VAST Tag Examples
Use this resource to learn and explore various VAST tag examples. Click on any example to view its details and XML structure. This library includes a wide range of VAST tags, from basic to advanced, covering different versions and use cases. It's a valuable tool for anyone looking to understand VAST tags better or find working examples for testing and development.
VAST Tag Examples & Templates Library - Test Real VAST, VPAID, VMAP Tags
Browse the AdMeIn VAST tag examples including VAST 4.2, VPAID, VMAP, wrappers, companion ads, and SIMID. Free working examples from Google IMA, Innovid, and major ad servers for testing and validation.
AdMeIn Icon Example
This example demonstrates a standard VAST 4.2 linear video advertisement that includes essential components for basic ad delivery. The tag features a primary video creative with proper MediaFile elements, click-through tracking URLs, and an overlay icon element that appears during video playback. This is an ideal starting point for testing VAST compliance as it includes all fundamental elements: impression tracking pixels, error tracking URLs, and clickthrough destinations. The example is particularly useful for developers and ad ops professionals who are new to VAST implementation, as it showcases the minimal required structure while maintaining full IAB VAST specification compliance. You can use this tag to validate that your video player correctly handles linear VAST ads, processes tracking events, and manages user interactions like click-throughs.
VAST VPAID Example Tag
VPAID (Video Player Ad Interface Definition) represents a legacy but still widely-used standard for interactive video advertisements. This example demonstrates how VPAID creative units are delivered through VAST XML, utilizing JavaScript-based ad units that can communicate bidirectionally with the video player. VPAID ads are particularly important for campaigns requiring rich interactivity, custom overlays, dynamic content changes, or advanced tracking capabilities beyond standard VAST events. While VPAID 2.0 was once the industry standard for interactive ads, it's important to note that many modern platforms are transitioning to newer standards like SIMID. However, VPAID remains crucial for backward compatibility testing, especially for publishers and advertisers working with legacy ad servers or targeting older video player implementations. This tag is useful for QA teams validating that their player's VPAID implementation correctly initializes the JavaScript creative, handles the handshake protocol, and properly executes all VPAID events.
AdMeIn Single Wrapper Example
VAST wrappers are a fundamental concept in programmatic video advertising, enabling ad mediation, waterfall implementations, and multi-party tracking in the ad delivery chain. This example illustrates a single-level wrapper that redirects to an inline VAST response containing the actual video creative. In real-world scenarios, wrappers are commonly used by SSPs (Supply-Side Platforms), ad networks, and mediation layers to inject their own tracking pixels and impressions while passing through to the ultimate ad creative. The wrapper structure allows each intermediary in the ad supply chain to collect their analytics and verify ad delivery without modifying the original creative. This example is essential for testing wrapper resolution logic in video players, validating that all wrapper-level tracking events fire correctly, ensuring proper aggregation of tracking URLs across wrapper chains, and confirming that your implementation respects the IAB's recommended maximum wrapper depth limits (typically 5 redirects) to prevent infinite loops and excessive latency.
AdMeIn Multi Ad Example
VMAP (Video Multiple Ad Playlist) is an IAB standard that extends VAST to support complex ad scheduling scenarios with multiple ad breaks throughout video content. This example showcases a complete VMAP implementation featuring preroll ads (before content starts), midroll ads (during content at specified time offsets), and postroll ads (after content completes). VMAP is essential for long-form video content, streaming services, and OTT platforms where viewer engagement is maintained through strategic ad placement. The standard allows publishers to define exact timing for ad breaks, specify ad pod structures (multiple ads within a single break), set repeat rules for recurring ad patterns, and control ad break behaviors like whether they're skippable. This example is particularly valuable for streaming platform developers implementing server-guided ad insertion (SGAI), publishers managing long-form content monetization, and QA engineers validating that video players correctly parse VMAP XML, schedule ads at precise timestamps, and handle transitions between content and advertising seamlessly.
AdMeIn Companion Ads Example
Companion ads are supplementary display creatives that appear alongside video ads to create a more immersive and effective advertising experience. This VAST example includes properly structured CompanionAds elements that define static image or HTML resources designed to display in designated slots on the page while the video ad plays. Companion ads significantly improve campaign performance by maintaining brand presence throughout video playback, providing additional click opportunities, reinforcing messaging across multiple formats, and enabling synchronized creative strategies. Common use cases include displaying banner ads in sidebar slots, showing product images below the video player, presenting call-to-action buttons during video playback, and offering interactive HTML5 companions with forms or animations. This tag is crucial for testing companion ad selection logic (choosing the right size for available slots), rendering synchronization with video ad lifecycle, proper tracking of companion impressions and clicks, and fallback behavior when no suitable companion slot is available.
Google Multi Ad Example
This is an official Google IMA (Interactive Media Ads) SDK sample tag that demonstrates skippable video ad implementation following YouTube's advertising model. The tag includes proper skipoffset attributes and skip button elements that comply with Google's ad serving requirements and best practices. Skippable ads are crucial for balancing user experience with monetization, particularly in long-form content where forced viewership can lead to abandonment. This example is provided by Google and hosted on their infrastructure, making it an authoritative reference for testing IMA SDK integration, particularly for YouTube-style video experiences. Key features include standardized skip button timing (typically 5 seconds), proper skip tracking events that report when users skip versus watch completely, AdChoices/AdPrivacy icons for transparency, and Google-specific extensions and parameters. This tag is invaluable for developers implementing Google Ad Manager or AdSense video monetization, publishers testing IMA SDK compatibility, and QA teams validating skip button functionality and tracking accuracy.
Google SIMID Example
SIMID (Secure Interactive Media Interface Definition) represents the next evolution in interactive video advertising, designed to replace VPAID with a more secure, performant, and privacy-focused framework. This official Google DoubleClick example demonstrates how SIMID creatives are delivered through VAST XML while running in a secure sandboxed iframe, preventing malicious code execution and protecting user privacy. Unlike VPAID which runs with full page access, SIMID operates in a restricted environment with a defined message-passing API for player communication. The standard supports rich interactivity including overlays, interactive elements, and dynamic creative optimization, while maintaining security through iframe isolation. SIMID is increasingly required by major platforms, especially in CTV and mobile environments where security and performance are paramount. This tag is essential for testing SIMID adoption in your video stack, validating secure iframe implementation and message passing, ensuring compatibility with major ad servers transitioning from VPAID, and preparing for the industry-wide shift toward more secure interactive ad standards.
Adform VAST Sample
This is a genuine production VAST URL from Google Ad Manager (formerly DoubleClick for Publishers) that showcases the complexity of enterprise ad serving in real-world publishing environments. The URL contains extensive targeting parameters including contextual keywords, content categories, geographic signals, brand safety classifications from IAS (Integral Ad Science), user segments, device information, viewability thresholds, and privacy consent signals. This example is invaluable because it demonstrates how production ad servers construct VAST requests with dozens of key-value pairs for programmatic decisioning, audience targeting, and yield optimization. Publishers and ad tech engineers can use this tag to understand how contextual targeting parameters should be structured, how brand safety vendors integrate their signals, how GDPR/privacy parameters are passed, and how ad servers handle real-time bidding contexts. Testing with production-grade tags like this helps validate that your video player correctly handles complex VAST responses, manages extensive URL parameters without truncation, processes multiple tracking pixels, and maintains compatibility with major ad server platforms used by premium publishers.
Innovid Example
Innovid is a leading independent ad serving and creative technology platform specializing in advanced video advertising, particularly in CTV (Connected TV) and OTT (Over-The-Top) environments. This VAST tag example from Innovid demonstrates their third-party ad serving capabilities, which are widely used by major brands and agencies for campaign management independent of publisher ad servers. The tag includes dynamic macros for cache-busting (timestamp) and page context (description_url) which are standard requirements for accurate tracking and preventing cached responses. Innovid is particularly known for their advanced creative capabilities including dynamic creative optimization (DCO), personalized video assembly, interactive overlays, and sophisticated measurement across linear TV and digital video. This example is useful for testing third-party ad server integration scenarios, validating macro replacement and dynamic parameter handling, ensuring compatibility with brand-side ad serving platforms, and understanding how agencies deliver campaigns through independent verification. Developers working with brands directly or implementing multi-server architectures will find this essential for compatibility testing.
Adserver Online Example
Adserver.Online is a comprehensive video ad serving platform designed specifically for OLV (Online Video), OTT (Over-The-Top), and CTV (Connected TV) environments. This VAST tag example represents their streamlined ad serving approach, which focuses on low-latency delivery and broad device compatibility across smart TVs, streaming devices, mobile apps, and web browsers. The platform is particularly popular among mid-market publishers, app developers, and CTV networks due to its straightforward implementation, competitive pricing, and focus on video-first advertising. The simple URL structure (with zone parameter "z") demonstrates their efficient ad decisioning system designed for high-volume, real-time ad delivery. This example is valuable for testing platform-agnostic VAST implementations, validating performance on resource-constrained devices like smart TVs and streaming sticks, ensuring compatibility with emerging CTV platforms and standards, and understanding how specialized video ad servers optimize for streaming environments. Publishers building CTV channels or OTT applications will find this particularly relevant for integration testing.
AdPlayer.Pro Example
AdPlayer.Pro is an innovative video advertising and monetization platform that combines video player technology with sophisticated ad serving capabilities, specifically optimized for publisher and broadcaster workflows. This VAST tag demonstrates their placement-based ad serving model where each placement ID represents a specific ad slot configuration with predefined rules for frequency capping, competitive separation, and yield optimization. AdPlayer.Pro is particularly notable for their focus on video player embedding solutions that include built-in monetization, making them popular among content creators, news publishers, and video-first websites. Their platform emphasizes ease of implementation, with minimal technical overhead for publishers who want to deploy video players with pre-configured monetization. The tag structure shows their RESTful API approach with versioning (v1) and clear resource hierarchy. This example is essential for testing embedded player scenarios, validating placement-based targeting and ad serving logic, ensuring compatibility with publisher-side ad management platforms, and understanding how all-in-one video solutions handle VAST delivery. Publishers evaluating white-label video player solutions with integrated ad serving will find this particularly instructive.