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

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

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.

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 Report metric reference 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")