AWS Elemental MediaTailor Features

AWS Elemental MediaTailor is a channel assembly and personalized ad insertion service for creating linear OTT (internet delivered) channels using existing video content and monetizing those channels, other live streams, or VOD content with personalized advertising.

Customize how MediaTailor builds ad requests and manages session data 

Add your own business logic to ad-personalized playback sessions — no changes to your existing infrastructure required. With monetization functions, you can inject your own business logic at multiple stages in the playback lifecycle. Resolve viewer identity, pull in audience segments, classify device type, shape ad decision requests, or route demand across multiple ad servers based on session context. Build the logic customized to fit your customers' needs, create data transformations, call external identity providers or content metadata services, and chain up to five functions together.

Get started faster with ready-to-use templates for identity resolution, content signals, and programmatic demand — attach one to your playback configuration and customize it for your account.  
 
Every function is fail-open by design, so if a function encounters an error or exceeds its timeout, MediaTailor falls back to default ad insertion and your viewers' experience is never interrupted.

Insert advertising content upstream, prior to video delivery

AWS Elemental MediaTailor allows you to insert advertising content at the location of the start of a requested stream, prior to delivery. This eliminates the need to build and maintain unique configurations for every type of client device in order to insert personalized ads during video playback. Instead, the service generates and maintains a unique “manifest file” for each viewer, which is used to deliver ad placements that are personalized to the individual. Advertising content is seamlessly inserted into the primary content stream and can be played from the same source location to reduce the risk of buffering caused by high format and bitrate variability during video playback. This also reduces the effects of ad blocking software by making it difficult to distinguish ads from other content.

Assemble linear channels using existing content

All content is delivered with a consolidated manifest that includes content and personalized ads in a continuous stream to give viewers a seamless, TV-like viewing experience without buffering between program content and ad breaks. Support for HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) standard manifests and playlists including Common Media Application Format (CMAF) means your live stream can be viewed on a broad range of devices and players.

Capture accurate, granular measurement of ad impressions

Accurate measurement and reporting of internet-delivered video advertising is required for advertisers and video providers to be compensated for every ad placement. AWS Elemental MediaTailor achieves the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) level of playback metrics by implementing advertising measurement and reporting from the client side through playback observation APIs deployed on the viewing device. In addition, MediaTailor reports server-side ad metrics for legacy set-top boxes and other devices where changes to the viewing device is not possible, in order to comply with IAB specifications.

Scale resources up or down with viewership

AWS Elemental MediaTailor automatically scales with the number of concurrent viewers, maintaining consistent performance and quality of service for your internet-delivered video content as viewership goes up or down.

Use the vendors and solutions you choose

With AWS Elemental MediaTailor, you are not limited to specific vendors or solutions, including those components of the video workflow that operate directly with the service: the content delivery network (CDN), ad decision server, and origin server. The service works with most standard CDN or ad decision servers, and works with origin servers accessible over HTTP that can be configured using common video streaming protocol and proper ad markers.

Make use of built-in integration or deploy on its own

As one of the AWS Media Services, you can choose to use AWS Elemental MediaTailor as a standalone service or integrate it with AWS services for live video encoding, VOD processing, just-in-time packaging, or media-optimized storage. Additionally, other AWS services, such as the Amazon CloudFront CDN, offer seamless interoperability with AWS Elemental MediaTailor.