Troubleshoot Ad Manager line item delivery

^{Jump to non-delivery causes: Most common | Privacy and consent policy | Ad selection | Programmatic deals | Open bidding | Video and audio}

For each line item, Google Ad Manager shows recent changes that might affect delivery and top reasons why the line item didn't deliver to eligible ad requests. Understanding why a line item hasn't delivered can help you troubleshoot unexpected behavior.

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1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Navigate to Delivery  Line items.
3. Use filters to find and select the line item that isn't delivering.
4. Select the line item's Troubleshoot tab.

See recent changes that might be affecting delivery

In the "Health history" section, you can see recent changes made to the line item's settings, historical forecasts run for the line item, and other significant spikes or dips in delivery. Each day in the calendar displays the line item's historical delivery progress toward its goal. The calendar also displays when the first impression served, which can be helpful if a line item started to deliver later than anticipated. The calendar shows the last 7 days by default, but you can see events for the last 45 days by clicking the arrows above the calendar. 

For each day in the calendar, you can hover to see more information about the line item's targeting goals for that day. If an event occurred on that day, you can click the day and then click View Change History to see the specific changes made on that day.

See why your line item didn’t deliver

In the "Non-delivery causes" section, if the line item didn't deliver, a pie chart will show the most common reasons the line item didn't deliver to eligible ad requests. 

Above the pie chart you can see an estimate of eligible ad requests and the creative render rate:

• Estimated eligible ad requests 

An estimate of the number of ad requests where this line item was eligible but not selected to serve (rounded to two significant digits). 

• Creative render rate

Creative render rate is the percentage of times a line item served and successfully rendered a creative. The percentage is calculated by comparing impressions and code served.

A line item may serve but fail to render a creative for several reasons. For instance, a user might navigate away from the page before the creative is able to show or there might be poor connectivity with the user's device and the creative is never able to load. In cases like this, the line item served, but the creative associated with the line item failed to render. As a result, creative render rates can be below 100%.

Creative render rates below 100% are normal and should not be cause for concern unless there's a large disparity. If you see a creative render rate below 80% for display, 50% for video, or 30% for apps, do one or both of the following:

• Run an Ad Speed report. The Ad Speed report displays a snapshot of your network's ad serving speed over the last 30 days and can help you identify ways to improve latency.
• Check non-logged drop-offs. Non-logged drop-offs can be determined by running VAST errors report with the "Total code served count" and the "Ad impressions" metrics and comparing the two values.

Take action from the pie chart

• Click See delivered line items for details about winning line items (not available for every non-delivery cause). Note that the winning line item is not necessarily the line item to which the rejected line item lost.
• Click Launch ad slot troubleshooting to open Ad Manager Delivery tools and learn why certain ads delivered and not others, which line items would deliver if you were to request the ad slot again, and more.
• Use the Time period to display drop-down menu to see non-delivery causes over the last 7 days or the last 24-hour, 12-hour, 6-hour, or 3-hour period.

You can also see non-delivery causes when you export line items to a spreadsheet. Make sure to filter on a small number of line items, or the export may time out.

Why is my non-delivery causes chart missing?

If you don't see the non-delivery chart, these are possible reasons why:

• Line item always delivers, so there aren't any non-deliveries to troubleshoot.
  The line item delivers and is on track to meet its goal, or it's a standard line item with very narrow targeting criteria.
• Line item did not deliver at all in the last 7 days.
  The tool looks at the last 7 days of data. Check the line item status to ensure that it's delivering. A line item may have a pre-delivery status or be paused or complete.
• There's not enough data.
  The "non-delivery causes" tool samples queries and requires a sufficient number of queries over the past 7 days to show non-delivery causes.

Non-delivery causes

Some reasons for non-delivery are valid and don't require action, while others may require changes. The sections below provide more details. 

Most common

Backfill lost in dynamic allocation to an Ad Manager line item

Ad Manager can increase your revenue with dynamic allocation—by selectively giving buyers access to valuable inventory when it won’t impact the likelihood of a campaign completing. This non-delivery cause means that an ad coming from an indirect or "backfill" channel—namely, Ad Exchange, AdSense, or AdMob—lost to an Ad Manager line item. This could be because the ad from the  indirect channel was not returned or because the Ad Manager line item had a higher CPM.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Lost in dynamic allocation to backfill

Ad Manager can increase your revenue with dynamic allocation—by selectively giving buyers access to valuable inventory when it won’t impact the likelihood of a campaign completing. This non-delivery cause means that the line item was selected as the winner among reservation line item candidates, but ultimately lost to an ad coming from an indirect or "backfill" channel—namely, Ad Exchange, AdSense, or AdMob—with a higher CPM.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Roadblocks prevented delivery

Roadblocks are a common reason for non-delivery, but are difficult to diagnose. Your property calls two line items in an unintended order, causing a lower-priority line item to be selected before the roadblock can compete. Without access to both ad units, the roadblock line item can’t bid on one ad unit.

Action

Consider changing the order of requests on your page, or using Google Publisher Tags with a single-request architecture callout.

Privacy and consent policy

Your network is required to configure various privacy and consent policy settings related to ad technology used in creatives. In addition, your network must collect consent from users to use this ad technology. Unconfigured or misconfigured settings may prevent a creative from delivering.

Third-party providers not allowed in non-personalized ads

Occurs when third-party providers are associated with a creative for Programmatic Guaranteed, Preferred Deal or Reservation line items.

Creatives may not include a reference to third-party ad technology providers (via a pixel or other URL for instance) when the ad request was tagged as non-personalized.

• For Programmatic Guaranteed or Preferred Deal line items this occurs on advertiser-hosted creatives.
• For Reservations, this occurs when you have opted in to “Check reservation creatives for user consent".

Action

For Programatic Guaranteed or Preferred Deal, ask your buyer to remove all third-party references in the creative.
For Reservations, remove all third-party references in the creative.

Creative contains unknown ad technology

The creative references unknown ad technology (via a pixel or other URL for instance). Unknown ad technology may be detected because the reference belongs to:

• A third-party ad technology provider, that isn't registered on Google's Ad Tech Providers (ATP) list
• Your network, who has yet to declare the ad technology 

Creatives with unknown ad technology won't serve to any ad request within the European Economic Area (EEA) or Brazil, including to ad requests tagged as non-personalized.

Action

• Declare ad technology by entering the URL for any owned ad technology
• Remove unknown ad technology from the creative
• Ask your third-party ad technology provider to register on Google's Ad Tech Providers (ATP) list
   
  In the case of advertiser-hosted Programmatic Guaranteed and Preferred Deal line items, contact the buyer and ask them to remove all unknown ad technology from the creative.

Configuration issue with third-party technology provider

The creative includes a misconfigured macro used for third-party ad technology. These macros are typically used to comply with privacy regulations. 

Action

Correct the misconfigured macro. Misconfigured macros could include:

• GDPR
• Transparency & Consent (TC) string
• Additional Consent Mode

If you're unable to edit the creative to correct the macro yourself, ask your third-party provider to do so.

Ad technology provider not specified in user consent settings

A personalized ad references a third-party ad technology provider (via a pixel or other URL for instance) and the provider was:

• Not specified in your network’s consent settings.
• Not specified in your network's Consent Management Platform (CMP).
• Specified but is in violation of Google policy.
• Specified but the user didn't provide consent to use the provider.
• The request was tagged for non-personalized treatment explicitly and you have opted in to “Check reservation creatives for user consent".

A user must consent to the use of a particular third-party ad technology provider, and there must be no policy violations with the provider, to show this ad to the user. When you specify the provider in your network's CMP (or your network’s “EU user consent” settings), users have the opportunity to consent (or not) to the use of that provider. 

Action

Remove references to the third-party ad technology from the creative. Alternatively, collect consent for users to utilize the provider in the creative by: 

• Integrating with the IAB TCF v2.0.
• Specifying the ad technology provider under Custom set of ad technology providers.

Ensure that the provider is aligned with Google policy.

If you've specified the provider in your network's CMP (or your network’s “EU user consent” settings), and the provider is not in violation of Google policy, then the user didn’t provide consent for this provider.

 

Ad selection

Lost due to ineligible bids or configuration

The Ad Exchange line item may have been selected to deliver but lost because there were no eligible bids—either no bids or every bid was below the floor in unified pricing rules. The Ad Exchange line item may have also lost due to one of the following reasons:

• Address verification missing in AdSense 
• Advertiser URL blocked in Protections

Action

• Ensure your address is verified in AdSense to protect the security of your account. 
• Use the "Pricing rules" card to gain insight on bids and floor prices as set in unified pricing rules. Consider lowering floor prices or enable target CPM to increase the number of successful auction transactions.

A blocked advertiser URL in Protections may be another reason this Ad Exchange line item lost. If so, this is likely expected behavior. Blocked URLs are included in your network to help protect your brand and avoid ads from unwanted advertisers. If you suspect one has been included in error, you might review blocked URLs.

Below pricing rule floor

Line item CPM is below the floor in unified pricing rules.

Action

• Click See pricing rules to learn which specific unified pricing rules are causing the CPM discrepancy. Consider activating target CPM (if it isn't already) to increase the number of successful auction transactions. 
• You may also use the "Pricing rules" card to gain insight on bids and floor prices and then manually adjust floor prices.

Target CPM may occasionally show this reason: Some line items may occasionally experience this issue even if target CPM is activated. This is a normal occurrence as target CPM dynamically adjusts floors prices for optimization.

Delivery rate reduced to better match expected pacing

If enabled for your network, Ad Manager can use traffic shaping to deliver impressions smoothly, relative to the natural traffic fluctuations on your site. Usually, no action is needed.

In some cases, such as when traffic shaping is not enabled for your network, the line item might not be delivering because it's reached the sum of its hourly goals for the day.

Action

Likely none. Traffic shaping is working as expected.

Did not serve due to exclusion labels or same creative exclusion

Non-delivery can be a result of the following:

1. A correctly functioning competitive exclusion.
2. An error in relative priority between two line items. An ad request may result in selecting two eligible line items, but they are requested in an unintended order—causing the delivery of a lower-priority line item before the higher-priority line item can compete.

Action

These actions align with the numbers above:

1. Competitive exclusions are typically in place for good reason. However, if they are too strict or misconfigured, they may prevent line items from delivering as intended. There are two ways to set up competitive exclusions. Review protection rules and competitive exclusion labels and update them to avoid unintended ad serving behavior.

2. Review the priority of the two line items. Change the order of requests on your webpage, or use Google Publisher Tags with a single-request architecture callout.

Due to optimization, lost in competition to another line item

Ad Manager optimizes delivery for several factors. For example, use click-through rate (CTR) optimization, Ad Manager which may select a lower-priority line item over a higher-priority line item because of projected click performance. These optimizations are performed within the context of your campaign completion objectives.

Action

Likely none. Optimization is working as intended.

Frequency cap reached, or user missing identifiers needed for frequency capping

User-level frequency caps are a common reason for a line item to be excluded correctly from competing for a request. This non-delivery cause may mean that a frequency cap on the number of times the creative can be used has been reached.

For Programmatic Guaranteed deals, this message may appear if a buyer doesn’t bid because a frequency cap has been reached.

Action

Check the frequency caps set for this line item and make sure that they’re not overly restrictive.

Limited by line item "display creatives" settings, or video stream or pod frequency caps

Restrictions on the number of times a creative can serve to a page imposed by “Display creatives” settings will cause the same creative to not win subsequent requests.

For video line items, frequency caps set up to limit the number of times a creative can serve to a stream or an ad pod may cause this. 

Action

Relax restrictions as needed to improve line item delivery.

Line item is on or ahead of schedule

To get as many of your campaigns as possible to complete, Ad Manager spreads impressions to other campaigns when the line item is on or ahead of the schedule to meet its target.

Action

Likely none. The ad server considers this campaign to be on track to reach its targets.

Lost in competition to line items of higher priority

A higher priority line item won in competition.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Lost in competition to line items of similar priority

When two line items are of similar priority, selection is based on likelihood of completion. This non-delivery cause typically means that the line item is operating as expected. You may find that a line item loses more often to line items of the same priority than to line items of a higher priority. This does not necessarily indicate a problem. It likely means that you have many line items of the same priority competing for an ad unit and few line items of a higher priority. You can also see lower priority line items if they were selected for a specific reason, such as optimization.

Action

Use Ad Manager forecasting to check the available inventory and, depending on the numbers, consider updating the line item settings. You might want to expand the targeting, relax frequency caps, prolong the line item’s runtime, and so on.

Lost in direct competition to remnant line item with higher CPM

Remnant line items that compete based on CPM are expected to lose to line items of higher CPM. Behavior is as expected.

Action

If the result is unexpected, review the CPMs you have set for your remnant inventory.

Lost in dynamic allocation to a remnant line item

Ad Manager can increase your revenue with dynamic allocation—by selectively giving buyers access to valuable inventory when it won’t impact the likelihood of a campaign completing. This non-delivery cause means that the line item was selected as the winner among reservation line item candidates, but ultimately lost to a remnant line item with a higher CPM.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Lost to First Look

Line item lost because First Look opened up inventory to selected buyers in Ad Exchange.

Action

Change First Look pricing rules as needed.

Next creative in rotation not available

Sequential rotation stops working correctly if any creative set to rotate can’t serve to the impression. When the next creative in the sequence is unable to fill an ad slot, the line item stops serving until the next time period begins.

Action

Troubleshoot some of the more common issues related to creative rotation.

No creative returned

Ad Manager called out to another ad server to fetch the creative and didn’t get a response. The ad server could be Campaign Manager or a third-party network.

Action

Check that the creative information in Ad Manager and the ad server is correct and consistent.

Other

Includes all ad requests filled by demand sources that are not among the top five. This can include ad requests from other line items, Ad Exchange, and so on.

Action

Likely none. You can use the Ad request simulator (for desktop, mobile web, app, or video) to see all the line items competing for an ad request.

 

Programmatic deals

Buyer responded with a publisher-blocked creative (Ad review center)

The creative was blocked by the publisher in the Ad review center.

Action

Check the Ad review center if you believe the creative was blocked in error.

Content monetized with programmatic deals must be compliant with site content policies

The content must adhere to Google Ad Manager Partner Guidelines before it can serve.

Action

Remove all content violating these guidelines from this deal.

External buyer didn’t bid on a request

This non-delivery cause is typically associated with Programmatic Direct line items.

• If this is a Programmatic Guaranteed deal, the must_bid signal is true, which means buyers are required to bid on a request. This is because, at the time, Ad Manager determined the impression was needed to help get the deal well ahead of schedule toward achieving its goal. Low response rate from the buyer can cause line items to underdeliver. Reasons for low or no responses include:
  • The buyer isn't interested in this inventory.
  • The buyer has paused the creative.
  • The creative is currently pending approval.
• If this is a Preferred Deal, the buyer isn’t required to bid on the request.

Action

• For Programmatic Guaranteed deals: Contact the buyer to understand their low response rate. Google is often unable to obtain insight into low response rates, and the buyer is in a better position to provide details.
• For Preferred Deals: No action is needed.

External buyer didn’t bid on an optional request

This non-delivery cause is typically associated with Programmatic Direct line items. The must_bid signal is false, which means the buyer has the option to not bid on a request. This is because, at the time, Ad Manager determined the impression wasn’t needed to keep the deal well ahead of schedule toward achieving its goal. Not bidding on this request shouldn’t cause underdelivery.

Action

No action is needed. This is working as expected and doesn’t affect reaching the deal’s goal.

Programmatic Direct requires video ad calls to use an SDK

Programmatic Direct does not currently support SDK-less video requests.

Action

Make sure all video requests use IMA SDK. 

URL is not allowed to transact with Programmatic Direct

You haven’t classified the domains targeted in this line item in your Scaled Partner Management (SPM) settings, your ads.txt doesn't reflect the domains that you're authorized to sell, or the URL is in violation of Google Ad Manager Partner Guidelines. 

Action

• If you’re using Scaled Partner Management, make sure to classify all domains targeted by this line item under Admin Scaled partner management Domains.
• Review your ads.txt file to make sure you've authorized all your domains and included a publisher ID.
• Review your URLs targeted by this line item for violations of Google Ad Manager Partner Guidelines.

Good to know about URLs and Google's content policies 

In some cases, the URL may be allowed under Google Ad Manager Partner Guidelines but related traffic or content may be considered invalid due to spam protection or other issues. In these scenarios, you'll continue to see this non-delivery cause, even if you complete the suggested actions. 

 

Open Bidding

Bid request timed out

Exchanges need to return a bid within a specified amount of time to compete in the auction. Bids not returned quickly enough aren't included in the unified auction.

Action

Contact your exchange partner.

Bid lost in competition to line items

Other line items in Ad Manager had a higher rate than the best exchange bid.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Bid lost in competition to other bids

Another exchange's bid won the unified auction.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Bid not allowed in auction

An exchange's bid might not be allowed in an auction that includes a direct deal, First Look, or similar competitor.

Action

Likely none. This is expected behavior.

Bidding errors

An error in the bid response, such as the bidder host returning unknown status, can block delivery.

Action

Contact your exchange partner.

Buyer creative contained malware

If Ad Manager detects malware in a buyer's creative, the creative isn't allowed to serve.

Action

Contact your exchange partner.

Buyer creative issues

If Ad Manager detects an issue in a buyer's creative, such as the creative isn't allowed to serve. Common issues include:

• Response sizes do not match request sizes
• Response is missing mandatory fields
• Response contains not yet reviewed creatives

Action

Contact your exchange partner.

Exchange partner did not bid

Exchange partners aren't required to bid for every request. This non-delivery cause reflects requests where the exchange partner explicitly declined a bid request.

Action

Contact your exchange partner.

Exchange partner deals not allowed in Open Bidding

The exchange has not been allowed to transact deals through Open Bidding.

Action

Contact your exchange partner and consider allowing third-party deal bids in Open Bidding.

Exchange's pretargeting conflicted with yield group targeting

The targeting defined in the exchange's system (known as "pretargeting") was not compatible with the publisher's yield group targeting.

Action

Contact your exchange partner.

Mobile ads

My iOS app isn't showing ads

New iOS apps will not show Google ads until they’re listed in the Apple App Store.

Action

Learn how to test your app in the AdMob Help Center

Video and audio

Buyer is bidding with an ineligible video MIME type, for example, VPAID

This is often caused by your buyer bidding with a VPAID creative on inventory where VPAID is not eligible.

Action

Work with your buyer to upload a valid video creative type.

Creative duration is longer than your allowed max ad duration

The creative runs longer than the specified max ad duration.

Action

Update your max ad duration settings or work with your buyer to upload a shorter creative.

Creative's skippable settings do not match your skippability settings

The skippable settings for your deal and the buyer’s creative need to match.

Action

Update your deal's skippability settings or work with your buyer to upload a valid creative.

Invalid video or audio creative

Your buyer's creative is invalid.

Action

Work with your buyer to upload a valid creative for this deal.

Video ads must be skippable after 5 seconds

Video ads must be skippable after 5 seconds, or the creative will be rejected. In this case, the creative was not skippable after the first 5 seconds of play. 

Action

Contact your buyer to update their video creative to be skippable after 5 seconds.

Duration is too long for the pod 

The video ad couldn't serve because it was too long for the pod. 

Action

Consider longer pods or shorter creatives for this line item.

Targeted position is already taken in the pod

The video ad couldn't serve because position targeting couldn't be matched. 

Action

Consider targeting more video pod positions for this line item.

 

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