Video Ad Serving Template

Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) is a specification defined and released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) that sets a standard for communication requirements between ad servers and video players in order to present video ads.

It is a data structure declared using XML.

VAST has 8 versions: 1.0 (deprecated), 1.1 (deprecated), 2.0, 2.0.1 (the schema version as the official VAST 2.0 schema), 2.6, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2.

Request

In order to play a video ad in a video player, the video player sends a request to a VAST ad server.

It is a simple HTTP based URL that typically appears as follows: http://www.example.com/?LR_PUBLISHER_ID=1331&LR_CAMPAIGN_ID=229&LR_SCHEMA=vast2-vpaid

Response

The ad server responds with a VAST data structure that declares these parameters:

• The ad media that should be played
• How the ad media should be played
• What should be tracked as the media is played
• The companion ad that should be displayed alongside the master ad

For example, the above request returns the following response (trimmed): <syntaxhighlight lang="xml" line="1">

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<VAST version="2.0">
   <Ad id="229">
   	<InLine>
   		<AdSystem version="4.9.0-10">LiveRail</AdSystem>
   		<AdTitle><![CDATA[LiveRail creative 1]]></AdTitle>
   		<Description><![CDATA[]]></Description>
   		<Impression id="LR"><![CDATA[1]]></Impression>
			.......
		    <Creatives>
			    <Creative sequence="1" id="331">
           		<Linear>
           			<Duration>00:00:09</Duration>
	                    <TrackingEvents>
       	                <Tracking event="firstQuartile"><![CDATA[2]]></Tracking>
                           <Tracking event="midpoint"><![CDATA[3]]></Tracking>
                          	.......
                       </TrackingEvents>         
                       <VideoClicks>
           		     	<ClickThrough><![CDATA[4]]></ClickThrough>
           			</VideoClicks>
                       <MediaFiles>
       				    <MediaFile delivery="progressive" bitrate="256" width="480" height="352" type="video/x-flv"><![CDATA[5]]></MediaFile>
       				    ......
   				    </MediaFiles>
   				    ......
   				</Linear>
   			</Creative>
   		</Creatives>
   	</InLine>
   </Ad>
</VAST>

</syntaxhighlight>

See also

• Interactive Advertising Bureau