Creatives for Programmatic Direct are managed by the buyer in Display & Video 360 or other demand-side platforms (DSPs). They are not managed in Ad Manager by default.
This article covers supported creative types and formats when the creative is buyer-managed.
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Understand creative requirements
Once you've determined the creative requirements for your buyer's campaign, you should ensure the proposal line item is configured to use the correct "Ad type" and "Inventory type" (which is part of the "Line item type" settings).
The ad type, in the context of Programmatic Direct, indicates what creatives the buyer should upload later to a DSP, and also filters the inventory types that can be set in the proposal line item. The inventory type tells Ad Manager the kind of inventory or medium in which an ad serves.
When you send a proposal to the buyer for the first time, ad type and inventory type in the proposal line item are fixed and can't be changed. If these setting don't reflect the buyer's creative requirements, you can copy the proposal line item and make modifications.
Examples
If your buyer wants to run a campaign with a native ad format, you need to select the Display ad type and the Display inventory type when adding the proposal line item.
If you know your buyer wants to run an in-stream video ad, you should select Video or audio as your ad type and In‑stream video and audio as the inventory type.
Jump to a specific ad type or inventory type
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Ad type: Video or audio |
See information about creative targeting.
Display ad type
For all of the following creatives, you need to select the "Display" ad type when adding a proposal line item.
Image
Ad type: "Display"
Line item type
Inventory type: "Display"
Buyers can upload standard image creatives to Display & Video 360 or another DSP.
Native
Ad type: "Display"
Line item type
Buyers can manage standard native ad formats in Display & Video 360 or through other DSPs.
- When configuring the proposal line item, select one of these standard native ad formats from the "Sizes" dropdown: Native content ad, Native video content ad, Native app install ad, or Native video app install ad.
- Ensure that the buyer configures two creatives—one square, one rectangle. There's no specific size requirement for either, but the rectangle ratio should be 1.91:1 or within 10% of this ratio.
Coordinate with the buyer to ensure they understand what native assets are expected and that they have correctly configured them in their DSP.
Learn more about Standard native ad format and how to report on native ads.
Interstitials for mobile apps
Ad type: "Display"
Line item type
Buyers can manage interstitials for mobile app creatives. Inventory type for interstitial display creatives should be set to "Mobile in-app" in proposal line items. Coordinate with buyers to ensure you know what kind of interstitial creative they want to run. Based on the kind of interstitial they want to run, you need to set the appropriate inventory sizes for creatives in Ad Manager.
Video or audio ad type
For all of the following creatives, you need to select Video or audio as the ad type when adding a proposal line item. Creatives for this ad type can include an optional companion creative to the main or "master" creative. If you don't need a companion, simply don't add one while working with the creative.
Creative preview is not currently supported for Programmatic Direct video and audio creatives.
In-stream video and audio
Ad type: "Video or audio"
Line item type
Buyers can upload supported video and audio formats for the master creative and an optional companion creative.
Max duration is required for programmatic proposal line items. The value entered is used for forecasting and to enforce the maximum duration of videos buyers can upload when working with optimized pods for video VAST ads. If buyers upload videos that exceed this maximum, video ad serving could fail.
Overlapping deal duration and skippability: If there are different values across the same deal type for the same inventory (for example, two Preferred Deals of 30s and 35s each), the highest value will be set in the bid request. This can lead to the deal with the shorter duration value transacting with creatives up to the duration of the deal with the longer duration value.
This same limitation applies to skippability.
- If all deals matching a request have the same "Skippable" setting (Disabled/Enabled/Any), this will be reflected in the flattened bid request for that type.
- If these constraints differ, the Any setting will be applied, and both skippable and non-skippable ads will be allowed.
Report on skippability
You should always use the Skip button shown metric to determine deal-level video ad skippability.
Third-party buyers have the ability to implement skip correction functionality, so you should avoid determining skippability using the Ad review center or deal-level line item creative preview.
Size: Enter the inventory sizes for the creatives you want to use. Select "Audio" for audio ads.
The IMA SDK supports vertical video. To display vertical video ads, you can set the height (or first) value as the larger dimension in the video size. A 4:5 video creative ratio is recommended for vertical video.
Non-in-stream video
Some video creative formats allow buyers to run video outside of a video stream. Learn more
For these formats, ensure that:
- Ad units designated to run these creatives are opted into the "Allow video ads" ad experience
- Ad units include the 300x250v (video) size in their configuration
- Proposal line items target these ad units
- Proposal line items target include the 300x250v (video) size
Rewarded
Ad type: "Video or audio"
Line item type
Buyers can run creatives as rewarded ads for apps.
Interstitial video
Ad type: "Video or audio"
Line item type
In-article and in-feed video
Ad type: "Video or audio"
Line item type
In-article and in-feed video ad implementation requirements and restrictions
All publishers share the same default rendering for in-article and in-feed video ad formats. Click-to-expand ("reflow") functionality, click-to-close functionality, and VPAID are not currently supported.*
Out-stream video ads must comply with video publisher policies.
* Native ads offer custom styles. If your ad requires customization, consider native ads.
