The Player is the container in which you place your VideoAd content. It’s a little program (officially a cross-platform browser plug-in) that allows viewers to play your VideoAds when they encounter them on webpages.
In the Mixpo platform, you’ve always had a significant amount of control over the Player’s appearance and behavior.
For example, you’ve been able to customize the options in the Player’s call to action menu and decide whether or not the VideoAd it contains starts playing automatically.
With our latest release, we’ve redesigned the Player and given you even more control over how it looks and behaves. New features include:
- An unbranded loading graphic.
- More attactive controls.
- A mouse-over-to-play option.
- Customizable thumbnail options.
Unbranded loading graphic
You requested an unbranded loading graphic and we responded.
Click the following Player, that contains one of our easy-to-modify templates, to see the unbranded loading graphic flash by.
More attractive controls
We redesigned all of the Player controls to improve the Player’s appearance.
Pause your cursor over the following thumbnail to see the new mask that encourages clicks.
We set all Player controls to display on this thumbnail. Learn more.
Mouse-over-to-play option
Up to now, you have had two options for controlling what happens to your VideoAd when a viewer lands on the page where its embedded: autoplay with audio off and click-to-play. Now, you have a third option: mouse-over-to-play.
The Autoplay on Mouse Over option means that a VideoAd starts to play when viewers place their cursors over the Player and pause long enough for the VideoAd to load. Try it in the following thumbnail.
We set only the bottom Player controls to display on this thumbnail. Learn more.
Tip When measuring a VideoAd’s performance, we count as views mouse overs that start a VideoAd playing.
Tell me more about the measures used to track VideoAd performance.
Customizable thumbnail options
Typically, VideoAds that run as banner ads in online publications are set click-to-play. That is, rather than playing automatically when viewers land on the page where a VideoAd is embedded, viewers must click a play button.
As we mentioned in an earlier post, the thumbnail—how the Player looks before anyone plays it—is one of your most powerful tools for attracting viewers.
Now, in addition to choosing the thumbnail image, you can also choose which controls display on thumbnails.
For example, you might display the play button because you believe it will tempt viewers to click. Or, you might hide the play button so that viewers see more of the image underneath.
To select the controls that display on the thumbnail, in the Publisher, on the Embed on Your Site tab under Autoplay, click Customize Player Thumbnail.
Autoplay options on Embed on Your Site tab
In the Customize Player Thumbnail window, select check boxes for controls you want to display. Clear check boxes for controls you want to hide.
Customize Player Thumbnail window
You can display all of the controls, as shown above, none of the controls, or any combination. As you select and deselect options, the preview below the options reflects your choices.
Tell me more about customizing the Player.
How do I choose a thumbnail image to represent my VideoAd?.
Tip You can now preview click-to-play and mouse-over-to-play settings on the VideoAd landing page. In the Publisher, click the Syndication tab. Under Landing Page Options, select Same Autoplay Settings as Embedded VideoAd. Save and publish, and then view your landing page.