AdX End of Year Best Practices

Pretargeting Configurations

Bidders: Double check your pretargeting to ensure you are getting the inventory you want! Here’s a quick checklist:

• QPS (Quota) – Cushion QPS for end of year surges

• Daily Budgets – Expand Daily Budgets on your pretargeting configs to avoid running into restraints on campaigns

• We recommend setting max Daily Budgets at a minimum of 2x average daily spend

• Geo & Language – Include all countries and language where applicable

• Exclusions – Conduct blacklist audit re-evaluate exclusions

• Ad Sizes – Run on all applicable ad sizes

• Formats – Video (VAST/VPAID, Skippable, Instream) Mobile (MRAID, Mobile Video, Interstitials, Native, RTB Protocol)

• Anonymous Inventory – Target Anonymous inventory where applicable

• Run of Exchange – Select all topics where applicable to open up AdX inventory

• Audience Lists – Targeting user lists properly

[ACTION] Log into google.com/adx under the “Pretargeting” tab to check your settings and make any adjustments.

Inventory Discovery

AdX Inventory Discovery tool can help you plan for campaigns and understand inventory availability on AdX across many different dimensions.

• For Programmatic Direct opportunities, discover publisher inventory through the Marketplace UI.

• Given the increase in demand around the holidays, prioritize key publishers for Preferred Deals/Private Auctions and make sure your deals are set well ahead of time.

[ACTION] Contact your AdX account team to connect with priority publishers.

Creative Roadblocks

SSL

SSL compliancy is critical to ensure creatives will run on our exchange.

[ACTION] Distribute AdX SSL Implementation Guidelines to advertisers and their agencies to ensure compliancy.

HTML5

HTML5 creatives are crucial to running campaigns on mobile and Chrome.

[ACTION] Distribute HTML5 documentation on how to Serve HTML5 creatives on AdX [attached].

Policy & Technical Updates

AdX Buyer Policies

Ensure the AdX policies and guidelines are being met to avoid vendor declaration and creative filtering

• As a reminder, here are our AdX Buyer Program Guidelines

• Frequent asked questions on policy & enforcement here

• Vendor Declarations here

• List of vendors

• Content Guidelines here

[ACTION] Submit creatives through REST API as early as possible to avoid last minute filtering where applicable.

Troubleshooting Creative Disapprovals

We've greatly expanded the list of common ad disapproval reasons, including troubleshooting steps, additional information and links to all creative troubleshooting tools in our help center.

[ACTION] Learn more on how to troubleshoot your disapproved creatives here.

Technical Updates:

Video

Removal of VAST Vendor declaration  [launched]

We are in the process of removing VAST vendor technologies from our vendor declarations list. Instead all VAST vendors will be whitelisted for all buyers. It will no longer be necessary for you to include a VAST vendor declaration in your bid response or in your pretargeting configurations. If this change isn’t made, your bidder is at risk of seeing decreased traffic or reduced bidding because we'll be removing these VAST vendors from the bid request. It is now no longer necessary to limit bidding to only declarable VAST vendors. All VAST ad servers are now accepted.

[ACTION]: Remove "VAST Certification Test" from your pretargeting settings and adjust your bidder logic if the logic uses VAST vendors to decide when to bid.

Mobile Video

Skip Correction [launched]

Traffic video creatives seamlessly across skippable and non-skippable inventory with a single VAST creative, opening up 1) mobile video and 2) long-form instream video including Connected TV.

[ACTION] To activate, navigate to Account Settings under the ‘gear icon ‘ in your AdX UI.

End Caps on Interstitial Inventory [launched]

This allows AdX buyers  to show an "end cap" at the end of a mobile video ad. The end cap is like a companion banner ad to enable use-cases like app install or app re-engagement.

[ACTION] To use it, return companion banners in your VAST responses to mobile video outstream inventory. Read more here.

Look out for new RTB signals [launched]

auto_refresh

The auto_refresh field is now included in the RTB callouts. Bidders can read the status of this field to determine potential auto-refresh settings. Additional settings can also be read, including the refresh types and intervals.

stickiness

The stickiness field is now included in the RTB callouts. Bidders can read the status of this field to determine whether the request originated from a "sticky" ad slot that scrolls along with page content.

[removed] site_list_id

The site_list_id field has been removed from the bid request.  This was a stale field and should not be used moving forward.

[ACTION]: Review RTB Proto here.

Seasonal Trends & Holiday Planning

Seasonal Trends

Inventory

• Desktop inventory availability dips occur around Thanksgiving weekend (-37%) and over Christmas (-33%) as a result of users spending time away from their computers during these holidays.

• Conversely, we see an increase in mobile impressions over these holiday periods due to increased use of phones and tablets as the primary means of internet access while away from the office/school.

• Mobile traffic also pops during this period due to newly gifted devices being activated in droves.

CPMs

• Desktop CPMs hit their annual max in November, where we see a nearly 50% spike in CPMs leading up to Black Friday. December CPMs peak just a few days before Christmas on 12/20 at 33% above the October average.

• Mobile Web CPMs mirror desktop, spiking on Black Friday at 35% above October levels.

• Mobile App CPMs stay flat throughout the beginning of Q4, until late Nov, when they spike dramatically around Thanksgiving weekend. Unlike MWeb and Desktop, which peak on Black Friday, App CPMs peak a little later on Cyber Monday at 33% above October levels.

• While Desktop sees a second post-Thanksgiving peak during the week before Christmas, Mobile App and Mobile Web CPMs do not peak again after Thanksgiving and contract continuously throughout the month of December instead.

[ACTION]  Ensure your campaigns running through the holidays are optimized to account for these expected CPM and inventory fluctuations.

Publisher Spotlight

Youku [one-sheeter attached]

Youku is China's largest video network, with over 650 million users each spending an average of 26 hours a week on the site. Growing at 60% desktop and 85% mobile video YoY, Youku's audience logs on for UGC, exclusive content, and internationally-licensed content. Available through Open Auction and Programmatic Direct.

[ACTION]  Target Youku in the Open Auction, or reach out to your Account Manager for Programmatic Direct opportunities.

Seasonal Opportunities [attached]

We are excited to share insights on some key media buying opportunities for the holiday season - see the attached for information on the following inventory packages:

• Top Performing Tech Sites

• Top Performing Retail Sites

• Most Popular CPG Sites

• Top Performing Travel Sites (November)

• Black Friday and Cyber Monday

[ACTION]  Contact your Account Manager for complete inventory package site lists.  

Training & Reminders

AdX Training: What’s New with AdX? Policy Edition

*TOMORROW*, November 4th, join our policy specialists on a live Hangout to learn about the new policies on the Ad Exchange! Register for your spot here!

What’s New With AdX? November Edition

On November 19th, join our product specialists on a live Hangout to learn about the new features available on the Ad Exchange in November. Register for your spot here!

This concludes the end of our Holiday Season Newsletter. Stay tuned next month and happy shopping!