• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, April 12, 2017

In a bid to help spur the creation of video ads for mobile, programmatic video advertising platform Virool on Wednesday launched a vertical video exchange.

Virool partnered with Bidswitch to make vertical video inventory available to more than 150 demand-side platforms (DSPs) and agency trading desks. The goal is to enable marketers to purchase vertical video ads through their DSP of choice. DSPs will sell the format on publisher Web sites through Virool.

Virool cited the availability of vertical video ads on platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and Twitter as proof of the format's popularity. Further, these kind of ads have 100% guaranteed viewability, and pause when less than 50% of the pixels are in view, according to Virool.

“When outstream video inventory first became available programmatically on the ad exchanges, there was no way to differentiate between pre-roll and outstream video inventory. Advertisers were buying outstream video inventory thinking it was pre-roll,” Eric Chen, head of publisher development, Virool, told Real-Time Daily via email.

“Part of the reason this occurred is because it is difficult for open RTB standards to keep up with new formats.” Chen said that advertisers can be assured that they’re getting vertical video inventory through the new vertical video exchange.

“In the past year, native video ads have become a new source of revenue growth,” stated Catherine Gougeon, digital GM at Groupe V Media. "As an increasing amount of traffic comes through the mobile Web, publishers are looking for new revenue sources to monetize against."