What Is a White-label Video Platform and Why Do Publishers Need One? (2024)

June 14, 2024byBecca Starkes

From lifestyle content to breaking news reports, digital media publishers upload countless videos online every day — and with good reason: they’re in high demand! Although someone may see a clip on Instagram or TikTok, all publishers hope to build a loyal following that comes directly to their website for fresh content.

So, when people watch videos on your website, what is their experience? Does the online video player integrate seamlessly into the overall design of your website? Are they bombarded with random ads you didn’t choose to show them from an embedded YouTube video? Can you capitalize on their attention in a way that works with your overall digital audience development strategy?

If you’re thinking through any of these questions, you may have come across white-label video platforms as an option. In this article, we’ll cover what a white-label video platform is, how it can help media publishers overcome common challenges, and what to look for when choosing a solution.

What Is a White-Label Video Platform?

A white-label video platform allows organizations to configure features and branding on the video player to deliver a seamless brand experience to their audiences. Common features of white-label video platforms include:

• Live video streaming and video-on-demand (VOD)
• Custom branding and logo integration
• User interface customization
• Configuration of features and overall user experience
• Monetization through ad partnerships

Can’t You Just Use YouTube?

Many organizations can and do use YouTube and other free video hosting platforms to publish their content. While a video search engine like YouTube can offer increased discoverability, you trade off control over monetization, branding, and user experience for the visibility it provides. For example, you can enroll in the YouTube Partner Program to run ads on your videos, but you have minimal control over which companies’ ads are shown alongside your content, and Google keeps a lot of the profit.

Overall, white-label platforms offer a more professional look to the viewer as well as more control for the publisher. If you still want to use YouTube, consider using a white-label video hosting service as your primary video streaming hub to maintain brand integrity. With the right provider, you can still stream to YouTube in addition to your website and other social media sites. The best white-label video platforms support “simulcasting,” or streaming to multiple media channels — such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram — simultaneously.

What About Self-Hosted Videos?

Another option many smaller organizations consider is self-hosting. Self-hosted videos are uploaded to the same server that your website is hosted on. If you use a popular content management system (CMS) like WordPress, you might upload video files to a media library and add them to individual pages of your site as needed.

This easy solution gives you some control over the way videos are viewed and used on your site, but it also puts all the responsibility on your shoulders. You have to manually configure the video-playing experience to your liking without the help of a dedicated platform, and any infrastructure or user experience issues are entirely up to you to fix.

Here are a few common challenges publishers face when they self-host their videos:

• Infrastructure: For businesses with small websites and few videos, self-hosting can be sustainable. But for digital media publishers who often post new videos every day, your website can quickly become bogged down with large video files, slowing down the overall loading time of your site. You can even run into limits on bandwidth, file size, and storage space, which may require you to upgrade your web hosting plan — in other words, to spend more money.
• Monetization: Although you can technically sell ads for self-hosted videos, you’ll have to identify and maintain direct relationships with your chosen advertisers, not to mention configure the technical aspects of inserting ads into your videos. This can be difficult and inefficient to coordinate, even for large digital media organizations.
• User experience: The stream quality and overall viewing experience of self-hosted videos is almost always worse than those on a white-label streaming service. This can irreparably harm your digital audience development efforts — if viewers grow too frustrated with the experience of watching your videos, they will seek content elsewhere.
• Security: How do you ensure your videos aren’t downloaded and shared on other sites without your permission? Piracy is a major concern for self-hosted videos, particularly for publishers who share member- or subscriber-only videos. You need a skilled and diligent IT team to ensure the security of your content.

Benefits of a White-Label Video Publishing Platform

Obviously, white-label video services require a financial investment. The good news is that the best platforms offer transparent pricing models that help you easily understand what it will cost. That said, you want to make sure the expected benefits are worth the investment. These are a few outcomes you can expect from white-label video streaming:

• Enhanced brand integrity: Consistent branding throughout your content can aid your audience-building efforts. When your videos reinforce your brand, happy viewers will more strongly associate your brand with the content they love.
• Ease of use: Instead of managing technical logistics yourself, white-label video platforms integrate seamlessly into your existing website and don’t require a technical background to use.
• Cost efficiency: Pay a provider to handle everything instead of dealing with constant storage and bandwidth caps that increase operating costs.
• Scalability: With dedicated infrastructure, like a global content delivery network (CDN), managed by your white-label video provider, you can easily scale up your video content efforts without significant effort.
• Dedicated support: White-label video streaming platforms offer one-on-one support to help you get started, learn the platform, and troubleshoot issues. You won’t get that same level of service from a free video hosting site.

What to Look for in a White-Label Video Platform

Generally, whether you’re looking for white-label video-on-demand (VOD), live streaming, or both, you want the platform to provide a high degree of control, flexibility in design, and options for configuring the user interface to fit your audience’s needs. Some specific customizations you should consider include:

• Custom brand colors
• Custom logo and adjustable logo location (where on the video the logo appears)
• Options for different play/pause icon styles to match your branding
• Dynamic player states (i.e., a feature is triggered in a certain playback state)
• Autoplay options (on, off, muted/unmuted, etc.)
• Ability to add custom CSS if you need more options
• Easy integration into your existing website
• Ad insertion for quick monetization
• Video analytics to help measure performance

Find the Platform That’s Right for You

If you want to take advantage of the benefits of white-label video streaming, the next step is to research different platforms to find out which one is best for your brand. We know digital media publishers are busy chasing down the latest stories and creating engaging content, so we put together a buyer’s guide that breaks down the information you need to know when choosing a video streaming platform. The guide covers:

• The ten most important features to shop for
• Top video platforms to consider
• Tips for choosing the right video platform

Download the buyer’s guide now and take the next step toward video streaming success.