What is an in-stream advertisement?

In-stream ads are just like those ads you see on youtube videos. When you watch a video, the ad will play first before the video starts.
Castr in-stream ads allow you to earn revenue from brand sponsorship by displaying their short promotional video or image ads in your live stream or video player.
Castr in-stream ads are available for both Live streams and Video On Demand files.

The in-stream advertisement feature is the best option for you if are running affiliate advertising with a sponsor. That means the sponsored brand will provide you with the advertising video and click-through URL and pay you the ad revenue.

Castr only helps you display the ad on your streams and VOD files. We do not pay you the affiliate earnings from the in-stream advertisement.

You can find the details on how to set up the ad below or skip straight to the demo of how the ad feature works at the end of this article.

How to Activate Advertising for your Streams

Live streams

To begin, create a new live stream or open an existing one from your Castr account. Once you've successfully set up your stream, go to the Advertising tab from the dashboard.

Videos On Demand

With Castr Video Hosting, you can create VOD folders and add videos to stream them anywhere using Castr's HTML5 player.

To add advertising to an existing folder, go to the VOD folder dashboard. Then the Advertising tab next to the Settings tab.

Note: The Ad you set up is applied to all VOD videos in the folder.

Ad Source

Ad Source can be a video or a custom server that you prepared previously.

Video ad: You can upload an mp4 advertising video with a maximum length of 2 minutes. After uploading, it will take approximately 2-3 minutes to process your video, and it'll be ready for display on the player.

Custom ad server: Put in your Ad server URL, choose an Ad type then Save the settings.

At the moment, Castr only supports ad tag format VAST.

Ad Settings

If you choose to upload an advertising video, you can customize the settings of the ad.

Skippable ad: Toggle on and off skippable pre-roll ads. You can also set the skippable time for the ad.
Ad placement: In this initial release, Castr only supports pre-roll ads.
Click-through URL: Embed an URL to link to any website you want.

Note: It is best to test your stream with enabled ad before going live. If the ad does not display on your stream, clear the browser cache then try again.