Roku Developer Program

[AAPROVIDEO]

We're researching a few things about placing advertising on our ROKU channels and could use a bit of direction from anyone who has experience in this area. Our main questions are:

1. What should we charge for sponsorship ad rates? For instance, what would a 30 second spot cost on a weekly or monthly basis? I realize this will ultimately depend on channel traffic / views, etc. We're looking for a starting point. Our initial advertisers will be industry specific, but we may look into advertising services as well. I'm not all that interested in ads that pay pennies per click initially. Looking more at a format of charging a fixed dollar amount per month - kind of more of a traditional cable TV method such as $100.00, $250.00 per spot, etc.

Question Number 1 is a moving target, I realize this - just looking for advice from anyone who has gone through the process.

2. What scripts / formats are available that allow insertion of pre or post roll ads? We could embed ads within the movie files as a fallback method.

3. And what about streaming formats that allow for ad insertion mid-stream? We're currently using mp4 format, did I read somewhere about hls format for mid-stream ads?

[BradC]

You're going to want to keep the CPM pretty low till you're established.

Finding advertisers may be an issue, a common problem people seem to have with channel monetization is getting a good variety and number of advertisers. If you only get a few advertisers and play the same ads repeatedly, you are going to turn off the viewers, and the advertisers aren't getting a good return.

[AAPROVIDEO]

Thanks for your input.

Our audiences are very niche specific, so we're kicking things off with industry targeted advertisers. Then we'll look into ad networks, etc.

This may not be the best forum for this topic, but I appreciate any knowledge that can be shared.