Add extra metadata to your players with custom attributes

What are custom attributes?

Custom attributes are a powerful and flexible way to add additional metadata to a video. They allow you to classify your videos in custom and creative ways, giving you massive flexibility to search and sort your content with your API-connected tools. 

Custom attributes are also pushed automatically into integrated Marketing Automation Platforms, including Hubspot, Marketo, Oracle Eloqua, and Salesforce.

Custom attributes give you complete control over defining any metadata for your video that's important to your video strategy. For example, you can use custom attributes to organize your videos by project, by 'top of funnel' vs 'bottom of funnel' content, by product line, or any other relevant terms. You can set as many custom attributes as you need to your videos, meaning each video can be organized into as many sub-categories as you need.

Parts of a custom attribute

To add an attribute you must select an Attribute type, Attribute name, and Value. This is where you define all the specific characteristics of this attribute.

• Attribute Type: What type of data the attribute value will be (text, number, list, or flag).
• Attribute Name: The label, or category for the attribute value.
• Value: The specific value that is assigned to that video. 

For example, let's say you want to classify a video based on the product line. We could create the following attribute: 

Attribute Type: Text
Attribute Name: Product Line
Value: Widget

This would add a Product Line=Widget custom field to the video metadata.  

However, with custom attributes, you're setting these details specifically so that your API-connected tools can read them (including Marketo), and be able to sort them based on these extra details.

What are custom attributes for?

Custom attributes are a powerful tool that you can use creatively for your own unique purposes. Essentially, they are a tool you can use for different API scenarios to allow your various tools to pull in and segment players based on the custom attribute tags you have set for each player.

You can call custom attributes for anything you build using the Vidyard Dashboard API, and custom attributes are also pushed into integrated Marketo, HubSpot, or Oracle Eloqua accounts.
Note: Vidyard's Dashboard API documentation contains a list of these attribute endpoints.

 Example: 

• With the Marketo or HubSpot integration, you could use custom attributes to create Smart Lists segmented by "Top of Funnel" players, or even by videos selling products in a certain price range.
• You could set custom attributes based on the content of the videos in your players. Then set up your website's CMS (content management system) to pull players into different pages of your site based on their content. This way, as you update content in Vidyard, your website will dynamically update which players it shows with relevant content. 
• You could create an integrated enterprise search that crawls through the attributes for advanced metadata.

Where to set custom attributes

Note:Each attribute that you add will be set for this player only. 

From the Content menu click Players.

Hover your cursor over the player and click Settings.

Attribute Types

Use the attribute type to set the type of value for your attribute. 

Here's a breakdown of what the four attribute types are for: 

Public vs Private attributes

You have the choice between adding public or private attributes to your Vidyard players.

Public attributes 

Metadata associated with the Vidyard player is available publicly through the page on which the player is embedded. Any public custom attributes that are added to a player are also returned as part of this information.

As a result, you might use player metadata, and specifically custom attributes, to customize the functionality of the Vidyard player and the experience on the webpage. For example, you might dynamically load content into the player or manipulate the page in reaction to a "Vidyard player Event" (an action on the player, such as ready, pause, seek, etc). 

Public attributes are available through the Vidyard Dashboard API, as part of the player object available through the Player API, and as a JavaScript variable in the player events as CTA.player_public_attributes.

Private attributes

Private custom attributes are available securely through the Dashboard API only. (Learn more below.)

Add your player attributes

Note: Add your custom attributes to either the Public or Private category according to where you want to be able to access them, and according to the privacy level needed for that information.

Add each attribute that you need to player.

See the sub-headings below for how to add each type of attribute. Click the trash icon to remove one, and you can edit the value from this view. 

Click Save Changes when you've finished setting the attributes. 

In the below example, you would be able to set up your integrated applications to pull in this player when requesting gated players, top of funnel players, players showing products at the $12,000 price point, or players in the Summer Sales campaign.

Add a text attribute

1. Select Text from the Attribute Type dropdown list. 
2. In the Attribute Name field enter a label for your attribute. For example, "Campaign", or "Campaign Name". 
3. In the Values field, enter the specific value of this attribute. For example "Summer Sales". 

Add a numeric attribute 

1. Select Number from the >Attribute Type dropdown list. 
2. In the Attribute Name field enter a label for your attribute. For example, "Price point". 
3. In the >Values field, enter the specific numeric value of this attribute. For example, "12000". 
4. Click +. 

Add a flag attribute

1. Select Flag from the >Attribute Type dropdown list. 
2. In the Attribute Name field enter a label for your attribute. In this example, the "Gated" attribute will determine whether or not a player is gated with an email. 
3. In the Values field, turn the switch ON> or OFF. "ON" indicates a value of "True", and "OFF" indicates a value of "False". 
4. Click +.

Add a list attribute

1. Select List from the Attribute Type> dropdown list. 
2. In the Attribute Name field enter a label for your list. 
3. In the Values field, click Edit List.
   
4. Type each list option into the field and click +. 
5. Click which list option will be selected for this player. The selected player will be indicated with a checkmark. 
6. Click Close when your list is complete.
7. Click +> to add the attribute to this player. 

Making use of your custom attributes

In order to pull custom attribute data into other application, you or your web developer need to use Vidyard's Dashboard API Attribute endpoints to tell your integrated platform where to find this information, and what to do with it.

Here's an example of things you can tell your integration to do with Vidyard's Dashboard API Attribute endpoints:  

• "Get Top of funnel players"
• "Get all Gated players"
• "Get all videos from Summer Sales campaign"
• "Get all videos about products in the $12,000 range"

Then you (or your web developer) can set up your integrated application to do something specific or interesting with this information. 

For example: 

• Display all "Top of funnel" players on this web page
  or
• In Marketo, give a certain score to all leads who have "watched 50% of a video" with the attribute "Funnel: Top"