies if the player has a sound button. | true |
| Play|Pause button | Specifies if the player has play/pause buttons. | true |
| Auto hide | Specifies if the buttons should be hidden after a while; this option works only if the "Bar mode" param is set to "FLOATING". | true |
| Force close button | Force an additional close button coming from the template to be able to close 3rd party VPAID creatives which are not allowing to close the ad. | false |
| Creative feedback | Shows creative feedback button | true |
| Position |
| Horizontal position | Specifies the horizontal position. | center |
| Vertical position | Specifies the vertical position. | middle |
| Vertical offset |
Specifies the vertical offset; it shifts the video down.
| 0 |
| Hidden video player |
For audio creatives; hides the video player, all controls and the background.
| false |
| Animations |
| Animation speed | Specifies speed of the animation. | medium |
| Animation at the beginning | Specifies animation type at the beginning. | slide from top |
| Animation at the end | Specifies animation type at the end/after close. | slide to top |
| Background |
| Enable background | Sets background for the creative. | true |
| Background image URL | Specifies background url. | empty |
| Background color | Specifies background color. | black (#000000) |
| Background opacity | Specifies opacity of the background. "0" means full transparent, "1" - not transparent at all. | 1 |
| Clickable background | Specifies if background is clickable; this is not available for VPAID creatives. | true |
| Background repeat | Specifies background repeat. | no-repeat |
| Background position | Specifies background position.
Possible values:
| Value | Description | | left top, left center, left bottom, right top, right center, right bottom, center top, center center, center bottom | If you only specify one keyword, the other value will be "center” | | X% Y% | The first value is the horizontal position and the second value is the vertical. The top left corner is 0% 0%. The right bottom corner is 100% 100%. If you only specify one value, the other value will be 50%. Default value is 0% 0% | | Xpos Ypos | The first value is the horizontal position and the second value is the vertical. The top left corner is 0 0. Units can be pixels (0px 0px) or any other CSS units. If you only specify one value, the other value will be 50%. You can mix % and positions |
| center top |
| Background video |
| Enable background video | Sets video background for the page. | false |
| Background video filters |
| Blur video filter | Sets blur for the video in background in px (0-100). | 7 |
| Grayscale video filter | Sets grayscale for the video in background in % (0-100). E.g. set 100 to have black and white video. | 0 |
| Color inversion video filter | Sets color inversion for the video in background in % (0-100). | 0 |
| Sepia video filter | Sets sepia for the video in background in % (0-100). | 0 |
| Other |
| zIndex | Specifies z-index of the creative layer. | 9999 |
| Tracking url(s) | Separate them by the "||" if needed. Remember to add [timestamp] to url so it is called correctly. | |
| Disable scroll | Prevent scrolling the page while the interstitial is displayed. | true |
| Rewarded ad |
| Rewarded ad element ids | Specifies ids of clickable elements on page (e.g. a id="ID" href=...) that redirect to some premium content. This content can be viewed only after seeing a video ad. Separate them by semicolon. The ad will start after clicking on the specified link(s). For rewarded ads, make sure you set the skipping option Delay to -1 so that the video ad is not skippable.
TIP:
Type string "all" to add start event for all clickable elements on page. | |
| Block on the first visit |
| Block on the first visit: Using document referrer property | With this option enabled, the interstitial will not be displayed when the user comes from outside the page (referrer empty or domain in referrer different from the current one). Default pixel will be fired. | disabled |
| RTB options (only for the RTB template) |
| Video player width | Specifies the video player width (in px); the height will be calculated automatically using the aspect ratio (16:9). | |
| Minimum duration | Minimum ad duration, in second(s). | |
| Maximum duration | Maximum ad duration, in second(s). | |
| Minimum bitrate | Minimum expected bitrate for the video creative, in Kbps. | |
| Maximum bitrate | Maximum expected bitrate for the video creative, in Kbps. | |
Features
The Video interstitial can be displayed in several different ways:
- Video ad + background: the ad can be placed in the center of the screen and a background (color layer, image, video) surrounds the ad allowing full visibility
- Full Video Ad: the video ad takes 100% of the available screen (keeping the ratio of the video)
- Video Go-To-Vertical: this Equativ feature allows a non-vertical video to be displayed along with complex background effects to enhance the user experience
- Rewarded Ad: The ad can be displayed after triggering on specific element of the webiste, e.g: allow the user to read the remaining content of an article after watching an ad
- Sound only: by selecting "Hidden video player" option, ad is delivered without video
By default the ad is skippable and the sound is off.
Sticky video player
For both direct and RTB, you can set up a sticky mini-player which is displayed at a fixed position on the page, i. e. it is displayed even if the user scrolls away. This setup maximizes viewability and completion rates while respecting user experience:
- in "Player options", set the "Max width" parameter to 300 px
- in "Position" parameters, select "Horizontal: right" and "Vertical: bottom"
- in "Other" parameters, uncheck the option "Disable scroll"
Customize VPAID timeouts options
By default, the template sends vpaidTimeouts with default values
vpaidTimeouts: {
generalTimeout: 3,
initTimeout: 3,
loadTimeout: 3,
totalTimeout: 5
}
It can be customized with a custom script following the pattern:
<script>
var sasVpaidTimeouts= {
generalTimeout: 6,
initTimeout: 6,
loadTimeout: 6,
totalTimeout: 10
}
</script>
The value of "generalTimeout", "initTimeout", "loadTimeout", "totalTimeout" should be integer and bigger then 0. A custom value will be sent to the plugin instead of the default one in such a case. Also, it's possible to modify only one parameter. Parameter with custom value will be sent to the plugin in such case, all other parameters will have a default value.
Keep in mind
- The Video interstitial is a highly intrusive ad format. It is strongly recommended to use the group capping feature (explained in article Insertions: General settings).
- Because of differences between video and screen ratio, fullscreen video might be displayed with blank space.
Event listening
The Video interstitial supports the following events: adBegin, adDuration, adEnd and adError. You can listen to these events to control the functioning of your site.
Any event contains the parameter formatId to get which formatId (on the page) fired the event:
window.addEventListener('adBegin', function (e) {
console.log(e.formatId);
});
adBegin / adEnd
For instance, if your website has a video player playing video content, you can mute that player when the ad appears and unmute when it disappears:
window.addEventListener('adBegin', function (e) {
document.querySelector('video').muted = true;
});
adDuration
The adDuration provides access to the videoDuration property, which can be useful to retrieve the duration of the whole video ad:
window.addEventListener('adDuration', function (e) {
console.log(e.videoDuration);
});
adError
To take an action when there is an error or the VAST is empty:
window.addEventListener('adError', function (e) {
console.log("Ad error occured");
});
The legacy names of custom events are still supported (sasVideoStart, sasVideoEnd, sasVideoDuration).
Force VPAID media files
To update media files selection and prioritize VPAID creatives the sasVpaidFirst variable can be used with a value of true. The below snippet can be added as a custom script:
<script> sasVpaidFirst = true; </script>
Metrics
The player and data logging start immediately.
Also see the Video metrics article.
Limitations
- IE 10, 9, 8 are not supported anymore
- supported mobile browsers: Safari (v 10.0 or higher); Chrome (v 4.4 or higher)
- fullscreen video (Max width: 100%) might be displayed with blank space because of differences between video and screen ratio
Known issues
n/a
Release notes
- 26-05-2025 - Increase the click area of a close button for a mobile view
- 22-05-2025 - Removed “Enable progress circle” & “Progress circle position” parameters
- 23-04-2025 - Added creative feedback and DSA button
- 01-04-2025
- Update player icons
- Drop option "Buttons color"
- Drop option "Buttons size"
- 05-03-2025 - Update for action pixels generation
- 20-01-2025 - Update for click counting URL for RTB template
- 25-09-2024 - Add support for OMSDK
- 24-01-2024 - Removed support for obsolete macros
- 16-11-2023 - Updated Playback Method parameter
- 18-07-2023 - Added new RTB macros
- 05-04-2023 - Update sas-libs version to 1.1
- 02-02-2023 - Select the most appropriate creative encoded version based on bandwidth and resolution
- 24-09-2020 - Added start muted and mute on tab change custom parameters
- 03-09-2020 - Updated URL in parameter tooltip
- 13-05-2020 - Removed start muted custom parameter
- 20-04-2020 - Removed RTB parameters from click count pixel
- 01-07-2019 - Added improvement not to show skip button if skip label is empty
- 07-08-2019 - Added a “Disable scroll” option. The progress circle is now always on the top left corner of the video player instead of the top left corner of the page
- 30-05-2019 - Added support for video placement types (OpenRTB 2.5) in RTB template
- 05-02-2019 - Viewability module improvements - Measures are now more accurate and more integrations are covered
- 28-01-2019 - Add RTB dimensions in click url
- 16-07-2018 - Removed support for flash creatives
- 25-06-2018 - Merged with Smart Video-Interstitial for Mobile and Smart Video-Go-To Vertical Interstitial
- 25-04-2018 - Parse RTB parameters into strings
- 12-03-2018 - Code refactoring + VAST4 support
- 12-03-2018 - Removed "Scale" option, added "Max width" option
- 06-03-2018 - Additional RTB parameters in event trackers
- 22-01-2018 - Updated meta parameters
- 16-11-2017 - Update for HTML5 player
- 13-11-2017 - Updated VAST parser library
- 17-10-2017 - Updated meta parameters in RTB template; "Force close button" option added
- 05-10-2017 - Improved error handling for VAST creatives; Changed method for adPodId generation
- 28-09-2017 - Error handling in case of empty VAST creative
- 26-09-2017 - Updated meta parameters in RTB template
- 20-09-2017 - Passback logic for VAST creatives implemented
- 28-08-2017 - New VAST parser
- 03-07-2017 - Support "||" as a separator in Tracking URL(s) field
- 28-03-2017 - New custom events naming, added "adError" custom event
- 14-03-2017 - Fix for audio files
- 28-02-2017 - Update for HTML5 player
- 30-01-2017 - Update for HTML5 player
- 16-11-2016 - Fix for VAST events handling
- 03-11-2016 - Fix for VPAID with flash creatives
- 27-10-2016 - FormatId as a parameter of custom events
- 18-10-2016 - Support for .flv files and VPAID with flash creatives
- 05-10-2016 - Add possibility to scale the ad (param's name "Scale")
