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When using the IMA SDK, there are two separate video players, your content
video player and the ad player. The SDK automatically manages overlaying the ad
player over the content video player. As a result, adding event listeners to the
video player directly does not work. One workaround is to show and hide the ad
container, but this can interfere with SDK functionality. A better solution is to
wrap both players in a parent div and attach event listeners to that.
This guide shows you how.
Prerequisites
HTML5 video player with the IMA HTML5 SDK integrated. If you don't have one, check out Set up the IMA SDK.
Modify your HTML
First you need to change your HTML to add a div wrapping both
the ad player and content video player. In *Set up the IMA SDK*, this is already
done for you with mainContainer:
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-09-04 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThe IMA SDK uses two separate video players: one for content and one for ads, which it automatically overlays.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eDirectly adding event listeners to the content video player is ineffective due to the ad overlay.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWrap both video players in a parent \u003ccode\u003ediv\u003c/code\u003e and attach event listeners to that parent element for proper functionality.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis method enables event handling (like click detection) on the video, irrespective of ad playback, while preserving ad click-throughs.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,["# Track mouse clicks\n\nWhen using the IMA SDK, there are two separate video players, your content\nvideo player and the ad player. The SDK automatically manages overlaying the ad\nplayer over the content video player. As a result, adding event listeners to the\nvideo player directly does not work. One workaround is to show and hide the ad\ncontainer, but this can interfere with SDK functionality. A better solution is to\nwrap both players in a parent `div` and attach event listeners to that.\nThis guide shows you how.\n\nPrerequisites\n-------------\n\n- HTML5 video player with the IMA HTML5 SDK integrated. If you don't have one, check out [Set up the IMA SDK](/interactive-media-ads/docs/sdks/html5/client-side).\n\nModify your HTML\n----------------\n\nFirst you need to change your HTML to add a `div` wrapping both\nthe ad player and content video player. In \\*Set up the IMA SDK\\*, this is already\ndone for you with `mainContainer`: \n\n```text\n...\n\u003cdiv id=\"mainContainer\"\u003e\n \u003cdiv id=\"content\"\u003e\n \u003cvideo id=\"contentElement\"\u003e\n \u003csource src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/gvabox/media/samples/stock.mp4\"\u003e\n \u003c/video\u003e\n \u003c/div\u003e\n\n \u003cdiv id=\"adContainer\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n...\n```\n\nAdd event listeners to your JavaScript\n--------------------------------------\n\nNext, add event listeners to your JavaScript code, such as to detect a\nuser clicking on the video. For example, in `ads.js`: \n\n```text\n...\nfunction init() {\n videoContent = document.getElementById('contentElement');\n mainContainer = document.getElementById('mainContainer');\n mainContainer.addEventListener('click', function() { alert('I was clicked!');});\n ...\n}\n...\n```\n\n\u003cbr /\u003e\n\nThat's it! You can click on the video and see the pop-up appear regardless of\nwhether an ad is playing and still have ad click-throughs work.\n\nTry it out\n----------\n\nYou can see a working implementation below.\nSee the Pen \\\u003ca href='http://codepen.io/imasdk/pen/gPYzYO/'\\\u003egPYzYO\\\u003c/a\\\u003e by IMA SDK (\\\u003ca href='http://codepen.io/imasdk'\\\u003e@imasdk\\\u003c/a\\\u003e) on \\\u003ca href='http://codepen.io'\\\u003eCodePen\\\u003c/a\\\u003e."]]