BERLIN, September 13, 2024 – Castlabs unveils a new solution to easily enable the next generation of ad-insertion set to revolutionize the streaming media advertising landscape: Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI). The company’s feature-rich PRESTOplay video player suite is now emboldened by innovative ad tech to unlock advanced addressable advertising opportunities for OTT and IPTV services.
Available across web (browsers, desktops, smart TVs, game consoles), Apple (iOS, iPadOS, tvOS), and Android (including Android TV), this offering provides a transformative approach to ad insertion, leveraging HLS Interstitials and upcoming DASH media presentation insertion events to enhance ad performance. By decoupling program manifest delivery from ads manifests delivery and offering enhanced ad tracking capabilities, content providers can attract more advertisers and support new ad formats, thus increasing transparency and trust for ad budgets. Decoupling allows for dynamic ad insertion without disrupting the content stream, supports various ad formats like interactive and personalized ads, and provides detailed analytics for better ad performance insights.
SGAI and Castlabs technology leverage the best of both Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI)’s startup time and Server-Side Ad insertion (SSAI)’s monetization advantages, offering a unified solution to overcome challenges encountered with either client-side or server-side ad insertion. It optimizes the end-to-end ad insertion performance and end-user experience. This ensures a scalable, efficient, and streamlined process for ad insertion, making PRESTOplay a powerful tool for everybody aiming to increase ad revenues while maintaining a superior viewer experience.
Key features and benefits:
Revenue enhancement:
Accurate tracking and increased transparency boost advertiser confidence, leading to higher investment and more ad impressions, thus increasing overall ad volume volume and value.
Enhanced ad tracking capabilities improve the monetization of each impression, allowing for more effective pricing and revenue generation per ad.
Rapid time-to-market:
Pre-integrated solutions with SSAI vendors enable quick deployment of targeted video advertising for OTT and Connected TV audiences, with comprehensive measurement and analytics integrations for enhanced performance tracking and reporting.
Scalability and cost efficiency:
Reduces total cost of ownership for live and near-live OTT workflows by optimizing server usage and reducing bandwidth costs, allowing content providers to deliver high-quality streams with minimal infrastructure investment.
Unlocks additional monetizable inventory for replay content by applying dynamic ad insertion to previously aired programming and broadcasts that still attract viewers, enabling content providers to generate revenue from these assets.
Optimized monetization:
Enhances effectiveness of AVOD campaigns by aligning ad decisions with ad availability, leading to higher sell-through rates across live, VOD, and replay inventories.
New revenue opportunities:
Nonlinear ad monetization offers non-intrusive, in-content advertising options ideal for live events with limited ad breaks.
Standards-compliant integration features:
Save costs and increase value by monetizing an IAB Open Measurement Interface Definition (OMID) certified version of publisher inventories.
Boost transparency and advertiser trust through frame-accurate client-side Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) tracking.
Google Programmatic Access Libraries (PAL) SDK pre-integrated to increase awareness with demand partners.
Castlabs comprehensive ads capabilities are included with their powerful PRESTOplay cross-platform player suite, but third-party or open-source playback technology can also benefit. Their complementary PRESTOads SDK easily plugs-in to existing players to add advanced tracking, measurement, and optimization opportunities to enhance client-side ad effectiveness for SSAI and SGAI deployments.
At Castlabs, we understand that the streaming industry evolves rapidly. That’s why we’re committed to providing solutions that will revolutionize the way advertisers reach their audiences and content providers monetize their content. To witness this transformation firsthand, join us at our booth #5.F10 at IBC 2024 or visit castlabs.com.
About Castlabs
Castlabs is a leading pioneer of software and cloud services for digital video markets worldwide to easily enable premium content streaming. Their range of applications and services are designed to help businesses deliver high-quality video experiences through protected content playback over a large selection of devices and platforms. Castlabs solutions include DRMtoday multi-DRM and CAS licensing, feature-rich PRESTOplay cross-platform players, Video Toolkit cloud encoding, single-frame forensic watermarking, Widevine device and app certification, secure WebRTC end-to-end delivery, as well as expert technical consulting. Learn more at castlabs.com.