To develop the most advanced video advertising capabilities for over-the-top (OTT) customers, SpotX recently made a strategic investment in SpringServe, the leading ad serving platform for OTT and connected TV (CTV). Together, SpotX and SpringServe will offer joint customers state-of-the-art ad serving, inventory management, and programmatic capabilities, helping media owners take more control over their video advertising business.
The two companies are actively collaborating to build a deeply integrated solution for joint customers that unifies direct and programmatic demand into a holistic ad decisioning process. While many of the features planned for the SpotX and SpringServe offering are still in the early stages of development, advanced podding is the first feature to market and has already been enabled by many joint customers, including VIZIO, Jukin Media, Tastemade, This Old House, Plex, Redbox, and Outside TV.
Achieve the optimal ad break with SpotX and SpringServe
The optimal ad break combines revenue generation, pod fill, competitive separation, and proper frequency management. What should be straightforward and easy to implement has long been overcomplicated by clunky technology not built to support the needs of OTT media owners.
Ad servers have historically limited SSPs to a single ad response per request; while this may work fine in situations requiring a single ad for playback, it presents challenges for OTT where an entire pod of ads is often needed. Additionally, the commonly used practice of sending individual bid requests for individual slots within a pod introduces undesirable infrastructure overhead.
Using a single ad request, the advanced podding feature allows SpotX to provide SpringServe the depth of ads necessary to fill the pod. The seamless integration of programmatic demand from SpotX into SpringServe provides the media owner with a surplus of ads to select from, resulting in a deduplicated and competitively separated ad break that fills the exact amount of slots and ad seconds in their pod.
“The demand needed to fill our pods existed in SpotX, but the legacy setup didn’t allow for it to efficiently make its way into our ad server,” said Nyma Quidwai, Director of Client Services at VIZIO. “With advanced podding, SpringServe is aware of all programmatic demand sourced through SpotX, making it easier to holistically fill our ad pods with deduplicated and competitively separate ads.”
Advanced podding not only solves for podding in an intelligent manner, it also helps media owners maximize revenue. In testing, customers saw on average an immediate 15% increase in revenue after enabling advanced podding.
A better way to manage and sell inventory
Advanced podding is just the first of many features planned for joint customers. Looking forward, SpotX and SpringServe have a robust roadmap of features that will tighten the telemetry between the two platforms and intelligently unite direct-sold with programmatic guaranteed, private marketplace deals, and open marketplace demand into a holistic ad decisioning process.
For example, SpotX and SpringServe aim to empower media owners with a better way to manage their programmatic demand alongside their direct-sold campaigns booked in the ad server. Joint customers will be able to sync campaigns between the SpotX and SpringServe platforms. Once a programmatic deal is created in SpotX, a corresponding record of the campaign will be automatically created in SpringServe. This efficiency will allow media owners to control deals, priority, and other rules to manage relationships and ensure their campaigns, whether programmatic or direct-sold, are successful.
Another pain point SpotX and SpringServe plan to address is inefficient forecasting. Today it’s difficult for sales teams to generate accurate forecasts when their SSP and ad server are not aware of the campaigns booked in each system. SpotX and SpringServe are working on a forecasting tool that will offer 100% transparency into booked inventory, making it easy for media owners to see what is truly available to sell programmatically.
Intelligently synced campaigns and smarter forecasting tools are just two examples of features on the roadmap for joint customers. SpotX and SpringServe are committed to developing features that help joint customers optimize and grow their video advertising business.
To get started with advanced podding or to learn more about future plans for joint SpotX SpringServe product offerings contact your SpotX account team.
As Senior Product Marketing Manager at SpotX, Amanda educates customers about new SpotX Platform features and industry trends. Amanda has been a member of the SpotX Product Marketing Team since 2016. She actively avoids cooking, but loves watching Tiny Kitchen videos. In her free time she can be found traveling, hanging out with friends, or watching Tiny Kitchen videos.