With Open Bidding, publishers and demand sources optimize yield management with server-to-server real-time bidding that uses a publisher’s existing tagging or SDK implementation. Google Ad Manager provides simplified trafficking, reporting and billing.
While Open Bidding has been available to Ad Manager 360 since 2018, it is now in open beta for more Google Ad Manager publishers. Publishers in beta should skip ahead to learn more about beta support.
Frequently asked questions
Here are some answers to questions you may have about Open Bidding and how it works:
Setup
Beta participants
You must first agree to the Open Bidding terms. Once completed, you can add new bidders for Open Bidding. Review the list of bidders available for onboard online.
Ad Manager 360
The Ad Manager 360 contract contains an agreement for Open Bidding.
To activate a company for Open Bidding, you'll need to have a separate contractual relationship with the selected demand sources. Review the list of public exchanges and networks
To confirm that your network is activated for Open Bidding, you can try to create a new company and activate it for Open Bidding:
- If you can create the new company, your network is activated for Open Bidding.
- If you can't create the new company, your network is not activated for Open Bidding.
- Your yield partner's Ad Manager company profile isn't activated for Open Bidding
- Your yield group's ad format and environment settings are not supported by the yield partner
- Open Bidding isn't activated in your Google Ad Manager network. Learn more about getting started with Open Bidding
- An Open Bidding contract isn't signed with Google
When you create a new yield group, you select the ad format and environment. If your account isn't activated for Open Bidding or you have not activated any companies for Open Bidding, the "Mobile app" environment will be the only option available for the "Banner" ad format.
First, confirm that you've activated a company for Open Bidding. If you can't activate companies for Open Bidding, contact your account manager to activate your account for Open Bidding.
Use the empty yield groups to create a web banner if you do not yet have Open Bidding activated.
Ad Manager
Share your network code. You can find your network code in the URL of your Ad Manager account.
AdMob
Share your Publisher ID. Click "Settings" to find your Publisher ID in the "Account information" section.
A yield partner can be used for both mediation and Open Bidding in the same yield group. A yield partner can also be used for both mediation and Open Bidding in different yield groups with overlapping targeting.
The yield partner is only called once. If the yield partner is targeted for both mediation and Open Bidding and submits an Open Bidding bid, the yield partner is removed from the mediation chain and does not compete for the same impression. If no Open Bidding bid is submitted from the yield partner, the yield partner will compete in the mediation chain.
Serving
Ads may be requested, but never get a chance to render. Generally, this isn’t indicative of a problem. There are valid reasons an ad may not render, and it doesn't always require action.
Some common reasons ads may not render include:
- The user may have navigated away from the page or closed the app.
- The page or app may have requested the ad for pre-fetching, but the ad was never triggered by the user. Due to this reason, render rates are naturally lower for mobile and video than for display ads.
- The request was filled by another ad in the mediation chain with a higher CPM.
- A VAST error may have occurred (video ads).
Review the authorization status of your domain, as well as the reasons why the URL in a bid request may be blank.
If a yield partner is receiving a high percentage of callouts with a blank URL entry, it is because the domain is not ads.txt-authorized or the URL is invalid. Review your ads.txt coverage in #admin/adstxt, and ensure all domains are authorized.
Additionally, if you're using GPT’s URL override feature .set(""page_url"", ""custom URL""), ensure the overriden custom URL value is valid.
If you’re using unified pricing rules, your pricing rules will apply to third-party exchanges. You can find these rules under Inventory Pricing rules
Unified pricing. The prices set in unified pricing rules apply to third-party exchanges and networks that participate in Open Bidding as well as in other contexts.
Protections do not apply to Open Bidding demand. Learn more about Protections Eligibility.
To learn more about what's happening, create a report using the "Yield Partner" dimension and the "Yield group callouts," "Yield group bids," and “Yield group auctions won” metrics. You can use this report to determine whether the yield partner is receiving callouts, if it's bidding on them, and if the bids are high enough to enter the auction.
If the yield partner isn’t receiving callouts, look for the following error in the yield group: “The exchange is not accepting requests for ads from your Ad Manager network. Contact them regarding their Pretargeting.” This error indicates the yield partner isn’t pretargeting your network. Contact the yield partner to fix this error.
You should also contact the yield partner if it’s receiving callouts but not bidding or bidding in low volume.
Native ads are available for Open Bidding. Learn more about native ads in Open Bidding.
If an ad request matches a yield group and line item with overlapping targeting for a size or format, the yield group can only serve the overlapping parameter. The line item can serve all included parameters that would match the ad request.
Example
An ad request includes sizes A, B, and C. This ad request matches a yield group with sizes A, B and an Ad Exchange line item with sizes B and C.
The yield partners in the yield group will only receive size B, which is included in both the yield group and the line item. The line item would be able to serve sizes B and C.
A, B, and C can represent either a standard size, such as 300x250, or a format, such as native.
For networks which require ad unit mapping for Open Bidding, the mapping must also include that format in order for that format to serve.
To troubleshoot a specific exchange, confirm the following:
- You’ve set up the exchange as a Company for Open Bidding.
- You’ve added the exchange to the yield group as a yield partner.
- You’ve confirmed that they’re receiving callouts. To view this data, create a report with the “Yield Partner” dimension and the “Yield group callouts” metric.
If the exchange still isn’t bidding, contact the exchange.
The same dynamics that apply to Dynamic allocation (as explained in the "First Look" article) also apply to Open Bidding.
If you encounter a broken creative or see a creative behaving unexpectedly in your content, use the Google Publisher Console to identify the unique "Query ID" assigned to each yield group request. If you know the creative comes from an Open Bidding yield partner, contact your yield partner directly. Otherwise, send this "Query ID" to your Google account manager to confirm the source of the creative.
While Google Ad Manager scans a sample of Open Bidding creatives to audit quality, malware scanning is primarily owned by each yield partner, including the Ad Exchange. Learn more about preventing malware in ad content.
You can now send bid requests to Open Bidding demand partners which serve in Russia and China. Creatives are reviewed with strict, country-specific policies, and blank creatives are not allowed to serve.
This feature does not currently support demand partners using a custom mobile SDK. Demand partners must be using the Google Mobile Ads SDK.
Reporting
Reporting discrepancies are common and expected when multiple systems are used to measure line item delivery, especially when third-party systems are involved.
Payments are calculated based on Google Ad Manager reporting.
Learn more about third-party reporting discrepancies
To ensure you're comparing the same data, check the following:
- Ensure your yield group and Ad Exchange line items target the same Ad Exchange inventory.
- Ensure both reports use the same time zone.
- Verify that the difference isn't related to different impression counting methodologies.
Use the Demand Channel dimension in Ad Manager reporting to see Ad Exchange revenue by channel.
The yield group callouts report metric might be affected by a few issues, including:
-
Exchange quotas, which regulate how many requests they want to receive from Ad Manager, or the exchange's pretargeting configuration.
- Native creative requests, which aren't supported by all exchanges.
If you monetize through programmatic native, make sure your Ad Exchange native line item targets both banners and native sizes. Use the "Automatically generate creative" to create one creative targeting banner and native sizes.
Troubleshoot
When using Ad inspector (Beta) , you may encounter the following issues when testing your Open Bidding yield partners:
- No SDK found: Some yield partners may need an SDK and adapter installed to use Open Bidding. Learn more about the SDK requirements for Android and iOS.
- No user consent provided: The yield partner may not be eligible for a bid request if the user has not provided the necessary consent. This may be expected behavior. Learn more about implementing consent tools, such as GDPR, in the AdManager Partner Guidelines.
- Didn’t bid or wasn’t eligible: The yield partners may have decided to not bid for the ad request or they may not be eligible to bid for it. There are several possible reasons for this issue. Here are some examples:
- The yield partner may only bid under certain conditions, such as specific geographic areas.
- The yield partner may not have an ad for the bid request.
- There was an unexpected system error or timeout on the yield partner’s end.
Support for Beta participants
Not all bidders are currently available for this feature. Only participating bidders have this option available. We will maintain a list of available bidders.
Bidders have two business days to approve or reject your request to connect. In this time, they are confirming you have an agreement and determining if your inventory is a good fit.
If it has been longer than 2 business days, please reach out directly to the bidder.
The bidder goes through a review process to see if your inventory is a good fit for their needs. They have determined that your inventory, for now, is not the right fit for their needs.
This request is subject to change, and a bidder can still approve you at a later date.
Google does not have insight into this part of the onboard process. Please reach out directly to the relevant bidder if you have questions about their onboard process.
Once you have completed the onboard process on the bidder’s website, you should be redirected back to Ad Manager and prompted to acknowledge this completion. Keep Ad Manager open while you onboard to ensure we get the signal that you’ve completed this step.
Return to Ad Manager, where you can then acknowledge this agreement was completed, and accept the Open Bidding terms for this bidder. This will send your request to use Open Bidding to the bidder.
Bidders are required to respond to publisher requests within 2 business days. If it has been less than 2 business days, no action needed. If it has been more than 2 business days, we recommend you reach out to the bidder.
Once you have been approved, you may not see bids immediately from the bidder. If you have any questions about bidder response rates, please reach out directly to that bidder’s support.
First, ensure that you’ve added necessary information to ads.txt for this bidder. The bidder will have emailed you this information to you after approving your request.
Additionally, make sure that your yield group is targeting active inventory, and you are sending callouts to your bidder. Remember, bidders are not obligated to respond to every callout they receive, so this is not necessarily indicative of a problem, there may just be a lack of demand.
If you believe your bidder should be responding or is trying to respond and you’re not receiving bids, please reach out directly to that bidder’s support. Google doesn’t have insight into bidders’ logic, so we are unable to troubleshoot these issues.