Video ad tech provider SpotX has announced server-side ad insertion interoperability with Amazon Web Services’ Elemental MediaTailor service. This means that content providers which are joint customers of SpotX and AWS Elemental MediaTailor are able to use SpotX’s ad decisioning capabilities to dynamically serve targeted ads, using server-side ad insertion.

With server-side ad insertion (“SSAI”), which is also known as ad stitching, relevant ads are integrated with the content at the server level, providing a better viewer experience as compared with when ads are inserted by the player on the user's device. The latter model often results in buffering as the player transitions between content and ads and vice versa. Buffering is major challenge for content providers because it is the leading cause of abandonment, which in turn diminishes monetization.

While SSAI is valuable for user experiences across all devices, it’s particularly valuable for video consumed via connected TV where the viewers’ expectations are for a TV-like experience. SpotX recently revealed that ad spending for connected TV inventory on its platform increased by 18x for the 12 months ending October, 2017.

At our recent SHIFT // Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit, SpotX, Brightcove and IAB Tech Lab presented on the benefits of SSAI and how it can work with programmatic. The session video is here.