Q4 2021
Dec 13 No releasesThere were no release notes for December 13.
There were no release notes for November 15.
Real-time bidding
Non-personalized Ad Requests available to RTB
Ad Manager and AdMob publishers will begin to send non-personalized ad requests to RTB buyers with user identifiers redacted. The reasoning for the redaction will be included in the bid signal.
User interface
Create auction packages from the Discovery view
You can now create auction packages directly from the Discovery view. This allows you to easily see the forecasted impressions and unique users for a filtered set of inventory before deciding whether to create the auction package.
Other product or Help Center updates
Authorized Buyers Marketplace API
This API allows you to:
- Propose and negotiate deals with publishers
- Retrieve finalized deals and deal health metrics
- Manage auction package subscriptions
- Manage clients and client users
- Discover publisher profiles
Learn more in the developer documentation.
User interface
Temporary removal of Ad impression metrics from RTB breakout
Upcoming platform maintenance for Authorized Buyers and Open Bidding includes the removal of all metrics that follow the “Ad impressions” section of the real-time view of RTB breakout. These metrics will still be available in the Reporting tool and the historical RTB breakout view. We plan to bring these metrics back to the product by the end of June 2022, and will provide updates in the future with a more specific timeline when available. Summary of changes:
- Ad impressions (retained)
- Ad impressions
Not counted as viewable (temporarily removed from real-time RTB breakout)
- Viewable ad impressions (temporarily removed from real-time RTB breakout)
Not counted as viewable (Q3 2021
Sept 20 No releasesThere were no release notes for September 20, 2021.
There were no release notes for September 7, 2021.
User interface
New self-service account management settings
You can now update your account management settings for Authorized Buyers and Open Bidding.
This includes cookie matching settings, bidder endpoint configuration, Real-time bidding (RTB) settings, and account settings which includes the ability to view active creative count over the last 30 days.
Some settings are only editable by our support team and therefore are read-only. Other settings may be viewed or edited based on your account role.
Real-time bidding
Change to
ads.txtverification processA small set of publishers work with other publishers to share revenue, which results in two publisher IDs present in an
ads.txtentry. We no longer require both publisher IDs be present in anads.txtentry to verify these entries. If either of these publisher IDs exist in theads.txtfile, Google considers the ad request to be verified. This allowsads.txtfiles to be processed faster.Additional publisher IDs allowed in bid requests
We will now accept a second publisher ID in a bid request. For Authorized Buyers RTB protocol, the field
host_publisher_idhas been added to the BidRequest object. For OpenRTB,host_publisher_idhas been added to the Google OpenRTB extensions, in thePublisherExtmessage.
Q2 2021
June 28 Updated Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) SLA frameworkPolicy
Updated Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) SLA framework
A revised Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) SLA framework for Authorized Buyers will come into effect beginning July 1, 2021. This updated PG SLA will replace the existing SLA that was put into place in 2018.
Real-time bidding
‘APIs’ signal added in RTB Proto version 210
The APIs signal BidRequest.adslot.api will communicate which ad rendering API frameworks are supported. If an API is not explicitly listed, it is assumed not to be supported. Possible values are: MRAID_1, MRAID_2, MRAID_3, OMID_1, which correspond to the existing OpenRTB field called "apis".
‘Publisher type’ signal is changing in RTB Proto version 213
Currently, the values for publisher_type are:
- UNKNOWN_PUBLISHER_TYPE = 0
- ADX_PUBLISHER_OWNED_AND_OPERATED = 1
- ADX_PUBLISHER_REPRESENTED = 2
- GOOGLE_REPRESENTED = 3
To align with sellers.json, we have altered the values for publisher_type to:
- UNKNOWN_PUBLISHER_TYPE = 0
- PUBLISHER_OWNED_AND_OPERATED = 1
- PUBLISHER_REPRESENTED = 2
Policy
Policy topics and structured evidence for Creatives
We are introducing new policy topics in place of the existing disapproval reasons, as well as the ability to click to review structured evidence. We’ve designed these new policy topics to give buyers more insight into potential issues with their creatives. Note: We are also adjusting some creative status names.
User interface
Pause a single deal
You can now pause a single deal without pausing the other deals in a proposal. This allows you to be more precise with deal pausing, allowing other line items to continue to deliver against agreed upon guarantees. In Authorized Buyers, you can pause a single deal through the:
- Deals page: Navigate to Marketplace
Deals, click the icon to the left of the deal name, and select Pause from the dropdown.
- Negotiations page: Navigate to Marketplace
- Click the icon to the left of the deal name and select Pause from the dropdown.
- Select the checkbox next to one or more deal names and click the Pause button that appears above the table.
Real-time bidding
‘Limit Ad Tracking' Signal added in RTB Proto version 206
The Limited Ad Tracking (LAT) signal,
BidRequest.Device.limit_ad_tracking, indicates whether the user opted out of interest-based advertising or ads personalization as determined by the OS-level setting in iOS or Android. We will continue to redact IDFA/AdID on LAT callouts, but will also send a field indicating whether LAT has been turned on to further aid bidder compliance.
User interface
See more deal health metrics
To help Authorized Buyers within parent-level seats monitor programmatic deal health and identify deals that require troubleshooting, we added the following metrics to the “Deals” page:
- Bid requests (last 7 days)
- Bid rate (last 7 days)
- Filtered bid rate (last 7 days)
To see these metrics in Authorized Buyers, click Marketplace
Policy
Updates to Abusing the Ad Network policy (May 2021)
In May 2021, we will reorganize our Abusing the Ad Network policy for improved readability and understanding. Certain policy actions and corresponding messaging to Google advertisers will include updated policy names. These changes will impact what is currently restricted or prohibited per our policies. We will begin enforcing the policy updates on May 4, 2021.
Learn more about these changes to the Abusing the Ad Network policy
There were no release notes for April 19, 2021.
User interface
Auction Package auto unsubscribe
Every package that has not received any spend or impressions for six months or more will automatically be unsubscribed from, and will become “inactive” in the Auction Packages UI. Users can locate these packages by filtering the Auction Packages menu for “Status: Inactive." If a client wants to reactivate an inactive package, they can click into the package of their choosing and click “Subscribe,” or they can use the Deal ID to subscribe to it again.
Troubleshoot
Update to Adult content policy
On March 29, 2021, Google Ads Adult content policy was updated to restrict sexually suggestive live streaming, sexually suggestive live chat, sexually suggestive role playing games, and general dating with sexually suggestive elements and themes. These categories are still allowed, but will serve on a restricted basis.
Additionally, we have made editorial changes to the policy for improved clarity and understanding. These changes will not negatively impact advertiser campaigns.
The changes include:
- Changing the title of the policy from "Adult content" to "Sexual content."
- Breaking out current "Adult" and "Non-family safe" categories into more nuanced content categories.
- Updating titles, descriptions, and examples for the more nuanced categories.
Other product or Help Center updates
SupplyChain Object is now supported
We now support SupplyChain Object, an IAB transparency standard. The SupplyChain Object gives transparency into the origins and paths of ad inventory. No action from you is required at this time.
Q1 2021
March 22 No release notesThere were no release notes for March 8, 2021.
Policy
Compensated sexual acts policy
In February 2021, the Google Ads Adult content policy will be updated. All prohibited adult content will move to the Inappropriate content policy. Additionally, the Compensated sexual acts policy will move to its own category and will now prohibit ads for compensated dating or sexual arrangements where one participant is expected to provide money, gifts, financial support, mentorship, or other valuable benefits to another participant such as ‘Sugar’ dating. Enforcement will begin on February 11, 2021. Learn more in the Advertising Policies help center
User interface
See child seat deals
The Deals page now lists child seat deals in addition to your deals and those from your clients. This allows you to better monitor the performance and compliance of your child seat deals. To help differentiate whether the deal is yours, your clients’, or a child seat deal, the new Billed buyer column shows which buyer actually gets billed for the deal.
Real-time bidding
Additional geographic information in bid requests
Due to feedback that using truncated IP addresses to determine the user’s geography can negatively impact the accuracy, we now provide translation in-house using our own best-in-class IPGeo on full IP. To provide this IPGeo, we’ve added the user’s location in the Geo field in OpenRTB. Additionally, we've created a new Geo field in the Ad Exchange protocol for latitude and longitude coordinates. More information can be found in the Real-Time Bidding Protocol Buffer documentation
User interface
Added sub-categories for verticals on the Discovery page
You can now filter by sub-category on the Discovery page to provide more focused results when looking for inventory across all Google partners. From the Discovery page, click Vertical from the Filter inventory pane on the right, and then click More options.
Real-time bidding
Filter RTB graphs by trading location
The filter for Trading location has returned to the RTB bidder health graph. This will allow you to determine bidder health on a regional basis.
Other product or Help Center updates
Create account users to submit support requests
For security reasons, the Authorized Buyers and Open Bidding support team cannot disclose any information regarding an account to non-account users. A validation step to our Contact Us form has been added which requires an acknowledgement that the support request is being submitted by a valid account user and that invalid account users will incur a delay in processing while our support agents obtain verification from a valid account user.
Add and manage account users for anyone who submit support requests for Authorized Buyers or Open Bidding to avoid delays.