Publisher Setup

Complete both steps before going live. Skipping either one will prevent ads from serving on your site.

Step 1 — Add your ads.txt entries

Ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) is an IAB standard that tells programmatic ad buyers which platforms are permitted to sell advertising inventory on your domain. Without it, most programmatic demand sources will refuse to bid on your inventory, which means no ad revenue from your site.

Getting your entries

After your Monetization Program application is approved, your VideoNest contact will send you a list of ads.txt entries specific to your publisher account. These are plain-text lines in the format required by the IAB standard — you don't need to edit or format them, just add them to your file.

Where to add them

Your ads.txt file must live at the root of your domain — accessible at yourdomain.com/ads.txt. The file is plain text, one entry per line.

1. Visit yourdomain.com/ads.txt in a browser. If the file exists, you'll see its contents. If you get a 404, the file doesn't exist yet and needs to be created.
2. Open the file in your hosting environment or CMS. Append the VideoNest entries at the bottom — do not replace the file if it already contains entries for other ad networks.
3. Save and deploy. Verify by revisiting yourdomain.com/ads.txt and confirming your VideoNest entries are visible.

What happens without it

Programmatic ad buyers validate ads.txt before submitting bids. If your VideoNest entries are missing or haven't propagated yet, ad demand on your site will be significantly reduced — potentially to zero. This is the most common reason for lower-than-expected revenue on publisher websites. Allow up to 24–48 hours after adding the entries for buyers to re-crawl the file.

Step 2 — Use the monetization-ready player embed

The embed code you use on your website must come from the Customizations section of your VideoNest dashboard — not from individual video share links or standard embed buttons in your Media Library. The Customizations player is the version that includes your channel's ad configuration and is what activates programmatic ad delivery on your site.

Finding the embed code

1. In your VideoNest dashboard, go to your Media Library.
2. Open Customizations. You'll find a configured player widget — either a single-video player or a carousel — ready to embed on your site.
3. Copy the generated embed code.

Adding it to your site

The embed code is a standard iframe or JavaScript snippet that works on any website or CMS that supports custom HTML. You can:

• Hand the snippet to your developer to drop into your site's template or layout.
• Paste it directly into a custom HTML block in your CMS (WordPress, Ghost, or any CMS that allows raw HTML in posts or pages).

Place the player where it will appear alongside your content — article pages and editorial sections tend to perform best for ad delivery.

Verifying your setup

Once both steps are complete, confirm the following:

• ads.txt: Visit yourdomain.com/ads.txt and confirm the VideoNest entries are present and readable.
• Player: Load a page on your site where you've added the embed. Confirm the player loads, video plays, and there are no console errors.

Ad delivery won't begin instantly — it typically takes 24–48 hours after ads.txt propagates and the player is live for impressions to start appearing in your Earnings Dashboard. If you see no activity after 48 hours, contact your VideoNest account contact to verify your publisher configuration is active.