Overview

SpotX is a video advertising platform for premium publishers connecting them with advertisers, agencies, trading desks, DSPs and ad networks to ensure they achieve maximum revenue for their inventory. With more than 5 billion ad decisions per day, SpotX is the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory reaching over 600 million unique visitors in more than 190 countries each month.

The Challenge

Increasing device fragmentation has made for a new online landscape in which users can access video content on a myriad of devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, game consoles, and smart TVs. These devices vary greatly in terms of screen sizes, network connectivity, input methods, user contexts, and user posture.

Video ad platforms, such as SpotX, must now cater to the needs of advertisers willing to spend their video marketing budgets on device-targeted campaigns. This requires applying fast, accurate, and constantly updated device detection solutions capable of handling billions of requests in real-time to ensure the right ads are delivered to the right audience.

Solution

Advertisers working with SpotX enjoy rich targeting options including demographics, behaviour, context, keywords, geographic location, and re-targeting based on consumer’s browsing history. Ad buyers are also provided with site level transparency throughout all campaigns, ensuring they know exactly what they’re buying and where it’s running.

DeviceAtlas helped SpotX increase these targeting options and ad traffic transparency by verifying the type of requesting device and serving the right types of ads. This also allowed the platform to provide its ad buyers and publishers with insight into device type-based campaign statistics.

SpotX ad server requests trigger the DeviceAtlas API which analyses the requesting browser’s HTTP headers and returns device type, such as low-end mobile phone, smartphone, tablet, Smart TV, game console, etc. The detections are powered by a constantly updated device database provided by DeviceAtlas’ team of data experts. On average DeviceAtlas handles some 5 billion mobile SpotX ad requests every day.

Results

Applying DeviceAtlas-powered device detection allowed SpotX to further increase its video ad reach by providing ad buyers and publishers with deep device understanding. Device awareness as part of targeting and campaign analysis options allowed SpotX partners to craft more engaging and better performing video ad campaigns.

Additionally, SpotX partners such as Demand Side Platforms, Agency Trading Desks, and managed services clients all benefit from the detailed enrichment of bid requests in their OpenRTB bid requests. This helps downstream partners quickly and accurately identify mobile opportunities, and has resulted in further transparency of SpotX’s trusted video platform.

Finally, SpotX has been able to garner detailed insights into devices that interface with SpotX’s platform, providing key operating and engineering insights that have enabled SpotX to build better and more robust mobile products for advertisers and publishers.

"The DeviceAtlas database is constantly updated which makes us certain that all the latest devices are accurately detected." Allen Klosowski, VP, Mobile and Connected Devices at SpotX