Mobile analytics and advertising firm Flurry will allow advertisers to buy VAST-enabled (IAB’s Digital Video Ad Serving Template) video ad units programmatically through its network and marketplace.
It also unveiled additional features through its SDK designed to give app developers more options to show video ads on their apps.
“For the first time, publishers or app developers will be able to access video demand from both the Flurry RTB Marketplace and the Flurry For Advertisers video network,” said Flurry CPO Prashant Fuloria. “As a publisher, you can only gain from having access to more demand.”
Additionally, developers have the option of offering 15- or 30-second nonskippable video ad units on their app. A mobile game developer, for example, could show an interstitial video ad in between levels that plays automatically or include an expandable video in a banner ad with a call to action.
About 75% of mobile video ads served to consumers occur in apps, according to study by the Mobile Marketing Association, making in-app video ads a highly competitive space.
Flurry works with 7,000 apps and gets more than 3 billion monthly video ad requests from publishers. The company faces competition though, from vendors such as Tremor Video, Vungle, AdColony, Videology and others that also enable app developers to run in-app video ads.
Flurry’s analytic capabilities differentiate its product, according to Fuloria. “We provide data signals that come from our analytics to all the buyers who are buying inventory – including video – such as demographics, age, gender and our Flurry personas. The combination of data, programmatic tools and the right ad format lets advertisers create powerful messages,” Fuloria said.
The new video features are available to iOS app publishers and Android support is “coming soon,” he added.
