Roku Developer Program

[go888]

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a little clarity on how to include ads in my channel. I searched the forum, and can't seem to find a straight answer.

I have followed the demo instructions and created a video channel which I have been testing locally. It is successfully pulling in my categories and their respective videos from an xml file I host elsewhere. I have also integrated the VAST sample code I've seen here on the forums which pauses the video and plays an ad from a VAST xml file. I've been using a test VAST xml file from LiveRail. This all works fine.

Now I want to use a real VAST ad provider.

1) What company(s) can I sign up with that provides their own rotating video ads (VAST xml format preferred)? Maybe I am contacting the wrong companies? I've tried LiveRail (did not respond to emails), OpenX (expects 20 million impressions), and Yume (not responded). The person I am setting this channel up for has a decent national TV following which airs on non major TV networks around the US. His shows currently air every few months, but I doubt he could hit 20 million impressions.

2) I've seen some samples on here with Doubleclick in them. Does Google Doubleclick serve their own ads, or are you uploading your own that runs through their system? I've had past experience with Doubleclick within the website banner ad world. I remember we could upload our own, but not whether they also offer their own fallback ads.

3) Does Roku directly offer a VAST banner ad network we can signup for? I know Roku supposedly has some sort of Ad network. Just not where to start with that.

Thanks everyone!

[TheEndless]

"go888" wrote:
3) Does Roku directly offer a VAST banner ad network we can signup for? I know Roku supposedly has some sort of Ad network. Just not where to start with that.

Take a look at this: http://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/ ... +Framework

Their ad framework does have fallback functionality in the event your VAST doesn't return an ad, but it's not clear if you get credit/share of the Roku ads that play or not.

[go888]

Thanks, I saw this too. It's confusing to understand how this works. They mention using your "preferred ad server". I think that's what I am asking about anyway? A company that supplies the advertisements. The sample VAST demo I used parts from does include code for Roku's fallback support.

[TheEndless]

"go888" wrote:
Thanks, I saw this too. It's confusing to understand how this works. They mention using your "preferred ad server". I think that's what I am asking about anyway? A company that supplies the advertisements. The sample VAST demo I used parts from does include code for Roku's fallback support.

Yeah, the ambiguity is the problem. The documentation indicates that it provides "Interactive ad units (via Innovid in RAF V1)" and even includes a list of "Roku Genre Tags" so you can tailor the ads to your audience, but there's no information on how/if there's built-in revenue share for those ads. It seems like there would have to be, otherwise you're just playing ads for Roku without any benefit to you. If there is built-in revenue share, then that solves your problem of finding an ad network.

[RokuJoel]

* Roku does have an 100% Roku ads program where we pay developers, but it is contingent on your being able to deliver more than a million ad views per month among other factors.

* In the future we will require a percentage of your unused ad slots ("inventory") to fill with our own ads. By default this will be 30%. Since almost no channel, large or small, is able to fill more than 50% of its available inventory, this doesn't cost you anything and you get to keep all revenue earned from your ads. We won't pay you for our ads running in this scenario, but we won''t take 30% of your revenue either.

- Joel

[go888]

Hi Joel,

Thanks for responding.

For 1) The 100% scenario. It sounds like you are saying that Roku will automatically dynamically supply me an advertisement video if I integrate the ad framework into my channel? What would it take to set this up?

For 2) This sounds like I would first need to find my 3rd party advertisement company that supplies me a VAST xml feed. When a video is played, if no ad from them is available, the Roku fallback kicks in but we do not make any money from the fallback ads. Correct? That's where we are supposed to show our ads 70% of the time, and 30% of the time it's yours.

Thanks

[RokuJohnC]

I'm going to make a general post on this for the community but wanted to provide an answer to the ad question on this post as well to address some of your specific points.

Just to make a quick intro - my name is John and I manage the video ad business for publishers at Roku. Ad-supported channels are now the fastest growing segment on Roku, making it all the more critical that we are as communicative as possible with our developer community on how to monetize content effectively. Below I provide a comprehensive overview of several core aspects of the business and how you can work with Roku:

The Roku Ad Framework

The main goal of RAF is to create a universal standard for client side ad insertion on the Roku platform that enables our publishers to better sell their inventory. To clarify - RAF is not an ad server. To give a high level example of how RAF works in relation to a video ad server:

1) Channel sends out an ad request.

2) RAF extracts client side macros as targeting parameters to the ad server.

3) Ad Server returns a valid VAST response.

4) RAF parses out the VAST response.

5) Impression and relevant beacons are served.

Some of the key features include:

- Natively integrates baseline & advanced advertising capabilities
– IAB VAST 2.0/3.0 processing
– IAB VMAP playlist management
– Interactive ad units (via Innovid in RAF V1)
– Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (via planned RAF update in summer ’15)
– Utilizes Roku’s new privacy-friendly device ID (“RIDA”)
– Client-side macros for key variables like content ID, genre, device ID
– Automatically updates without rebuilding/resubmitting your app

We are constantly improving the capabilities of RAF and I am very excited to unveil what we've been working on at a later date. I will update the Roku community on the latest features for subsequent RAF releases.

Navigating the Video Advertising Landscape

The digital video advertising ecosystem is complicated - and even more complicated on Roku and OTT! Fortunately video inventory on OTT is worth more (based on CPM - cost per thousand impressions) than Online or Mobile.

To address your point on OpenX - they are primarily an online focused Ad Exchange. In the online space impressions (sometimes fraudulent) flow freely at low rates and 20MM monthly impressions for a single property isn't too uncommon. On Roku there is no fraud (no bot racking up impressions) so 20MM monthly impressions for a channel just gaining ground is simply unrealistic.

There are fewer ad sources that are selling Connected TV ads in the marketplace than Online or Mobile. Here are a few that should be able to get you started:

YuMe
Tremor
BrightRoll
Amobee

And of course, we can help fill your inventory as well!

In order to manage multiple ad sources you need an ad server. There are a plethora of options out there but I would recommend looking into the following:

DFP for Video
LiveRail
FreeWheel
AOL One (formerly known as Adap.tv)

Working with Roku to Fill Your Advertising Demand

We have an incredibly robust direct ad sales team and are happy to work with our publishers to help monetize their content and grow their audience. There are no upfront volume commitments required - we understand that it can take time to grow your user-base and we want to help get you there. Please contact me (jcarter@roku.com) to further discuss opportunities related to video monetization.


-John

[go888]

John,

Thank you for a very thorough response. It has definitely cleared some things up for me. I will fully digest all of this and speak with my client about what is the best direction to go.

Thanks again

[ravinagar79]

Hi,

We are facing an issue on our live CineFunTVHD Roku channel and need some help from you at the earliest.

We have used Roku Ad Framwork to display ads from DFP (Google's DoubleClick Ad Server). DFP Ad tags were working in Release 1.2 Roku Ad Framework but post release of Roku's Ad Framework 1.3, our ads have stopped displaying from DFP.
We tried to investigate the issue and found that the new Roku Ad Framework 1.3 is sending blank AdPods. We are unable to find documentation for Roku Ad Framework 1.3 anywhere.

Please help.