Enable Ad Data Collection by Attaching IMA Objects

To enable a Datazoom collector to capture the ad related data points, the required steps for a web application differ depending on how the ad framework (e.g., IMA) is integrated with the video player. In general, there are two types of integration method between the video player and ad framework:

1. Leverage ad framework integration supported by the video player

Players such as Akamai AMP player, JW Player, Bitmovin Player, Shaka player, … etc., support IMA ad integration as a part or an optional module of the player. Since the corresponding Datazoom collector for the player is prebuilt with knowledge of the player’s ad related features, for a web application who simply leverages the video player for ads, no additional code is required to enable ad data collection in this scenario.

2. Ad implementation external to the video player

Players that mainly focus on core playback/streaming functionalities, such as HLS.js player, Dash.js player, or the native HTML5 <video> element, often do not come with ad integration features. For a web application who likes to enable ads independent of the video player, it can choose to utilize the ad framework library (e.g., IMA) directly or bring in some third-party components. In either cases, since it is impossible for the corresponding Datazoom collector to gather ad information through the video player, some provisioning steps (see the section below: Attach IMA Objects) will be required to enable ad data collection.

Attach IMA Objects

For a web application who enables ads by utilizing IMA directly or through some third-party components, it will be interacting with two primary IMA objects mostly:

• adsLoader: Usually a singleton object, which handles ad-request (e.g., VAST) transactions based on ad tags given as inputs. Upon each successful completion of an ad-request, one adsManager object is created to oversee the presentation of the resulted ads.

• adsManager: An object instance is created upon each successful completion of an ad-request. It provides events and metadata regarding the resulted ads and the presentation status.

Therefore, for a Datazoom collector to gather ad information in this scenario, the application should give access by attaching these IMA objects to the collector context as soon as they become available. The Datazoom collector context interface expose these methods for this purpose:

// share the adsLoader object with the collector context, usually once per context
context.attachImaAdsLoader(adsLoader) {}

// share a adsManager object with the collector context, once per ad-request
context.attachImaAdsManager(adsManager) {}

// unshare adsLoader as an optional cleanup step
context.detachImaAdsLoader() {}

// unshare adsManager as an optional cleanup step
context.detachImaAdsManager() {}

For example, a video page using HTML5 <video> element and managing IMA directly can set everything up and attach the adsLoader (to the collector context) as below:

// Create the video player and the collector context
var media_element = document.getElementById("video");
var datazoom_context = datazoom.createContext(media_element);

// Create the IMA adsLoader
var adContainer = document.getElementById("ad-container");
var adDisplayContainer = new google.ima.AdDisplayContainer(adContainer, media_element);
var adsLoader = new google.ima.AdsLoader(adDisplayContainer);

// Share the adsLoader object with the collector context
datazoom_context.attachImaAdsLoader(adsLoader);

Then, whenever an ad-request is successfully completed, an adsManager object is created and attached to the collector context as below:

adsLoader.addEventListener(google.ima.AdsManagerLoadedEvent.Type.ADS_MANAGER_LOADED,
    function(event) {
        // Create an IMA adsManager
        var adsManager = event.getAdsManager(media_element);
        // Share the adsManager object with the collector context
        datazoom_context.attachImaAdsManager(adsManager);
    }
);

That’s it. The Datazoom collector is now provided with the required access to gather ad related information.