Table of Contents
Overview
Often in Real-Time Bidding (RTB) transactions, publishers and exchanges prefer having control over whether a video ad can be skipped. As a result, OpenRTB expects advertisers to respond to skippable video ad requests with standard linear video ads, and publishers will provide the skip button.
If a bid request includes a “skippable” attribute, it indicates that the publisher will add a skip button on the ad. When the "skippable" attribute is not included, it is unknown whether the publisher will add a skip button.
How it Works
The “Skippable” attribute for is available for both VAST Inline and VAST Wrapper video creatives. This allows advertisers to specify whether an ad is eligible to be skipped by selecting the “Skippable” option in the Creative Attributes section of the Edit Creative screen.
Advertisers cannot force a skip as an option, meaning they cannot exclusively target skippable inventory. The available options are:
- Skippable inventory: Ads may be skipped, but it depends on whether the publisher supports this feature
- Non-skippable inventory: Ads cannot be skipped
By selecting the "Skippable" option, the advertiser indicates that they are comfortable with the ad being skipped on inventory where skipping is allowed.
The platform does not fully support use cases where advertisers provide their own skip functionality (for example, using VPAID to implement a custom skip button), but does not prohibit it. Note that advertisers may experience unexpected behavior when using VPAID creatives with custom skip buttons.
When setting a creative as "Skippable," there is also an option to set a Skip Offset. This determines how much of the video a viewer must watch before the skip option becomes available.