Roku is a popular streaming platform that allows you to create and customize your own video channel, featuring ads from your own advertisers as well as third-party sources, using your own video ad server.

If you want to monetize your Roku channel, Adserver.Online is a great option for displaying ads. You can serve your direct ads as well as republish third-party ads using the VAST wrapper ad format.

How to get Ad Server URL for Roku

First, you need to create a usual VAST tag. To do that, create a VAST zone and one of the VAST ads. Getting started video should help you.

Next, you need to add Roku-specific parameters to the VAST URL: 

https://srv.aso1.net/vast?z=XXXXX&srv=1&uid=ROKU_ADS_TRACKING_ID&dnt=ROKU_ADS_LIMIT_TRACKING&ip=ROKU_ADS_EXTERNAL_IP&ua=ROKU_ADS_USER_AGENT

Where XXXXX is your VAST zone ID in our system.

You must not change anything else in the tag URL above. Only replace XXXXX with a zone ID.

Additionally, you must enable the Server Tag option in zone properties (Note Premium or higher plan is required)

As soon as you compose the Roku VAST tag, you can put it into the field "Ad Server URL" in the section Monetization of your Roku channel.

Additional Factors to Consider

  • Roku's inventory split system is set at 70:30 by default. This means that 70% of the time, Roku will request one of your ads from Adserver.Online, the remaining 30% of the time, it will show its own video ads.
    If Roku cannot fill an ad (i.e., it does not have an available ad to display), there won't be an ad. In these cases, Roku does not support an option to fallback to Adserver.Online, or other ad sources.
  • Roku's guideline for pre-roll ads: "Pre-roll ads are automatically inserted in content that is 15 minutes or less. For content longer than 15 minutes, do not insert pre-roll ad breaks."
  • Roku's guideline for mid-roll ads: Guideline depends on content/video type
  • Roku's guideline for post-roll ads: Do not insert post-roll ad breaks in Direct Publisher channels. Post-roll ad breaks may cause a negative user experience, particularly in longer-form content.

Troubleshooting

Roku documentation

Roku Developer Tool: Roku Stream Tester