Troubleshoot Ad Manager line item delivery

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 Exchange, AdSense, or AdMob ad lost to an Ad Manager line item. This could be because an ad was not returned, or because the Ad Manager line item had a higher CPM.

Action: Likely none; this is expected behavior.

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 Exchange, AdSense, or AdMob ad with a higher CPM.

Action: Likely none; this is expected behavior.

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.

For networks with traffic shaping enabled, the line item may not have delivered as part of the process to deliver impressions smoothly relative to the natural traffic fluctuations on your site.

Action: Likely none; traffic shaping is working as expected.

Non-delivery can be a result of a few things:

1. It’s often due to a correctly functioning competitive exclusion.
2. It can also indicate an error in relative priority between two line items.
3. It might mean that your webpage calls two line items on the same page 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. If the competitive exclusion is too strict and you want the line item to deliver more, consider relaxing the competitive exclusion settings.
2. Review the priority of the two line items.
3. Change the order of requests on your webpage, or use Google Publisher Tags with a single-request architecture callout.

Ad Manager optimizes delivery for several factors. For example, using click-through rate (CTR) optimization, Ad Manager 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.

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

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

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.

Action: Relax restrictions as needed to improve line item delivery.

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.

A higher priority line item won in competition.

Action: Likely none; this is expected behavior.

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.

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, etc.

Remnant line items competing 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.

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.

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

Action: Change First Look pricing rules as needed.

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: See some of the more common issues related to creative rotation.

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

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

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, etc.

Action: Likely none; a large "Other" section is expected when you have a big network with many competing line items. 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.

The creative was blocked by the publisher in Creative review.

Action: Please check Creative review if you believe the creative was blocked in error.

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

Action: Please remove all content violating these guidelines from this deal.

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

Action: Make sure all video requests are using the IMA SDK. Learn more.

This non-delivery cause is typically associated with Programmatic Direct deals. Low response rate from the buyer can cause line items to underdeliver. Reasons for low or no responses include:

• The buyer is not interested in this inventory.
• The buyer has paused the creative.
• The creative is currently pending approval.

Action: In most cases, no action is required. 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.

You haven’t classified the domains used in this line item in your Scaled Partner Management (SPM) settings, or Google’s content policies don’t allow the URLs this line item is sending. In some cases, the URL may be allowed, but related traffic may include invalid clicks or other issues.

Action:

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

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.

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

Action: Likely none; this is expected behavior.

Another exchange's bid won the unified auction.

Action: Likely none; this is expected behavior.

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.

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

Action: Contact your exchange partner.

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

Action: Contact your exchange partner.

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 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.

The exchange has not been allowed to transact deals through Exchange Bidding. Learn more

Action: Contact your exchange partner and consider allowing third-party deal bids in Exchange Bidding.

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.

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.

The video 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.

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.

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

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