VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) is a specification defined and released by the
Interactive Advertising Bureau
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is an American advertising business organization that develops industry standards, conducts research, and provides legal support for the online advertising industry. The organization represents many of th ...
IAB that sets a standard for communication requirements between
ad server
Ad serving describes the technology and service that places advertisements on Web sites, mobile apps, and Connected TVs. Ad serving technology companies provide software to Web sites and advertisers to serve ads, count them, choose the ads th ...
s and
video players in order to present
video ads.
It is a data structure declared using
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...
.
VAST has 8 versions: 1.0 (deprecated), 1.1 (deprecated), 2.0, 2.0.1(The schema version as the official VAST 2.0 schema), 2.6, 3.0, 4.0,
4.1 and 4.2.
Request
In order to play a video ad in a video player, the video player sends a request to a VAST ad server.
It is a simple HTTP based URL that typically appears as follows:
http://www.example.com/?LR_PUBLISHER_ID=1331&LR_CAMPAIGN_ID=229&LR_SCHEMA=vast2-vpaid
Response
The ad server responds with a VAST data structure that declares these parameters:
* The ad media that should be played
* How the ad media should be played
* What should be tracked as the media is played
* The
companion ad
In online advertising, a companion ad is a display ad shown alongside a video or audio ad, usually displayed on top of the player and/or on its side. It is displayed at the same time than the master ad and offers the user a spot to click. It c ...
that should be displayed alongside the master ad
For example, the above request returns the following response (trimmed):
LiveRail
DATA[LiveRail_creative_1>
____ DATA[LiveRail creative 1>
iveRail_creative_1.html" ;"title="DATA[LiveRail creative 1">DATA[LiveRail creative 1>
>
>
.......
00:00:09
>
>
.......
>
DA
>
......
......
References
{{Reflist
See also
*
Interactive Advertising Bureau
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is an American advertising business organization that develops industry standards, conducts research, and provides legal support for the online advertising industry. The organization represents many of th ...
Online advertising methods
XML-based standards