10 Best OTT Advertising Platforms for Your Ad-Supported OTT Service

Are you looking to monetize your OTT streaming service through advertisements? If so, you will need a reliable, robust OTT advertising platform on your side. Through these platforms, you can easily sell your ad inventory and monetize your app or OTT website to generate revenue. You can also track the performance of these ads and optimize them to get the highest CPMs.

But how do you choose an OTT advertising platform? With so many good options on the market, it can be difficult to make the final decision. To help you out, let’s take a look at what OTT advertising platforms are exactly, their most important features, and which platforms to consider.

What Is an OTT Advertising Platform?

An OTT advertising platform is a piece of software that allows OTT publishers to sell ad inventory, track ad performance, and generate video ad revenue. You may know them as video ad networks. These platforms act as brokers between OTT publishers and advertisers, and their main purpose is to streamline the digital video advertising process. One of the most popular OTT ad platforms is Google ADX.

What to Look for in an OTT Advertising Platform

The purpose of an OTT advertising platform doesn’t end at serving video ads. There is a number of other features and tools designed to maximize the performance of the ad and, by extension, ad yield. Let’s take a look at some of the major features to look for in an OTT ad network.

Targeting Options

The better targeted an ad is, the better it will perform. According to Hubspot, ad targeting is the main way for advertisers to drive demand and optimize campaigns. This is why your chosen advertising platform should have good targeting options. These include, for example, demographic and geographic targeting, behavioral targeting, device targeting, contextual targeting, and more.

Ad Analytics

To make the most out of OTT advertising, both publishers and advertisers need to have insight into the performance of their ads. They can then use this information to tweak and optimize campaigns and generate more revenue. Some of the trackable metrics your chosen OTT advertising platform should have include fill rates, plays, impressions, CTR, and so on. Ideally, real-time video analytics should also be available. 

Yield Optimization Tools

Ad yield optimization tools allow you to use the data you gathered through ad analytics and optimize the ads to maximize their performance. This is such an important step in monetizing your video content that large companies often have whole teams dedicated only to optimizing ad yield. 

Yield optimization tools can help you maximize the viewability of your ads and set price floors at just the right amount. They also allow you to optimize your content and ads for mobile and other devices, strike direct deals with advertisers for premium ad inventory, and use header bidding to sell the rest. 

Video Platform Features

Although not necessary, it can be quite handy to have video hosting, management, and distribution tools come hand-in-hand with the ad network. This would give you complete control over your OTT platform and its ad monetization from a single dashboard. 

Such a comprehensive platform would likely provide you with a lightweight, fast, and fully customizable HTML5 player that supports a wide array of video ad formats. In addition to this, you would be able to use the platform’s video hosting services and avoid having to look for a third-party video hosting site. Lastly, you’d be able to manage the privacy, security, and distribution of your video content.

10 Best OTT Advertising Platforms for Over-the-Top Publishers

Now that you know exactly what features and tools to look for in an OTT advertising platform, it’s time to take a look at some of the biggest players on the market.

1. Google ADX

Google is the owner of one of the largest ad exchanges on the internet known as Google ADX. The platform offers the highest CPMs and only trades in the most premium inventory. Google ADX is a programmatic ad platform that utilizes real-time bidding auctions to trade inventory. Some of the most exclusive SSPs take part in these auctions.

Unfortunately, not everyone gets to enjoy what Google ADX offers. The platform has pretty steep and strict entry requirements for publishers. In order to be eligible for a Google ADX account, your OTT website or app must have at least 5 million active monthly users.

However, even if you don’t meet these requirements, you might still be able to gain access to Google ADX through Google MCM (Multiple Customer Program). But more on that in a bit.

Google ADX Key Features:

2. Brid.TV Marketplace

Brid.TV Marketplace is a video ad network that allows OTT publishers to monetize content through an array of video ad formats, including overlay ads, various instream video ad types, CTV advertising, and more. The platform uses top-tier programmatic advertising tech and is compatible with all kinds of OTT devices.

Brid.TV Marketplace is a Google MCM partner. This means that it acts as an intermediary between Google ADX and publishers who don’t meet its eligibility criteria. Compared to the 5 million monthly user minimum on Google ADX, Brid.TV Marketplace places the cut-off at merely 100,000.

With this platform, publishers can take advantage of real-time analytics and automated reporting, an array of ad optimization tools, and even a dedicated optimization team to keep track of and manage the performance of campaigns.

A big advantage that Brid.TV Marketplace has over other similar ad networks is that it allows for easy integration with the company’s online video platform. In other words, aside from providing monetization options, Brid.TV allows you to host, manage, and distribute videos easily if this is also something you need. 

All of Brid.TV’s publishers get access to unlimited video hosting and comprehensive DRM support. A state-of-the-art, fully-customizable HTML5 player that supports adaptive bitrate streaming is also available. Lastly, Brid.TV is also an OTT platform. So if you haven’t started your OTT streaming service yet, Brid.TV can help you get started with a white-label app. 

Brid.TV Marketplace Key Features:

· Premium Google ADX Demand
· Omnichannel Monetization
· Rich Selection of Video Ad Formats
· Real-Time Performance Tracking
· Automated Reporting

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3. PubMatic

The popular advertising platform PubMatic boasts over 400 billion impressions and almost 1.5 trillion bids a day. This makes PubMatic one of the largest and best ad exchanges. This, along with enterprise-level Prebid.js features, an extensive private marketplace offer, and ad quality tools, makes PubMatic one of the favorite choices among OTT businesses.

In order to monetize with PubMatic, publishers need to meet certain criteria. Firstly, their platform must contain original content or properly attributed content. Additionally, publishers must have an engaged audience and follow Better Ads Standards.

PubMatic Key Features:

4. Yahoo Ad Tech (Formerly Verizon Media)

Yahoo’s ad exchange, known as Verizon Media before it was bought by Yahoo, offers premium ad demand to publishers for an array of platforms and devices. The platform supports real-time bidding and programmatic advertising for a wide variety of ad formats.

Yahoo Ad Tech is mostly tailored to mid-sized and large publishers, although there are no minimum traffic requirements. Also, publishers and advertisers get to enjoy an array of brand safety and security tools.

Yahoo Ad Tech Key Features:

5. SpringServe

SpringServe was built with OTT monetization in mind. In other words, its tools and features are tailored to the needs of OTT streaming services looking to monetize through ads. SpringServe mainly trades inventory through header bidding, but direct deals are also available. There is also an array of yield management tools available, along with real-time analytics.

Unlike some other industry leaders, SpringServe prides itself on being available to publishers of all sizes. That being said, the content on your platform must conform to certain standards. Namely, SpringServe doesn’t allow piracy websites, adult platforms, or websites that contain gore, hate speech, fake news, or more ads than actual content.

SpringServe Key Features:

6. SpotX

SpotX is one of the most popular video advertising platforms on the market right now. It features complete ad-serving tools, including management, tracking, and optimization. The platform also includes SDKs for Amazon, Apple TV, and Android, making it a prime choice for OTT marketing.

With SpotX, publishers can sell inventory from an array of OTT devices, including everything from mobile phones to OTT TVs and gaming consoles. Ad podding and server-side dynamic ad insertion are also some of the available features.

SpotX Key Features:

7. OpenX

OpenX brings together a network of hundreds of SSPs and DSPs. Through this network, publishers can monetize content across an array of devices and OTT apps. The platform features detailed targeting tools that help publishers and advertisers reach their desired audience easily.

OpenX supports all the popular ad formats, including instream and outstream video ads, in-app adds, CTV video ads, rich media ads, and more. Aside from real-time bidding, the platform also allows publishers and advertisers to strike programmatic direct deals. Lastly, advanced, real-time analytics and scheduled reporting are also available. 

OpenX Key Features:

8. Unruly

Unruly is a popular video advertising platform with support for a wide array of devices, making it a great choice for OTT broadcasters. With programmatic, programmatic direct, and real-time bidding, Unruly truly makes ad inventory trading easy, both for advertisers and publishers. It also features a centralized DMP. 

The platform requires ad compliance with Better Ad Standards and General Data Protection Regulation and adheres to the highest fraud protection and safety standards. This has also earned it the TAG Trust and Transparency Certificate, the IAB Gold Standard Certificate, and more.

Unruly Key Features:

9. AdMedia

AdMedia is a popular advertising network with its own ad exchange. The platform doesn’t offer inventory on any third-party open exchanges, instead keeping all the transactions internal. Publishers can sell inventory through programmatic video advertising and real-time bidding, but direct deals are also available.

AdMedia puts a lot of focus on contextual video advertising, which is currently considered to be one of the top audience targeting strategies. There are also built-in comprehensive ad fraud protection tools and brand safety features. Lastly, AdMedia offers a customizable, ad-optimized player.

AdMedia Key Features:

10. Magnite

Magnite is one of the world’s largest supply-side ad platforms and ad exchanges that supports almost all channels, devices, and ad formats. Some feature highlights include real-time ad insights, automated ad podding, high-end data protection tools, and cross-platform advertising. 

Magnite is so extensive that it actually owns some of the other entries on this list, including SpringServe and SpotX. The platform prides itself on being the choice of some of the largest premium publishers in the world, including the likes of the Discovery Channel, the Wall Street Journal, and eBay.

Magnite Key Features:

Did You Find the Right OTT Advertising Partner?

Do any of these OTT advertising platforms sound like what you’re looking for? If you’re still finding it difficult to make up your mind, we suggest giving Brid.TV Marketplace a try. With our Marketplace, you get to enjoy all the features our advertising platform offers, along with Google ADX’s CPMs and premium buyers. 

And if your OTT business is still in its infancy, you can also turn to Brid.TV to help you host, manage, and distribute your video content across an array of devices. Whether you’re in the VOD business or want to curate live streaming content, we can help you monetize with little effort on your part.

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