As described in AM/FM Broadcasters, InStream publishers usually leave their stream open to any player. Unfortunately, third-party players will not implement ad replacement support, which is why it is done server-side by Triton Digital. Nonetheless, advertising metadata is always sent to all players, and players that can process it are referred to as "Smart" players; the ones that ignore this metadata are called "Dumb" players.
Smart players can display a companion banner in sync with the audio ad, and fire tracking pixels for quartile delivery, audio impression, banner view, and banner click. Dumb players cannot do any of that; therefore Triton Digital's streaming and advertising server will handle the audio tracking pixels and provide the following information:
- Listener's IP address: in an X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
- Listener's UserAgent: in an UserAgent HTTP header
Triton Digital works with major third-party tracker providers (e.g., DFA) to make sure impression calls are not wrongly detected as fraud. Nonetheless, there can be small discrepancies (< 2%) with the actual number of impressions as recorded by Triton Digital (and used for invoicing).