An adaptive watermarking service receives a request including a device identifier and a requested address associated with a first segment of content. The requested address may be identified in a published manifest describing multiple segments for a content item, where each segment is encoded at multiple different bitrates. The adaptive watermarking service identifies multiple storage locations of the first segment in view of the requested address. The multiple storage locations each have a version of the first segment with a watermark value. The adaptive watermarking service selects a return version from the versions associated with the first segment in view of a watermarking rule, where the return version has a watermark value satisfying the watermarking rule. The adaptive watermarking service sends a message with the device identifier and a return storage location that identifies the selected return version.