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Filter
Remove campaigns that are outside their flight dates, targeting rules, delivery limits or other conditions.
A CTV commercial break is not necessarily one advertisement. It can contain several ads, with different durations, advertisers, targeting rules and delivery requirements.
CTVBreak is designed around the ad-pod use case: when a break becomes available, it considers the available time, the number of ads allowed, the duration of each creative and the campaign rules before building the pod.
A 60-second break should be treated as 60 seconds of valuable advertising inventory. CTVBreak tries to fill that available time with the best combination of eligible direct-sold ads rather than simply returning one VAST ad and leaving the rest of the break unused.
The streaming or SSAI system detects an advertising opportunity. It can then request a pod and communicate constraints such as available duration and how many ads it wants. CTVBreak uses that information together with campaign rules to build the response.
Program content is playing normally.
SCTE-35 or another signal identifies the break.
Available time and pod constraints are provided.
Selects and orders eligible ads.
Multiple ads can be returned in sequence.
The exact request format is platform-specific. Conceptually, the request could communicate the following constraints:
The ad server does more than find one campaign that matches the viewer. It has to construct a sequence of ads that can actually fit inside the break.
Remove campaigns that are outside their flight dates, targeting rules, delivery limits or other conditions.
Exclude campaigns that conflict with categories already selected for the same break.
Consider each creative's actual duration instead of treating every ad as if it occupied the same amount of time.
Favor campaigns that need delivery while respecting campaign pacing and existing delivery.
Select a combination of ads whose total duration fits within the available break and requested limits.
Return the selected ads in the appropriate pod response for the surrounding CTV or SSAI infrastructure.
A general-purpose video ad server may be perfectly capable of returning VAST but still not be optimized around the realities of CTV ad breaks. CTVBreak treats the break itself as a unit of inventory.
If an SSAI system says that there are 60 seconds available, CTVBreak can look for a combination such as 30 + 15 + 15 rather than simply returning a 30-second ad and leaving another 30 seconds unused.
VAST defines how video advertising information is represented. It can support ad pods, including sequenced ads, but the surrounding ad-serving workflow still needs to understand the available break and the constraints of the playback environment.
The system responds to an ad request with a VAST response. That can work well for a single video placement where the player knows what to do with the returned ad.
The available break becomes a constraint. CTVBreak can consider several eligible creatives together, their durations, campaign pacing and competitive exclusions before returning the pod.
CTVBreak lets you assign a video advertising category to a creative, such as beverages, automotive, travel, financial services or other categories that make sense for your sales operation.
When CTVBreak builds a pod, it can use those categories to prevent competing campaigns from appearing in the same commercial break.
Three different categories can occupy one break when there is no competitive conflict.
If both creatives belong to the same competitive category, CTVBreak can prevent the second campaign from being selected for the same pod.
A good pod is not necessarily the pod with the highest raw number of seconds. The ad server also needs to respect business and campaign rules.
Important direct deals may need priority over lower-priority campaigns when inventory is limited.
A campaign that is behind its expected delivery may need more opportunities than one already pacing comfortably.
Audience, country, device, channel and placement rules can determine whether a campaign is eligible at all.
The same campaign or advertiser may need limits on how often it appears to a viewer or within a session.
The selected creative must actually be usable by the destination platform and SSAI workflow.
Minimum and maximum ad count and duration rules can override an otherwise attractive combination.
Conceptually, CTVBreak is solving a constrained selection problem. It has a fixed amount of available time and must choose a sequence of eligible ads that satisfies the break rules while making efficient use of the inventory.
| Constraint | Example | What CTVBreak considers |
|---|---|---|
| Break duration | 60 seconds | Total selected creative duration should fit the available advertising opportunity. |
| Minimum ads | 2 | Prefer or require enough ads to satisfy the requested pod structure, when eligible inventory exists. |
| Maximum ads | 6 | Do not exceed the number of advertisements requested by the calling system. |
| Minimum duration | 10 seconds | Ignore or reject creatives that cannot satisfy the destination's minimum duration requirement. |
| Maximum duration | 30 seconds | Prevent creatives that are too long for the requested pod constraints from consuming an invalid slot. |
| Targeting | Country = US | Remove campaigns that do not match the available request context. |
| Competitive category | Beverage | Avoid selecting another conflicting beverage campaign into the same pod when competitive separation is enabled. |
| Pacing | Campaign behind target | Delivery status can influence which eligible campaign should receive the next opportunity. |
VAST supports ad pods in which multiple <Ad>
elements can carry sequence numbers to indicate the order in
which the advertisements should play. IAB guidance says that
when a player elects to play a VAST pod, it should play the
ads in sequence and should play as many as possible within
the available constraints. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
Suppose your channel has sold four advertisers into the same evening programming block. When a break starts, you need more than a generic 'give me an ad' response.
You need the system to understand which campaigns are eligible, how much of the break each creative consumes, which advertiser should get priority and which competitors should be kept apart.
The channel owner or agency agrees the commercial terms directly with the advertiser.
CTVBreak manages the booked campaigns and selects the appropriate ads for each available break.
CTVBreak is a CTV ad server designed to manage advertising breaks and ad pods for CTV, OTT and FAST channels. It is primarily intended for channel owners, publishers and agencies running direct-sold advertising campaigns.
A useful conceptual model is: ad-break signal → SSAI ad request → break constraints → eligible campaign filtering → duration-aware pod selection → competitive separation → VAST pod response → ad insertion.
Yes. For example, a break could contain a 30-second ad, a 15-second ad and another 15-second ad. The combined duration can be evaluated against the available break.
That depends on the architecture. In a common setup, the SSAI system identifies the opportunity and requests an ad decision, while the ad server selects the campaigns and creatives.
The pod may be partially filled. The ad server cannot invent an eligible campaign simply to use the remaining seconds, and the exact fallback behavior depends on the streaming architecture.
Because the available duration, minimum and maximum ad lengths, targeting, pacing and competitive rules all have to be respected. More ads are not automatically better.
Yes. CTVBreak can use creative categories and competitive rules to prevent competing campaigns from being selected in the same ad break.
Yes. FAST channels typically have scheduled commercial opportunities, making pod duration, creative sequencing, campaign pacing and competitive separation particularly useful operational controls.
A focused ad server for direct advertising relationships - not an exchange, not programmatic infrastructure, and not more complexity than you need.
See the Platform View Pricing