How to beat ad-blockers: it’s not a one size fits all solution
In this guest post, Vicki Lyon explains the difference between server side and client side ad insertion, the pros and cons of both, and how to determine which one is best for your business.
According to Adobe Pagefair’s 2015 report, 18% of Australians have ad-blockers installed, and that’s estimated to have cost publishers around $4 billion in revenue lost during 2015, with projections even higher in 2016.
Media companies in Australia, such as Network Ten, are fighting back with the help of anti-ad-blocking solutions, but not all solutions are created equal.
There’s a misguidance in the industry that server-side ad insertion (SSAI) is the end-all-be-all solution to ad-blockers. That’s simply not true.
Sure, SSAI is one solution, and for some publishers it could be the best route to take but there’s more to the equation.
Publishers need to take very careful examination when considering what option is right for them, whether that be server-side or client-side ad insertion (CSAI), based on the devices they’re delivering content, what kind of content, live or VOD for example, and the ad formats their ad buyers are paying to place.
To state it plainly, unless you, the content provider, are delivering mostly live content, where server-side ad stitching works great to minimise latency between content and the ads, or you’re serving content to older devices, like the first generation of Apple TV that doesn’t support client-side, you’ll find SSAI to be more costly and burdensome.
Let me explain why.
Ad format limitations
A significant drawback to SSAI is it prevents a broadcaster or publisher from serving ad formats that are popular with ad inventory buyers. Server-side stitching is not compatible with VPAID formats, which accounts for a large and growing portion ads, namely pre-rolls, currently being bought and served globally.
An inability to serve these types of ads will result in significant lost advertising revenue as buyers turn to other platforms that can serve VPAID. Further, ad types that allow for a high level of interactivity or include overlays, are also impossible to stitch into the server-side, and these are the ad types that usually command the highest possible CPMs. And the reasoning is simple.
Build once. Not twice.
Here’s where the rubber hits the road when deciding between CSAI vs. SSAI. In the nascent days of video advertising much of the devices on the market didn’t support client-side ad insertion, as such SSAI was the only means to circumnavigate that issue. However, those issues have long been resolved.
It’s no longer a hurdle for content providers to deliver ads to the devices their audiences are consuming content, and as a result the rest of the industry – by and large – has built towards and developed a client-side ecosystem due to its inherent format advantages over SSAI.
In choosing SSAI today, companies may have to begin running multiple, concurrent ad serving technologies, with the associated cost and complexity in order to support their server-side player in addition to client-side ad formats and advertisers.
Advertising and content, two types of video that are typically handled as distinct formats, often processed by separate teams, will suddenly need to flow through the same vendor’s technology solution.
Implementing a SSAI solution could prove outdated fast and comes with the risk of not being on par with the broader ad ecosystem. Companies considering this approach should look very carefully at total cost, timelines for implementation, implications for their overall ad business and how fast a proposed solution may become obsolete.
Analytics and reporting drawbacks
Arguably, one of the biggest pros in TV’s migration online is the ability to accurately track and measure your audience understand how they want to engage with content as well as the ability to personalise the experience. That’s extremely difficult with SSAI.
Stitching ads into a stream, like with SSAI, compromises much of the ability to understand audience engagement, clicks, drop off rates, views on specific devices, time of day, etc.
Server-side solutions lose the granularity publishers, and more importantly their advertisers, expect or require today. Without full transparency into how ads and content are performing, publishers and broadcasters are flying blind with a large percentage of their videos – a big compromise to make in order to deal with ad-blocking.
Is there a downside to client-side?
Certainly. As mentioned before, there’s so single-fit solution. Each has their drawbacks and opportunities.
Particularly, client-side ad insertion is not the best means for live streaming. As server-sider literally ‘stitches’ the ad into the content, the playback is seamless as play-out sees it as a single piece of content rather than divided into multiple sections.
Client-side ad insertion relies on dynamic ad-insertion, where an ad is called upon and delivered in the milliseconds between frames. The upside is it allows for a more personalised experience, tailoring the ad to the user, device, location, etc., rather than being beholden to serving the same ad to the same viewer irrespective of the contextual details.
And client-side solutions have seen results. For example, between December 2014 and June 2015, five major European premium publishers using CSAI-based anti-ad blocking functionality consistently unlocked more than 90 million previously blocked ad impressions per month. As a result, these publishers realised more than $1 million of additional – or previously lost – revenue monthly.
The vast majority of advertising technology today is built and designed on the client side. Support for measurement, audience tracking and many popular ad formats are lost with ad stitching, eliminating the means to provide a more personalised experience for the user and more targeted buying for the advertiser.
Publishers and advertisers that want those capabilities, and all desktop devices, are best off using client-side ad insertion as the default.
Vicki Lyon is the director of adtech at APJ for Ooyala
I know when a contract can be enforced and cannot be enforced. In reference to ad-blockers, the end user has the determining right if they want ads or not, it is their system. Additionally, Eyeo who makes Ad Block Plus was in court again and won as expected . Excerpt “ The judge said it is perfectly legal for people to install ad-blockers in their browsers as publishers have no contracts with their readers that insist they have to look at the ads.” And this is 100% accurate – if a contract does not exist between the site and the user the no ads can be enforced or pushed without consent. Full article here: http://fortune.com/2016/03/30/.....eddeutsche
Additionally, The ‘implied contract’ theory that we’ve agreed to view ads in exchange for free content is void because we can’t review the terms first — as soon as we follow a link, our browsers load, execute, transfer, and track everything embedded by the publisher. Our data, battery life, time, and privacy are taken by a blank check with no recourse.” Every time you visit a website with an ad, it’s an implied contract, but since you cannot view all the terms it’s void and cannot be enforced. However under contract law, the only valid contracts are those signed in ink and both parties. Something you cannot do online, and these “bluff statements” like “by continuing to use this site you agree or our terms and conditions” are not legal either.
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I can see AdBlocking stats across a wide range of AU sites and it’s nowhere near 18%.
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Are you saying that $4 billion worth of ad buy orders went unfulfilled?
Surely those without ad-blockers were just served all the bought impressions?
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Yep. That’s smart. I’m going to target the people who are actively disengaging with ads, by getting around the blockers and pissing them off even more. Advertisers are going to get some awesome ROI on those placements, ..but as long as the publishers aren’t ‘losing’ that revenue, it’s all OK..right??
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The last thing we want to do as an industry is enter an arms race with the adblockers. Adblockers are the pointy end of a large amount of dissatisfaction at advertising in general, but on mobile in particular.
Much better to focus on that dissatisfaction and improve mobile formats, creative execution and creative relevancy. Understanding mobile UX and respecting that with our ads will prove far more effective than technology in stemming the ad-blocking tide.
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The claim that no ‘premium’ VPAID ads is a downside is interesting – I doubt the users you’re potentially serving them to would agree. Generally speaking, these ‘interactive’ ads are pretty user hostile and only exist to as something more expensive to sell.
Especially considering more and more eyes (especially for video content) are on mobile devices that don’t support these flash ads, as well as Flash increasingly being deprecated on desktop, this just seems like an old industry failing to update. The internet and the user’s expectations has changed since these formats were introduced.
I’m also not sure about the claims that SSAI does not have the ability to target ads to individual users in the same way that traditional ads do. Also it might appear the ads are stitched into the video itself, the inventory is still completely dynamic. While there might not be providers that do this at the moment, there’s nothing technical stopping it.
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i’m a student who at the end of last year i finished a bachelors of IT and this year started a masters in marketing so i see this from both sides.
i run ad blocking on both my phone and laptop. on the phone it is literally to conserve bandwith – i don’t want to pay to be served adverts on my phone.
on my laptop i don’t want adverts because to be honest i’ve seen too many adverts that jump, flash and are generally annoying. add to this the cases where java adverts have served up malware and i’m extremely cautious about enabling adverts.
if i get useful content i’m extremely happy to allow adverts – i want my favorite websites to be paid and survive. but if i see an advert that jumps, flashes or makes noise adverts are blocked again.
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