General
In video campaigns, video rendering is necessary to generate all needed campaign video variations before ad serving. These ad variations are based on the number of creatives, products, content items, and/or locations defined in the campaign logic. Flight Control manages this process by transforming the ad composition into high-quality video files for each video variation. Then, Flight Control transcodes these high-quality video files into various resolution/quality deliverables according to the selected target platform. The rendering of the video composition is enabled once a target platform is selected.
Important: Instead of running one video campaign with multiple ad durations on the same placement(s), we recommend creating a separate video campaign for each duration. Additionally, you should create separate video campaigns to serve ads in online video (OLV) and connected TV/over-the-top (CTV/OTT) ads.
For standard (non-dynamic) video creatives, the composition rendering step isn't needed. Only transcoding is performed.
For interactive video campaigns (VPAID), which nearly operate in real-time using HTML, pre-generating video variations isn't required.
For campaigns that include CTV placements, once videos are rendered in Flight Control, they're sent to SSAI vendor(s) for pre-ingestion (transcoding). Currently, Clinch works with Google Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) and is integrated with Google Ad Manager's Creative Transcoding API. To learn more about Google Ad Manager's Creative Transcoding, click here. Within Flight Control's ad variations table for CTV campaigns, a designated column titled "Transcoding Status" indicates the current transcoding status for each ad variation (Success, Pending, or Failed).
Importantly, Flight Control lacks prior information about which vendor will eventually serve the CTV campaign through SSAI, as this is publisher-specific. Consequently, each CTV video variation is sent to all vendors for pre-ingestion. It's crucial to acknowledge that the transcoding process may take several minutes and, in certain instances, even several hours.
This article will guide you in selecting and updating video settings. Refer to the Ads (Variations) Table article for information on rendering and ad variations.
Understanding Video Campaign Settings
Two key settings exist for video campaigns:
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Target Platform
- Target platforms determine how Flight Control renders your campaign's video ad variations. Flight Control automatically selects target platforms at the placement level according to the placement’s selected DSP/publisher and ad-serving environment.
- The default video ad specifications can be viewed on a video campaign's homepage, and as an exception, the default target platform can be overridden by selecting the additional options within the dropdown in the campaign's placements.
- You can hover over a target platform selection to see its video ad-rendering specifications.
- Important: You should only change a DSP's target platform selection if you have a programmatic deal with a publisher that requires rendering specifications not covered by the default. Also note that single publisher instances should never be overridden, as the default will always meet the one-to-one publisher requirements.
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Skip Offset
- Skip offset, configured in a video campaign’s homepage, lets you choose if and when, in seconds, users can skip the campaign’s video ads.
- Select between non-skippable or a skip duration (ranges from 1 to 10 seconds)
- If the video is longer than 15 seconds, it is recommended to use a skip offset, as this allows you to serve these ads into much more inventory.
- During creative trafficking, DSPs collect skip offset and video duration data, influencing real-time bidding decisions for Clinch creative eligibility. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid modifying the skip offset or serving video duration after the tags have been trafficked.