Rewarded ad formats allow app users to receive rewards for viewing ads, which changes the ads experience. Users are allowed to voluntarily watch an ad in exchange for an in-app reward. This increases publisher monetization opportunities and maximizes the value of content. You can traffic non-intrusive, short-form videos and interactive ads on apps that create a value exchange between a publisher and a user.
Ad Manager offers two inventory formats that offer rewards: Rewarded ads and Rewarded interstitial ads.
Examples of rewarded ad formats
Rewarded ads
A user is given the option to watch a video ad or view a display ad to receive a reward, which could be 3 news articles, 10 gold coins, an extra life in a game, wifi access at an airport, and so forth.
Rewarded interstitial ads
An ad is automatically shown to a user (with the option to opt-out) that offers a reward. Publishers must provide the user with a clear option to opt-out of the ad experience.
Requirements and restrictions
- Rewarded ads are available with programmatic campaigns, including Programmatic Guaranteed, Private Auctions, and Preferred Deals.*
- VPAID creatives are not supported for rewarded video ad formats.
- Publishers using rewarded ad formats must comply with the policies for ad units that offer rewards.
* Reach out to your account manager if you want to be activated for Programmatic Guaranteed or Preferred Deals.
See the guidelines for programmatic campaigns.
You can serve rewarded ad formats directly through Ad Manager, or serve rewarded ad formats through Ad Exchange. You'll also need to request rewarded ad formats through the Google Mobile Ads SDK.
Serve rewarded ads directly through Ad Manager
Set up an ad unit
The maximum length to grant a reward is 30 seconds. When you set up an ad unit for rewarded ad formats, there are two additional considerations:
- Sizes (Optional) : You can select all of the sizes for interstitials: 320x480, 480x320, 1024x768, 768x1024. Adding sizes helps traffickers filter by size when adding ad units to targeting in a line item. Sizes specified don't affect ad serving.
- Reward: Enter the details of the reward the user receives for viewing an ad. For example, if the reward for viewing an ad is to get 20 more lives in a game, enter an "Amount" of 20 and a "Type" of lives. In addition, you can apply server-side verification when using Ad Manager mediation.
Set up a line item
Video ads
Follow the instructions to set up a line item in Ad Manager. Click Select video or audio ad when asked to choose an ad type and choose any of the available creative sizes. If your ad uses an end card, set the size of the companion to any of the relevant in‑app interstitial sizes.
Interactive display ads
Follow the instructions to set up a line item in Ad Manager. Click Select display ad when asked to choose an ad type and select any of the relevant in-app interstitial sizes in the "Expected creatives" section." Eligible creative types include "HTML5" or "Third-party." Any other creative type will not match in serving.
Explicitly target only rewarded ad inventory
You can optionally select Rewarded or Rewarded interstitials from the "Inventory format" targeting options as the "Request format" to target only rewarded or rewarded interstitial ad inventory, respectively.
Serve rewarded ads through Ad Exchange
Follow the normal process to set up your in-app inventory.
Traffic Ad Exchange rewarded ad formats in Ad Manager
Follow the normal process to traffic app display ads from Ad Exchange using the in-app interstitial sizes.
- If creating Ad Exchange tags, select the Mobile In-App tab (not the Video tab).
- In Ad Manager, the ad units and line items should be for display ads (not for video).
- Only the image creative type can be used for end cards and companions.
Request rewarded ads through the Google Mobile Ads SDK
After you complete one of the setups described above, see the applicable developer guide to learn how to request rewarded ad formats from your app:
Set pricing rules for rewarded ad formats
You can add a pricing rule to set a floor across rewarded ads.
- Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
- Click Inventory
Pricing rules.
The Unified pricing tab is selected by default. - Click New unified pricing rule.
- Select the check box next to Rewarded enabled.
- Next to "Pricing," click Set floor prices and enter a floor price for rewarded inventory.
Alternately, you can set a floor price for inventory other than rewarded. To do this, select Rewarded disabled.
Serve rewarded ad formats to mediation networks
Rewarded ad formats can be served to participating mediation networks.
- When you get started with mediation, select Rewarded or Rewarded interstitial as the "Ad format" when you create a yield group to specify which inventory is available to these networks.
- Follow the developers guides for rewarded ads (Android | iOS) or rewarded interstitial ads (Android | iOS) and select only ad networks that serve rewarded video ads (Android | iOS).
Report on rewarded ad formats
You can add the creative technology dimension to your reports to identify the type of technology used to serve a creative, such as video.
You can run reports for rewarded ad formats much like you would any other report in Ad Manager.
Select Platform Interaction type as a dimension to see a breakdown of whether impressions were rewarded requests, rewarded interstitial requests or other formats. This dimension is available for "Historical" reports.
Learn how to create a report.
Validate rewarded ad views with server-side verification (Beta)
This is currently in beta and requires activation. Contact your account manager for more information.
Server-side verification acts as an additional layer of validation for rewarded ad views in your app. It's performed in addition to the standard client-side callback.
You can use server-side verification to validate each completed rewarded ad view and ensure you're only rewarding users who have actually finished watching the video in your app. Each time a user finishes viewing a rewarded ad, Google uses the postback URL you provide when you set up an ad unit to validate the view.