Distributions, Productions, and Live

SourceSync uses 3 types of content “containers”: Distributions, Productions, and Live. Distributions and Productions are technically identical, but only Distributions can show your work to the public. Live behaves exactly like Distributions, but they have a couple fewer settings, and the added ability to add a streaming date & time.

Productions are used for organizing your Distributions internally. You can have multiple Distributions that refer to the same Production, which allows you to bulk-add Settings, Video Sources, and/or SAMs to many Distributions. Some use cases for a Production with many Distributions would include:

1. A/B testing
2. Multi-language support
3. Location targeting

Starting with a Distribution is recommended for single videos that won’t have different settings for different needs.

Check out the full list of differences between the 3 types of content containers here:

Creation

Creating a Distribution, Production, or Live Production is simple, and generally the same for each type. There may be a different or extra step here and there with the others, but for our walkthrough we’ll use Distributions since they have the most functionality.

To get started, click on the “Distributions” tab.

This will take you to the Distributions Library, where your Distributions will be managed. Folders can be created to help in organization, and folders within folders are also supported. Click the “Create” button to get started.

When creating a new Distribution, you’'ll enter its information in a pop up window.

• Name: This is for organizational purposes and will not appear on the Distribution itself.
• Slug: Autogenerates based on the name, but can be customized. All slugs need to be unique, and can optionally be used as part of the Distribution link if desired. Slugs can’t be changed later, so choose carefully.
• Media: Enter the YouTube ID, Vimeo ID, or URL that ends in .mp4 or .webm. This can be ignored when a Production will be used.
• Type:
  • Overlay: Just the interactive experience will be published and can be added to any video defined in the publisher’s distribution. For example, a SAM that describes and sells Truck tires can be programmatically added to any video about trucks as part of a pre-roll.
  • Video: The distribution will include the video being referenced from the Media ID.

Clicking “Submit” will take you to the Distribution’s overview screen.

Editing

After creation, you’ll see the same fields from above, plus some new additions:

• Username: Will autofill from the user logged into the account.
• OG Meta: The stuff that appears when you share a link to the Distribution, which includes…
  • Title: The snippet of text that will visible when shared on social media. Keeping it concise is recommended.
  • Cover Image: This image will be used as part of the OGMeta when published. Selecting from assets will allow you to use an image from your Asset Library.
    If the Distribution is using a YouTube or Vimeo ID, it will pass through the OG Meta found. OG Images look like they fit an aspect ratio very close to 16:9, but their dimensions are actually about 1.91:1. So 1200px by 630px is recommended.
  • Description: A short 2-4 concise sentence description that will be seen when shared on social media.

Associating a Production

Clicking Production will let you use any of your Productions as the starting point for your Distribution. The Video Source, SAMs, and Settings set on the Production become the defaults for the Distribution. Any of these settings can be changed and made unique for the Distribution if desired.

If no other changes are needed, then the Distribution can be saved and shared! Simple as that. 🙂

Settings

SourceSync provides a lot of settings you can modify! Click a link below for more information on that setting, or skip to the next section (The Timeline) if none of these settings interest you.

• Ads in a SAM
• Behaviors
• Conversion Pixel
• IAB Categories and Keywords
• Impression Pixels
• JSON Settings
• Open SAM Width
• VAST Quartile Pixels
• VAST Tag
• Video Click-out
• Video Metadata
• Video Pinching
• Web Beaconing

Ads in a SAM

Check out this more in-depth article on how what Ads in a SAM are, and how to enable them!

Behaviors

Sets different behaviors on the production and distribution as experience by the consumer.

• autoPlay: The video will automatically start playing when it appears on the page. It will automatically mute the video when selected.
• muted: The video can be defaulted to muted when the user first engages with the video and can unmute as needed. When autoPlay is set, it will always be muted and cannot be unmuted.
• clickOutsideToCloseSam: When the user is engaging with the video and a SAM is open to its details, this behavior allows the closing of the SAM to be anywhere on the video in addition to the (X) in the SAM itself.
• playThroughDetails: When active, the video will continue playing with the SAM is open. When inactive, opening a SAM will pause the video until the SAM is closed and will resume playing.
• fullscreenDetailsInMobilePortrait: When active, and a consumer opens a SAM on a mobile device while in portrait mode, the SAM will open to the fill size of the display. When unselected, it will open to the bottom 2/3rds of the screen.
• contentWallet: A future functionality coming to the Source platform allowing consumers to like, save, and share SAMs.
• showPreviewThroughDetails: Allows the SAM preview to still display even when a SAM is open.

Conversion Pixel

The Conversion Pixel is currently a “View-Through Pixel”.

Here’s Google’s definition of a view-through Pixel:
“Measure the success of your display ad campaigns by using View-Through Conversions… View-Through Conversions are what happens when a customer sees an ad (but doesn’t click), and then later completes a conversion on your site.”

In order to track View-Throughs, a pixel code is placed on your website. It can be copied and placed on the customer’s page for which a View-Through report is desired.

Copy or download the pixel from the Distribution and provide to the customers wishing to track this data. Source’s analytics will allow different windows of View-Through, such as if a user has revisited a page within 30 days of seeing the SAM or a Distribution.

IAB Categories and Keywords

IAB is the Interactive Advertising Bureau that sets standards for how Ads are formatted and distributed.

These functions allow any production to have IAB categories programmatically added via AI, or manually set by the user.

Impression Pixels

Allows for up to 5 third-party pixels to fire when the video first starts playing.

JSON Settings

The bottom section of the details and settings is a JSON view of the settings. It also contains some other information such as creation date and last updated date. Typically, you would only need to interact with this if you are a developer, or are working with us on a feature custom to you that may not have a UI equivalent yet.

Open SAM Width

Allows the user to change the width of the SAM when it is opened to its details .The default is 1/3rd the width of the video.

• “Use Default” Checkbox: Allows for overriding the default settings of 33%.
• Slider Bar: select MIN and MAX between 33% and 100%

VAST Quartile Pixels

Walkthrough coming soon!

VAST Tag

A VAST TAG is generated when the Distribution is ready to be delivered to a DSP - for example, as part of a pre-roll.

Once the Production and Distribution is properly set as referenced in this VAST TAG Generation doc (insert link here), then the TAG can be copied. There is also a link to a VAST TAG test page where the copied link can be tested.

Video Click-out

Allows a URL to be added to the overlay so that when a consumer clicks anywhere on the video, it will open the URL in a new TAB. Mainly used in Pre-roll.

• Click-Out URL: Enter the URL to be used.
• UTM Tracking: A UTM generator that will add UTM parameters to the URL supplied.
• Pixels: Up to 5 third party pixels can be added and will fire when the video is clicked upon.

Video Metadata

Walkthrough coming soon!

Video Pinching

Walkthrough coming soon!

Web Beaconing

Selection for certain DSPs needs as listed.

The Timeline

After configuring the Distribution’s settings, click “Edit Timeline” to move on. Here, you can manually or programmatically (via Keywords & IAB Categories) select and apply SAMs to a video.

If you’ve added an associated Production, SAMs added here will be in addition to the ones already added in that Production.

A video of adding SAMs, changing their times via the Events Pane, changing multiple at once, positions, and editing a SAM will replace this box soon!

All newly added SAMs will appear in both the Events Pane and the Visual Timeline at the bottom of the page; all starting at 00:00:00 with a duration of 00:00:08 (8 seconds).

The start, end, and duration times can be changed by clicking the pencil icon in the Events Pane or via the Visual Timeline. Multiple SAMs can be edited at once in the Events Pane by using the checkboxes on the left.

Position allows the SAM to be displayed on the left or the right. The default is on the right unless changed.

Visual Timeline

The visual view of the Timeline is available at the bottom of the page. This can be handy to easily see which SAMs will overlap and be available at the same time, or for users who like clicking and dragging.

A video walkthrough of moving SAMs around via the Visual Timeline will replace this box soon!

Once a SAM is highlighted in the timeline, it will turn orange.

• Clicking in the middle lets you drag the event to another moment in time while preserving its duration.
• Clicking and dragging the white square to the left or right of the current SAM lets you change its start and end positions.

Preview

The video player allows you to preview the SAMs as they will appear in the final video. You can resize the player to simulate different viewing sizes and modes.

You can also update the Moving the red position bar will update the video viewer to that position and vice versa, moving the video player to a different position will update the read player bar.

Publishing

Only Distributions and Live Productions can be published.

If not part of a VAST TAG delivery, a Distribution can be sent for review or final publication using the Distribution link. Clicking the link will open the Distribution in a new TAB for review, and can be published on your website via our embedder.

Other Tips

Staying Organized

Distributions can be organized via folders, and even folders within folders:

Clicking the three-dots menu on any Distribution will bring up this menu:

• Move: Moves the selected Distribution to another folder.
• Duplicate: Duplicates the Distribution, which will be copied to the same folder. The copy will be a unique Distribution with its own ID, but will reference the same SAMs associated with the original Distribution.
• Clone to Org: Clones and adds the Distribution and any SAMs associated with it to another Org account. The account you’re cloning from needs to be a part of the receiving account in order to transfer.
• Draft: Setting a Distribution to “Draft” will allow the Distribution to be published without any of the analytics being gathered. This is helpful when a Distribution is still in the creative process and needs to be sent out for review. Once the Distribution is past the review stage, be sure to change this status to longer being a draft.

Batch Editing

When two or more Distributions are selected, a new toolbar will appear, which allow the user to edit any of the settings in one of the Distributions. Once saved, these changes will be applied to all selected Distributions.