This documentation aims to provide a step-by-step guide on how to use Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data to enhance the ad insertion process in your streaming service. By leveraging EPG data, you can achieve more targeted and relevant ad placements, improving viewer experience and advertising effectiveness.

Overview of EPG-Based Ad Insertion Process

The integration of EPG data into the ad insertion process involves several key steps. These include specifying an epgId in your ad break request. We then will look up this epgId in the EPG catalog provided by you, and use the retrieved metadata to inform ad server calls. This approach ensures ads are more contextually relevant to the content being viewed.

1. Ad Break Request with epgId

When requesting an ad break, include a epgId key with a value representing the content into which the ad will be inserted. This identifier is crucial for retrieving the relevant metadata from your EPG catalog.

2. EPG Catalog Lookup

Upon receiving an ad break request with an epgId, the system will search for this identifier in the EPG catalog you’ve provided. If an entry is found, the associated metadata is retrieved for use in the ad insertion process.

3. Attaching Metadata to Ad Server Calls

The metadata retrieved from the EPG catalog is attached to all relevant ad server calls. This information might be used in various ways, for instance, as data placeholders, conditional parameters, or for validating the existence of specific content traits.

4. Configuration of Ad Server

Your ad server configurations that utilize EPG data should be straightforwardly named (e.g., epg.title, epg.genres). This naming convention makes it easy to identify and manage these configurations.

Providing an EPG Catalog

For the EPG-based ad insertion process to work, an up-to-date EPG catalog must be provided via the ingest API. Here are the steps to do so:

Access Token

First, acquire an access token with the context updateCatalog. This token is necessary for providing or updating the EPG catalog.

Updating the EPG Catalog

To update your EPG catalog, you’ll need to make a complete request with all the necessary metadata for each content entry:

• Mandatory Parameters: Every content entry must include an id (used as the epgId for ad break requests) and a title. The id can be any string that uniquely identifies the content within your system.
• Request Body: The body of your request should be a list containing all the metadata relevant to your EPG entries. For detailed specifications on what this list should contain, refer to the documentation.

Field List

The provided field list should contain data relevant to the ad server. This ensures that the ad server has access to the necessary information for making more informed decisions about which ads to serve.

If there’s additional information you’d like to forward to your ad server that isn’t currently supported, please contact us with your use case. We are committed to continuously expanding the field list to meet our clients’ needs.

Roadmap: Supporting the Broadcast Exchange Format (BXF)

Looking ahead, we plan to support the Broadcast Exchange Format (BXF). This will offer enhanced capabilities for EPG-based ad insertion, further improving the efficiency and relevance of ad placements.