The new digital advertising decade is on, and it looks like the industry players are ready to step up!

According to the latest report by Folio, publishers see potential in transforming and diversifying their advertising stack to monetize their premium content more efficiently and sustain steady revenue growth in the upcoming years.

In this respect, about 35% of publishers admit the importance of investing more resources in video advertising as one of the most lucrative niches on the digital market, and 34% acknowledge the need to enhance their back-end tech.

Video Ad Tech at Publishers’ Service

Diving in a little deeper into the technology aspect, a well-shaped publisher’s video ad strategy, quite predictably starts with the selection of a video ad player solution, fitting their specific advertising needs.

In particular, some of the common requirements, regarding HTML5 ad-enabled video players include:

  • Compliance with the world’s major ad serving standards, i.e. VAST / VPAID and Google IMA
  • Support of various video ad formats, both outstream & instream
  • Smooth delivery of video ad creatives across all platforms, browsers and screens
  • Pain-free integration with the existing ad stack
  • Compatibility with third-party video ad serving solutions & various demand types
  • Video header bidding
  • Powerful player customization capabilities, and more.

Best Video Ad Players to Use in 2020

Even though the current selection of popular video ad players on the market is pretty huge, not all of them prove reliable to utilize. Which ad player to choose then? Well, here’re a few options you might consider for your video advertising needs in 2020.

JW Player

Pros:

  • One of the most famous video player solutions on the market
  • Broad player customization capabilities
  • Flexible hosting & streaming packages
  • Video recommendations engine

Cons:

  • Limited access to monetization features (only available for the paid Starter plan & Enterprise package that implies custom pricing)
  • Limited access to video ad server features (only available for Enterprise users)
  • No whitelabel solution

Summary:

JW Player is a good choice for video content creators looking for a video player to stream it, yet it lacks much of the ad serving functionality, at least at the affordable price level.

AdPlayer.Pro

Pros:

  • Lightweight & fast HTML5 player
  • Supports a broad range of video ad formats (instream & outstream + outstream SDK)
  • Compliant with major demand types (+ passback support)
  • Granular reporting & analytics up to ad placement level
  • Includes monetization opportunities to publishers (direct & programmatic) and is free to use, if AdPlayer.Pro demand is connected
  • Video ad serving platform, with impression-based pricing
  • Whitelabel solution

Cons:

  • Comparatively new solution on the market
  • No video recommendations engine
  • Limited live streaming capabilities (e.g. simultaneous casting to social media not supported)

Summary:

AdPlayer.Pro is a good choice for publishers of editorial content wishing to monetize their inventory with video ads (directly & programmatically), as well as enterprise clients looking for a whitelabel solution.

Brid.tv

Pros:

  • AI content matching capabilities
  • WordPress Plugin
  • ReactJS Component

Cons:

  • Access to advanced player & platform features (e.g. detailed video analytics, outstream video ad units, mobile SDK, full platform API, and more) is only available within the Premium package that implies custom pricing.

Summary:

Brid.tv seems like a good choice for large businesses wishing to improve their video advertising activities, yet the offered functionality may be much less affordable for small and mid-sized companies.