Vienna - Austria, March 6th, 2025 - Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, has announced two new features for Bitmovin Analytics: Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) Analytics and Real-Time Observability. The features aim to address the media and entertainment technology’s need for more seamless ad playback, real-time data to measure audience engagement, and the ability to proactively discover issues with streaming quality.
Ad Insertion was named the top challenge for the video streaming industry in Bitmovin’s 8th Annual Video Developer Report due to the workflows being complex and highly variable. SSAI is one of the most used ad architectures. Technically, SSAI ads can be challenging to playback on specific devices, and the transition between SSAI ads and the main content in a stream is a common point where errors occur, especially if the ads are unencrypted and the main content is encrypted.
Bitmovin’s SSAI Analytics helps users monetize their SSAI workflows more effectively by collecting data relevant to debugging ads and measuring audience engagement. SSAI Analytics’ engagement feature shows the number of ad plays, plays per quartile, and abandonment rate. Each metric can be filtered to identify commonalities in engagement between viewers, devices, stream types, and ad servers. This allows streaming services to expand ad campaigns that viewers are responding positively to or end those that viewers are abandoning. Both debugging and engagement data is available at a session level, allowing for analysis down to the level of individual ads within an ad break. The data is also available in real-time to empower fast decision-making and early detection of issues impacting monetization and causing viewer dissatisfaction.
Bitmovin’s SSAI Analytics helps users monetize their SSAI workflows more effectively by collecting data relevant to debugging ads and measuring audience engagement. SSAI Analytics’ engagement feature shows the number of ad plays, plays per quartile, and abandonment rate. Each metric can be filtered to identify commonalities in engagement between viewers, devices, stream types, and ad servers. This allows streaming services to expand ad campaigns that viewers are responding positively to or end those that viewers are abandoning. Both debugging and engagement data is available at a session level, allowing for analysis down to the level of individual ads within an ad break. The data is also available in real-time to empower fast decision-making and early detection of issues impacting monetization and causing viewer dissatisfaction.
“Advertising-based business models have gained real momentum in the last few years. Yet, while Bitmovin’s latest Video Developer Report showed that advertising is the top opportunity for innovation, ad insertion is the top challenge,” said Stefan Lederer, CEO and co-founder of Bitmovin, “Bitmovin’s SSAI Analytics has arrived at the right time, and will help our customers with SSAI ad architecture to optimize their ability to monetize their content by providing real-time debugging and engagement data into ad performance and viewer engagement.”
Real-time observability is powered by Bitmovin’s brand-new alerting infrastructure and the real-time data that Bitmovin Analytics captures from video players. It’s designed to help users proactively identify any issues with streaming quality, performance, or monetization. Real-time observability solves the issue of video QoE Analytics being mainly reactive - either by monitoring metrics & dashboards manually or looking into issues raised by viewers reactively. Real-time observability offers a more proactive and wide-reaching approach to understanding changes in streaming quality. This allows for issues to be discovered and solved faster. Combining observability with Bitmovin’s deep, session-level data means that root causes can be found quickly and resolved before they affect global viewership. Observability incidents can also be filtered by a range of breakdown filters to understand commonality, for example, in devices, networks, and streams affected.
“Real-Time Observability transforms video analytics from being reactive to proactive when ensuring quality of experience,” added Lederer, “It provides users with an incredible depth of knowledge about their video streaming infrastructure provisioning and the demands placed on it by pinpointing issues before they even occur. As a result, it will positively impact customers’ bottom line, reduce viewer dissatisfaction and minimize churn.”
Bitmovin’s Analytics delivers real-time operational monitoring to optimize video and ad workflows based on viewer experiences across all platforms. It identifies errors rapidly with real-time data so users can see how their streams perform across every single user session in real time, enabling them to identify and take action quickly while reducing the cost of errors.
About Bitmovin
Bitmovin is the leading provider of video streaming solutions for global digital media companies and service providers. The company has been at the forefront of industry innovation and all major developments in the digital video streaming industry.
Bitmovin built the world’s first commercial adaptive streaming player and deployed the first software-defined encoding service that runs on any cloud platform. Its cloud-native technology offers the most flexible and scalable media encoding, playback, and analytics solutions available with unparalleled device reach, ease of integration, and world class customer support.
Bitmovin customers benefit from optimized operations, reduced time-to-market, and the best viewer experience possible. Bitmovin is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has major offices in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Austria as well as London, Berlin and Denver. The company has over 400 customers across the globe, including ClassPass, BBC, fuboTV, Hulu, and Discovery. For more information, visit www.bitmovin.com.
Bitmovin is the leading provider of video streaming solutions for global digital media companies and service providers. The company has been at the forefront of industry innovation and all major developments in the digital video streaming industry.
Bitmovin built the world’s first commercial adaptive streaming player and deployed the first software-defined encoding service that runs on any cloud platform. Its cloud-native technology offers the most flexible and scalable media encoding, playback, and analytics solutions available with unparalleled device reach, ease of integration, and world class customer support.
Bitmovin customers benefit from optimized operations, reduced time-to-market, and the best viewer experience possible. Bitmovin is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has major offices in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Austria as well as London, Berlin and Denver. The company has over 400 customers across the globe, including ClassPass, BBC, fuboTV, Hulu, and Discovery. For more information, visit www.bitmovin.com.
Press Contacts
For media inquiries, interviews, or further information, please contact:
Sarah Thomas, Account Manager, Radical Moves sarah.thomas@radicalmoves.co.uk
Zoe Mumba, Senior Manager, PR & Communications zoe.mumba@bitmovin.com
For media inquiries, interviews, or further information, please contact:
Sarah Thomas, Account Manager, Radical Moves sarah.thomas@radicalmoves.co.uk
Zoe Mumba, Senior Manager, PR & Communications zoe.mumba@bitmovin.com