Media planning for in-stream video creatives

If you're a media planner, follow the steps below to plan for in-stream video trafficking in Campaign Manager 360. You need to make sure your publisher's site supports in-stream video creatives, and that your developer prepares a creative with the right specifications.

Once media planning is complete, the traffickers can set up your in-stream video creative in Campaign Manager 360.

Media planning steps

1. Once you reach an agreement with a site to show video content, confirm that the site supports the VAST 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0 standard. Sites must adopt the VAST standard to support in-stream creatives, or your videos may not render properly.

   My site does not support VAST 2.0, VAST 3.0, or VAST 4.0.

   • Sites on Google Ad Manager: ask the site to work with Google Ad Manager support.
   • Sites using other vendors (such as Brightcove or Lightningcast): ask the site to work with the vendor.
   • If the site's player is home-built, the site should refer to IAB's VAST 2.0, VAST 3.0, or VAST 4.0 compliance page. (Be sure the site can parse a standardized XML response with asset URLs and fit the parsed file into their content management system (CMS)/serving infrastructure.)

2. Collect site specifications. Even if a site supports the VAST 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0 standard, it may not support your in-stream creative. Sites have different requirements for video assets and companion banners, including the kind of tracking they support.

   Request these details from the sites on your media plan:

   General

   • Is the site VAST 2.0, VAST 3.0, or VAST 4.0 compliant?

   Video

   • File size (1 MB, 1.5 MB, other)
   • Orientation (landscape/horizontal, portrait/vertical, or square)
   • Aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, other)
   • Dimensions (480x360, 640x360, other)
   • Video time (15s, 30s, other)
   • Video bitrate (400kbps, 1mbps, other)

   Companion banners

   • Dimensions (300x250, 336x280, 728x90, other)
   • FPS
   • Animation time (15s, 30s, other)
   • K size (30 K, 40 K, other)
   • JavaScript supported? (yes/no)

   Tracking

   In addition to impressions and clicks, does your site player SDK support firing the following video tracking? (yes/no)

   • First quartile
   • Third quartile
   • Mute
   • Pause
   • Rewind
   • Full Screen
   • Stop
   • Custom click

   Other

   Ask your publisher whether there are any additional requirements.

3. If you can't confirm the site specifications, make sure you follow our list below of best practices for packing video assets. This should help your developer provide a version that is supported on most sites.

Developer best practices for Campaign Manager 360 in-stream video

Overview

Following our best practices for high-definition videos can help ensure that your creative can serve on most sites that support VAST 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0.

If you can't gather all the site-specific details you need before building a creative, these guidelines can help you avoid potential live issues. This is not a guarantee, so it's always best to get site-specific details whenever possible.

If you include multiple serving files and/or URLs, the publisher's system can choose the best version of your asset for each impression, based on factors such as device type, connection speed, and the video player on the site. Including multiple serving files can also allow users to select different resolution settings when viewing your video.

Table of best practices

Video and audio	Video: Supported file formats: .avi, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, .mpeg, .mpg, .webm, .wmv Dimensions: Landscape/horizontal: 1280 × 720, 1920 × 1080, or 1440 × 1080 Portrait/vertical: 720 × 1280, 1080 × 1920, or 1080 × 1440  Square: 720 × 720, 1080 × 1080, 1920 × 1920 Aspect ratio: Landscape/horizontal: 16:9 or 4:3 Portrait/vertical: 9:16 or 3:4 Codec: H.264 Frame Rate: 23.98 or 29.97 Bitrate: At least 20 Mbps Length: 15 or 30 seconds File size: Up to 1GB Black bars: No black bars Letterboxing: No letterboxing Audio: Codec: PCM (preferred) or AAC Bitrate: At least 192 Kbps Bit: 16 or 24 bit only Sample rate: 48 kHz Audio settings: Required Loudness aligned with IAB US spec of -24LKFS +/- 2LKFS (Campaign Manager 360 will normalize to target loudness of -24 LKFS)
Companion banner	Companion banner size 20K. Companion can be an image or HTML5. Companion banner animation time should be 15 seconds. Companion banner 18-24 FPS. Include 300 × 250, 728 × 90, and 300 × 60 companion banner options.
Other	Add landing pages to the in-stream video creative properties in Campaign Manager 360. Clicks on the creative or companion creative will open a separate destination page. Check with publisher on which video transcodes should be activated and/or deactivated. For long-form videos (over 1 minute), check with the publisher for file size requirements. For videos serving on connected TV devices, we recommend 1920 × 1080 as the creative's dimensions.