iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.

Preparing for universal ads in DCM

Monday, November 16, 2015

As you may have heard, universal ads are launching to DCM accounts throughout November and December 2015. The centerpiece of these new ads is a set of unified compatibilities that remove the distinction between in-app and in-page environments. To learn more, visit our DCM user or partner support sites. What does this mean for DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API users?

API compatibility

New UI compatibility

APP

In-app

APP_INTERSTITIAL

In-app interstitial

IN_STREAM_VIDEO

In-stream video

WEB

Display

WEB_INTERSTITIAL

Display interstitial

What can API users do to prepare?begin transitioning off of in-app placements nowInstead, newly trafficked placements should be created using in-page compatibilities. These placements will be mapped directly to the new unified compatibilities (as seen in the table above), making them immediately eligible to serve in both environments. Questions about this or anything else DCM API related? Contact us via our support forum.

- Jonathon Imperiosi, DCM API Team

Announcing the Google Mobile Ads API Demo apps

Monday, November 16, 2015

The Google Mobile Ads API Demo apps for Android and iOS are now available. These new apps contain advanced examples for both AdMob and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) that demonstrate features of the Google Mobile Ads SDK that can help you improve the user experience and maximize ad revenue. Whether you’re a new publisher or a seasoned veteran of the SDK, the API Demo apps showcase new ways to customize ad requests, experiment with multiple ad sizes, and compare AdMob and DFP technologies.Download the API Demo apps for Android and iOS today and explore new ways to improve your integration with the Google Mobile Ads SDK!

If you have any questions regarding the new API Demo apps, feel free to contact us through our forum.

- Tristan Emrich, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Check out the latest workshop content!

Friday, November 13, 2015

We’ve completed the last round of the AdWords API Workshops, and you can check out all the content online by visiting the official website, www.adwordsapiworkshops.com, and clicking on Resources.

Be sure to also check out our YouTube channel for the recorded presentations.

If you have any questions about the AdWords API Workshops, you can post them on our forums. Check out our Google+ page for Ads APIs updates.

Gustavo M. P. Moreira, AdWords API Team

DoubleClick Ad Exchange Seller REST API Report changes

Friday, November 6, 2015

On November 17th, 2015, we'll be updating the Ad Exchange Seller REST API to make it consistent with the user interface. Specifically, we'll remove the ability to download saved reports or retrieve the dimensions we retired in April. Requests made after this date for these dimensions will result in that dimension being ignored and requests for saved reports will result in an error. As a reminder, the dimensions we retired in April are:

AD_FORMAT_CODE

AD_UNIT_ID

AD_UNIT_CODE

DSP_ID

EXPANSION_TYPE_CODE

PLATFORM_TYPE_CODE

For a full list of available dimensions, please see the AdX Seller REST API documentation. Follow our Google+ page for other announcements and updates.

-- Dean Lukies, Ads Developer Relations

Multiple scenes and ads in Unity

Thursday, November 5, 2015

When developing with AdMob in Unity, it is a common practice to make your banner ads persist across multiple scenes. This blog post will highlight best practices to accomplish this with the Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin.The most straightforward approach is to link the lifecycle of ads to that of the scenes they’re displayed in. When transitioning from one scene to another, existing ads are destroyed before leaving the first scene. New ads can then be created and displayed in the next scene.The downside of this approach is that every scene transition would result in a new banner request. This may not be desirable if scene transitions are frequent and occur quickly.An alternative is to use a GameObject as a wrapper for banners or interstitials. By default, each GameObject in a scene will be destroyed once the new scene is loaded (unless you use additive scene loading). However, you can make a GameObject survive across scenes by marking it with DontDestroyOnLoad. You can then use the GameObject.Find method to obtain references to the wrapper GameObject from scripts in other scenes.Here is an example of how to use a GameObject to wrap banner ads:// FirstSceneScript.cs void Start() { // Create a wrapper GameObject to hold the banner. GameObject myGameObject = new GameObject("myBannerAdObject"); myGameObject.AddComponent<BannerWrapper>(); // Mark the GameObject not to be destroyed when new scenes load. DontDestroyOnLoad(myGameObject); } // BannerWrapper.cs using System; using UnityEngine; using GoogleMobileAds; using GoogleMobileAds.Api; public class BannerWrapper : MonoBehaviour { public BannerView bannerView; void Start() { bannerView = new BannerView( "your_ad_unit_id", AdSize.SmartBanner, AdPosition.Bottom); AdRequest request = new AdRequest.Builder().Build(); bannerView.LoadAd (request); bannerView.Show(); } } In SecondSceneScript.cs, which is attached to the second scene, you can find a GameObject by name, get the BannerWrapper component, and access the BannerView:// SecondSceneScript.cs void Start () { GameObject myGameObject = GameObject.Find("myBannerAdObject"); BannerWrapper bannerWrapper = myGameObject.GetComponent(); bannerWrapper.bannerView.Hide(); } By managing your ads efficiently and seamlessly across scenes, you are sure to provide a better ad experience for your users. If you have any questions about Unity integration, you can reach us on our forum. You can also find our quick-start guide linked here. Remember that you can also find us on Google+, where we have updates on all of our Google Ads developer products.

- Ram Parameswaran, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Announcing v2.3 of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Today we're releasing v2.3 of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API. This release brings a number of enhancements, such as:

Expanded validation warnings for creative assets.

Active View opt-out for in-stream video creatives at the site level.

Deprecation and sunset reminderdeprecation scheduleFebruary 29th, 2016As a reminder, February 29th is also the end of the extended migration window we've provided to users of v2.0 and earlier versions of the API. The current schedule is as follows:

API Version

Deprecation Date

Sunset Date

3 Aug 2015

29 Feb 2016

v1.1

v1.2

v1.3

v2.0

v2.1

4 Nov 2015

To avoid an interruption in service, all users are required to migrate off of these versions by the sunset date. Learn moreRelease Notesclient librariesGet Started guideGive it a try and let us know if you have any questions!

- Jonathon Imperiosi, DCM API Team

Changes to validation for AdWords API iTunes AppConversions

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

What’s new?

The validation for AppConversions will become stricter starting on November 9, 2015. If you’re using AppConversions in v201509 or v201506 with AppPlatform: ITUNES, you’ll need to make sure that you’re using the correct AppConversionType.

What was the old behavior?

When v201509 was first released, the API would not throw an error if the incorrect value was sent in a request for an iTunes AppConversion. The API automatically converted to the correct AppConversionType. For example, if the value DOWNLOAD was passed into v201509 for an iTunes AppConversion, then that value would automatically be converted to FIRST_OPEN.

What is the new behavior?

In v201509, AppConversionType DOWNLOAD changed to FIRST_OPEN for iTunes apps. Here’s what you will need to do:

For v201506 or earlier, you must pass in AppConversionType DOWNLOAD rather than FIRST_OPEN.
For v201509 or later, you must pass in FIRST_OPEN instead of DOWNLOAD.

Passing in the incorrect value will result in the error DOMAIN_EXCEPTION from the API starting on November 9.

Note: This only impacts iTunes conversions. There will be no changes to the validation for AppConversions with an AppPlatform of ANDROID.

Where can I learn more?

For more information on mobile apps and conversions, check out these guides:

Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Proguard and AdMob mediation

Friday, October 30, 2015

If you’re an Android developer who uses ProGuard to post-process builds, you already know the improvements it can make to APK size and speed. Just as handy, though, is its ability to obfuscate your compiled code by stripping out debug information and renaming classes, methods, and fields to generic identifiers. It’s a great way to discourage reverse-engineering of your application. If you’re an AdMob publisher who uses mediation, however, you need to take special care when configuring ProGuard in order to avoid obfuscating some of the code used in the mediation process.AdMob mediation needs two classes to maintain their original names in your final APK: AdUrlAdapter and AdMobAdapter. If either of those has been renamed by ProGuard, it can cause the SDK to incorrectly return “no fill” responses for the AdMob demand in your mediated ad units.The good news is that it’s easy to avoid this problem. Just add the following two keep options to your ProGuard configuration file:-keep class com.google.ads.mediation.admob.AdMobAdapter { *; } -keep class com.google.ads.mediation.AdUrlAdapter { *; } These options instruct ProGuard to avoid renaming the two classes, and to leave the names of their fields and methods unobfuscated as well. With the original names intact, the mediation system will be able to instantiate them dynamically whenever they’re needed, and your otherwise obfuscated application won’t miss out on any AdMob impressions.The third-party networks your app mediates may also need certain classes exempted from obfuscation. Be sure to check with those networks to find out if they have recommendations for ProGuard configuration.If you have technical questions about this (or anything else relating to the Google Mobile Ads SDK) stop by our forum.

- Andrew Brogdon, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Reporting changes in AdWords API v201509

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

AdWords API v201509 introduces some changes to reporting columns, particularly Clicks. Recently, AdWords introduced new columns called Engagements and Interactions. It also added reporting columns related to video campaigns such as VideoViews, which have previously been unavailable via API reporting. AdWords API version v201509 has updated its reporting to match these changes.

The new Interactions field, available in API performance reports, can be thought of as the main action a user takes with the ad format: clicks for text ads, engagements for Lightbox ads, and views for video ads. Previously, views for video ads were not returned in API reporting, so having access to this data is new.

Prior to v201509, the Clicks field always included both clicks and engagements. Starting in v201509, the Clicks field includes only click actions, like clickthroughs to a landing page or clicks to call. This means that clicks on video ads, which are unpaid, will be included in this field. However, engagements for Lightbox ads will not be counted.

If measuring performance across multiple ad formats, you might consider using Interactions to view the total number of primary user actions on ads, all in the same column. Clicks, Engagements, and VideoViews are available as well for more fine-grained reporting by ad format.

The table below summarizes the changes in each field for various ad formats.

Field	v201506	v201509
`Clicks`	Text ads: clickthrough to a landing page Lightbox ads: hover to expanded ad format	Text ads: clickthrough to a landing page or clicks to call Lightbox ads: clickthrough to a landing page Video ads: clickthrough to a landing page
`Engagements`	N/A	Lightbox ads: hover to expanded ad format
`VideoViews`	N/A	Video ads: view
`Interactions`	N/A	Text ads: clickthrough to a landing page or clicks to call Lightbox ads: hover to expanded ad format Video ads: views

Please note that reporting in v201506 and previous versions is unaffected; they return the same data that they always have, represented the same way. This means that when comparing the data you receive from older versions of the API to user interface reports, or to v201509 reports, the numbers will not directly match up. Video-related stats will still be excluded from v201506. The Clicks column in v201506 will match the Interactions column from v201509 if you subtract out video interactions.

For ease of reporting, it’s recommended to migrate to v201509 as soon as possible.

Keep in mind these aren’t the only reporting changes in v201509 — for more details on conversion-related reporting changes, please see the release notes.

If you have any questions about this or other aspects of the AdWords API, please contact us via the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.

- Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team

Important changes for gaming publishers using the IMA HTML5 SDK

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

In the coming weeks, we’ll be making changes to the way the IMA HTML5 SDK handles AdSense and Ad Exchange non-linear and full slot ads. To facilitate these changes, we’re adding a new API: AdsRequest.forceNonLinearFullSlot. Gaming publishers are required to set this parameter to true to ensure that all ads returned to your player are correctly rendered as full slot ads. This change is planned to go live the week of November 30th. Keep an eye on our release notes for the exact date as the change is released.As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

- Shawn Busolits, IMA SDK Team

IMA HTML5 - changes to non-linear and full slot ads for AdSense and Ad Exchange

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

In the coming weeks, we’ll be making changes to the way the IMA HTML5 SDK handles AdSense and Ad Exchange non-linear and full slot ads. You should be aware of these changes to ensure that your video player behaves as expected once the changes have taken effect.DefinitionsA non-linear ad is a static or animated ad that displays over the video content during content playback. These are also sometimes referred to as “bottom-third” ads, because they typically take up the bottom third of the video player.

A non-linear ad.A full slot ad is a static or animated ad that usually appears before or after the content, occupying the entire view area. It renders a close button that when clicked closes the ad and, if rendered before the content, triggers the content to start.

A full slot ad.Current behaviorCurrently, non-linear ads are rendered as expected, but full slot ads are also rendered as non-linear ads. So instead of pausing, the video continues to play underneath them while they take up a large portion of the video display.New behaviorWith the new behavior, any non-linear AdSense or Ad Exchange ad greater than 90 pixels in height will be rendered as a full slot ad. This means it will take up the entire video display. When the user clicks the close button, the content will start.We will also be adding a new UI to these full slot ads which includes a countdown timer and a skip button. You should remove any custom UI elements you’ve added for full slot ads to ensure there are no conflicts with this new UI.Lastly, to ensure that your ads are rendered properly, make sure your AdDisplayContainer is rendered on top of everything else and takes up the full size of your video player.

Full slot ad with the updated UI.Testing the changesIf you’d like to test these changes, you can load the test version of our SDK by replacing your load of ima3.js with ima3_test.js. This is a watermarked test binary that changes frequently and without notice; it is not intended for use in production.As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

- Shawn Busolits, IMA SDK Team

New ad UI and click behavior for IMA HTML5 SDK

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Starting this week, we’re going to incrementally roll out a change in the way the IMA HTML5 SDK handles an ad’s UI.We will be adding a Learn More button to Ad Exchange and AdSense ads on both desktop and mobile. Clicking on the button will take the user to the advertiser’s site, while clicking elsewhere on the ad will pause or resume it. This is a change from the existing behavior, where clicking anywhere on the ad opens the advertiser’s site.

The new ad UI.This change will also be rolling out to all mobile web ads that do not use custom click tracking. Note that ads that have no UI before the change will gain a UI with this change. This will allow our mobile web behavior to be consistent with native mobile behavior.If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

- Yury Pavlotsky, IMA SDK Team

Upcoming changes to inactive ad group CPA bids in AdWords

Thursday, October 22, 2015

In preparation for improvements to CPA bidding in AdWords, starting October 26, 2015, we'll perform a one-time removal of inactive ad group-level CPA bids. What's an inactive ad group CPA bid, you ask? An ad group-level CPA bid is inactive if the ad group's effective bidding strategy is not a CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER strategy. This includes CPA bids on ad groups whose effective bidding strategy is TARGET_CPA, since the target for such ad groups is specified at the strategy level. The effective bidding strategy is the ad group-level strategy, if specified. Otherwise, it’s the bidding strategy set at the campaign-level. How this change impacts the AdWords API

Ad groups from which inactive CPA bids were removed: For these ad groups, the AdGroup object will no longer have a CpaBid in the bids attribute of its ad group-level BiddingStrategyConfiguration. Therefore, if you change the effective bidding strategy of these ad groups back to a CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER strategy, you will have to add a new CpaBid to the ad group’s BiddingStrategyConfiguration for your ads in the ad group to serve. You will only have to make this change once.

Ad groups you change from TARGET_CPA to CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER: AdWords will no longer copy the TargetCpaBiddingScheme.targetCpa value to a CpaBid on the ad group's bidding strategy configuration. Therefore, you will not automatically get the TARGET_CPA strategy bid if you transition to CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER. If the ad group's bidding strategy configuration already has a CpaBid, then CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER will use that bid. Otherwise, you will have to add a new CpaBid to the ad group BiddingStrategyConfiguration before ads in your ad group will serve.

How this change impacts biddingWhat you should doCONVERSION_OPTIMIZERAdGroupServiceMore bidding resources

AdWords API bidding guide

Latest API docs for TargetCpaBiddingScheme

Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Support for v201509 reports in AdWords Scripts

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

We have added support for AdWords API v201509 reports in AdWords scripts. Changes to conversion columnsThis release includes several changes that coincide with the recent announcement on conversion columns. Several reporting columns were removed and new columns were added. See the AdWords API release notes for more details. Video and multi-channel reportingWe are now including statistics and metrics for AdWords for video and TrueView video campaigns in several reports. This includes a new Video Performance Report. Note that reports will only include data for newly created video campaigns in AdWords campaign management or campaigns that were migrated from AdWords for video. We have also added new reporting columns that help multi-channel advertisers more easily manage reporting for specific campaign types like Search, Shopping, Display, and Video. See Video and multi-channel reporting changes for more details. Miscellaneous reporting changes

All columns that have a List or Map return type now return data in JSON format.

Shared set type is now returned as an ENUM instead of an Integer in SHARED_SET_REPORT and CAMPAIGN_SHARED_SET_REPORT.

Several new columns have been added to existing reports.

A few duplicate columns in existing reports were removed.

MatchType and MatchTypeWithVariant columns were renamed to QueryMatchType and QueryMatchTypeWithVariant in PAID_ORGANIC_QUERY_REPORT and SEARCH_QUERY_PERFORMANCE_REPORT.

See Miscellaneous reporting changes for more details. If you use API versioning in your reports, you need to modify your code to use v201509 as shown below. If you don’t use API versioning, no code changes are required. var report = AdWordsApp.report(query, { apiVersion: 'v201509' }); developer forum

- Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team

Using the Google My Business API to manage your location extensions

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Last year, we announced upgraded location extensions, a more efficient way to manage and use business locations in ads by linking Google My Business and AdWords accounts. To help you manage your business locations more easily at scale, we’re now releasing the Google My Business API.

Google My Business will be the central repository for managing your business locations. The creation of manual location extensions as feed items through the AdWords API has been deprecated and will sunset in Q2 2016. Please update your code before March 31, 2016 to avoid being impacted by this transition.

Supported features
The first version of the Google My Business API allows you to read, create, update and delete unverified business locations. Supported attributes are name, address, contact numbers, URL, categories, and business hours. Unverified locations can be used as location extensions in AdWords, but have to be verified to be eligible to show up on Google Maps.

Future releases of the Google My Business API will support additional functionality that will allow you to fully manage your location data across Google Ads and Maps.

Getting started with the Google My Business API
If you already use the AdWords API and manage more than 50 business locations, you can apply for access to the Google My Business API. Once granted, you will have access to the Google My Business API documentation and you can follow the steps there to get started. For accounts with 50 or fewer locations, please use Google My Business Locations for now.

Linking locations to accounts, campaigns or ad groups as location extensions
Users managing multi-location businesses (chains) must have a separate Google My Business account for each chain for bulk-verification. If you already manage locations under bulk-verified accounts in Google My Business today, you can link those accounts to AdWords to have your location extensions in sync.

For developers managing AdWords accounts with a large number of locations for small and medium businesses, we recommend creating one Google My Business account as a central repository for all locations. Each physical location should be created only once. If different owners and managers are involved per location or for sets of locations, we suggest using Business Accounts.

Once the AdWords accounts are linked to your shared Google My Business account, the locations will be available as feed items in AdWords. You are responsible for creating a CustomerFeed and using an appropriate matching function to make sure only locations that actually belong to the customer are linked to their related AdWords account. You can use CampaignFeeds or AdGroupFeeds for additional filtering based on campaigns or ad groups.

The best way to filter locations from a shared Google My Business account is to create location labels through the Google My Business API and use a matching function that uses these labels for selection. For example, you can label each location with its AdWords Customer ID in Google My Business and use these Customer ID labels for filtering in AdWords. Or you can label each location with a unique ID, as long as you keep track of these IDs.

Please see our guide for managing location extensions for further details, which also includes an end-to-end code example.

Migration of existing location extensions
If you are using manual location extensions through the AdWords API, we recommend migrating your locations to Google My Business before March 31, 2016. After this date, the creation of manual location extensions will sunset. All unmigrated locations stored in AdWords will be auto-migrated to Google My Business at a later date. Further details about the timeline and process will be announced in this blog.

Timo Bozsolik, AdWords API Team

AdWords API v201502 sunset reminder

Monday, October 12, 2015

AdWords API v201502 will be sunset on November 12, 2015, after which all v201502 API requests will begin to fail. This version was deprecated on June 25, 2015. If you are still on v201502, we recommend that you migrate directly to v201509 (released last week) and skip v201506. Please be sure to migrate soon to ensure your API access is unaffected.

We have prepared various resources to help with the migration:

As always, if you have any questions about this migration, please contact us via the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.

- Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team

Sunset of the v201408 DFP API

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

On Monday, November 30, 2015, in accordance with the deprecation schedule, v201408 of the DFP API will be sunset. At that time, any requests made to v201408 will return errors. If you're still using v201408, now's the time to upgrade to the latest release and take advantage of new features like line item level reconciliation (see our guide here). To do so, check the release notes to identify any breaking changes, grab the latest version of your client library and update your code. Some changes to look out for:

Flash creatives have been updated to use CreativeAssets.

Report DimensionFilters have been replaced by PQL equivalents.

The ReportService's getReportJob has been replaced with getReportJobStatus. The new method returns only the ReportJobStatus.

The ForecastService was given a facelift, adding support for a new kind of forecast and more granular breakdowns.

LineItem.startDateTime and LineItem.endDateTime now require a timeZoneID. You can retrieve all of the supported time zone IDs from the Time_Zone PQL table.

Type fields have been removed from all entities. Use class names, instance of, or xsi:type instead.

This is not an exhaustive list, so as always, don't hesitate to reach out to us with any questions. To be notified of future deprecations and sunsets, join the DFP API Deprecation Announcements group and adjust your notification settings.

- Chris Seeley, DFP API Team

Announcing v201509 of the AdWords API

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Today we’re announcing the release of AdWords API v201509. Here are the highlights:

Improved batch processing. The new BatchJobService supports all of the same operations as MutateJobService, but offers additional features such as support for creating dependent objects using temporary IDs, better error reporting, improved performance, and a much higher limit on the number of operations per job. Check out the accompanying guide to get started.

AdWords for video and TrueView video campaigns in reports. The AdWords API now supports TrueView campaigns that have migrated from AdWords for video, and several reports now include statistics and new metrics for these campaigns. See the release notes for the complete list of changes and additions.

New reporting columns for multi-channel advertisers are available on multiple reports making it easier to track interactions vs. clicks.

Customer Match. Build and target user lists from email addresses using the new CrmBasedUserList.

Structured snippets can now be created using extension setting services.

Conversion column changes. Conversion columns have been modified, added, or removed on multiple reports to coincide with the upcoming conversion reporting changes in AdWords. See the release notes for the complete list of changes.

HTML5 ads can now be added as TemplateAds using template ID 419. In addition, MediaService now supports uploading media bundles for use with this new template.

Geo targeted ad customizers. Target each ad customizer feed item to a specific geographic location.

Gmail sponsored promotions. The AdWords API now fully supports the Gmail image, single promotion, and multi-product ad formats via template ads.

Dynamic remarketing ads have new placeholder fields for setting upgraded URL attributes such as tracking templates, custom parameters, and final URLs.

Active View reporting. New fields for Active View viewable impressions, measurable impressions, measurable cost, and measurability are now available in multiple reports.

If you’re using v201502 of the AdWords API, please note that it’s being sunset on November 12th, 2015. We encourage you to skip v201506 and migrate straight to v201509. If you’re using v201506, be aware it’s now marked deprecated and will be sunset on April 11th, 2016. As with every new version of the AdWords API, we encourage you to carefully review all changes in the release notes and the v201509 migration guide. The updated client libraries and code examples will be published shortly. With this release, we’ve also updated the Required Minimum Functionality document to include some of the newly added features. If you have any questions or need help with migration, please post on the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

A note on ad size and mediating smart banners

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Smart banners are a handy thing for publishers. You can drop an AdMob smart banner into a layout or storyboard, and it’ll stretch or squeeze itself at runtime until it’s just the right size for the device, then request an ad to match. They’re a great feature with all the extra work hidden under the hood.If you’re building an Android mediation adapter or custom event, though, things aren’t quite as simple -- after all, you’re under that hood, too! A common rough spot for developers is retrieving a smart banner’s size. Because the Google Mobile Ads SDK uses constants to internally represent a smart banner’s height and width, the getHeight and getWidth methods of a smart banner’s AdSize will return those constants (they’re negative numbers, so they’re quite hard to miss). That means relying on calls to getHeight and getWidth to determine a smart banner’s true size isn’t a workable strategy.So how should adapter and custom event developers calculate sizes correctly? By avoiding getHeight and getWidth, and instead asking for pixel counts using getHeightInPixels and getWidthInPixels, two other methods offered by AdSize. You can scale their return values according to the device’s metrics and end up with the same kind of DPI values returned by getWidth and getHeight for other ad sizes. Here’s a code snippet that shows how it’s done:// Get the raw pixel counts. int widthInPixels = size.getWidthInPixels(context); int heightInPixels = size.getHeightInPixels(context); // These metrics include screen density, which is what we’re after. DisplayMetrics displayMetrics = Resources.getSystem().getDisplayMetrics(); // These are values you can send to your mediated network’s SDK. int widthInDpi = Math.round(widthInPixels / displayMetrics.density); int heightInDpi = Math.round(heightInPixels / displayMetrics.density); Once you finish the math, you’ll have proper DPI values that can be sent to whichever network you’re mediating. The calls to getHeightInPixels and getWidthInPixels require a valid Context, but you can use the one provided as a parameter to the requestBannerAd methods in MediationBannerAdapter and CustomEventBanner.Now you know the best way to gauge the size of a smart banner! Use this approach and it’ll help keep your mediation running smoothly.If you have technical questions about this (or anything else relating to the Google Mobile Ads SDK) stop by our forum.

- Andrew Brogdon, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Creating native creatives with the DFP API

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Recently, we announced the availability of native ads for apps in DFP. Here, we’re going to introduce you to creating native creatives with the DFP API using the ads Java client library. A native creative consists of a set of assets (headline, image, etc.) which are sent to mobile apps for custom rendering in their own code (see our Android and iOS developer guides for details). Native creatives are actually just another type of template-based creative. While the DFP UI abstracts this, in the API you create a native creative using a TemplateCreative with the system-defined native template ID. The creative template IDs available in your network can be retrieved by the getCreativeTemplatesByStatement method in the CreativeTemplateService. You can also view these IDs in the UI under Delivery > Creatives > Native ad formats (see the ID below each native ad format name in the table). The native app install template ID is 10004400. TemplateCreative nativeAppInstallCreative = new TemplateCreative(); nativeAppInstallCreative.setCreativeTemplateId(10004400L); Because native creatives do not have a predetermined size, you need to set a placeholder size of 1x1. Size size = new Size(); size.setWidth(1); size.setHeight(1); size.setIsAspectRatio(false); nativeAppInstallCreative.setSize(size); Finally, specify a name and destination URL; this example is for the Pie Noon app: nativeAppInstallCreative.setName("Pie Noon native ad"); nativeAppInstallCreative.setDestinationUrl( "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.fpl.pie_noon"); Settings specific to native creatives are set via template variables. An app install native creative requires the following unique template variable names to be set:

Headline

Body

Image

Price

Appicon

Calltoaction

Starrating

Store

DeeplinkclickactionURL

Note that creative template variables are case sensitive and those of type AssetCreativeTemplateVariableValue (“Image” and “Appicon”) must have a unique filename. You can find the full Java example on how to create native creatives in our GitHub repository here. All of our other ads client libraries have similar examples. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line on the DFP API forums or the Ads Developer Google+ page.

- Vincent Tsao, DFP API Team

Ads Developer Blog

Preparing for universal ads in DCM

Announcing the Google Mobile Ads API Demo apps

Check out the latest workshop content!

DoubleClick Ad Exchange Seller REST API Report changes

Multiple scenes and ads in Unity

Announcing v2.3 of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API

Changes to validation for AdWords API iTunes AppConversions

Proguard and AdMob mediation

Reporting changes in AdWords API v201509

Important changes for gaming publishers using the IMA HTML5 SDK

IMA HTML5 - changes to non-linear and full slot ads for AdSense and Ad Exchange

New ad UI and click behavior for IMA HTML5 SDK

Upcoming changes to inactive ad group CPA bids in AdWords

Support for v201509 reports in AdWords Scripts

Using the Google My Business API to manage your location extensions

AdWords API v201502 sunset reminder

Sunset of the v201408 DFP API

Announcing v201509 of the AdWords API

A note on ad size and mediating smart banners

Creating native creatives with the DFP API

Labels

Archive