This document will guide you through the process of setting up your Google Ad Manager (formerly known as DoubleClick for Publishers / Google Ad Manager) ad server to begin trafficking pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll to your BLOX VMS video content. This guide is intended only to assist in the setup and delivery of video ads, and will not attempt to cover all aspects of the Google Ad Manager ad server such as display ad trafficking, AdSense, AdExchange, or ad sales. While the instructions in this document are specific to Google Ad Manager, it may also be used as a guide for other ad servers that utilize similar targeting mechanics. For more information and training on Google Ad Manager, please refer to the Google Ad Manager help center.
This article is divided into 5 sections:
- Creating a Google Ad Manager account
- Adding video ad units to Google Ad Manager
- Creating key-values for video ad targeting
- Generating video ad tags
- Creating video ad campaigns
Creating a Google Ad Manager account
This section includes links and information related to registering for and setting up a Google Ad Manager account. If your organization already has a Google Ad Manager account, you may skip this section and proceed to Adding video ad units to Google Ad Manager.
There are two versions of Google Ad Manager available: Google Ad Manager and Google Ad Manager – Small Business. The former is a premium solution for advertisers that need to serve over 90 million impressions per month. The latter has no costs associated with it if you need to serve less than 90 million monthly ad impressions. The premium solution requires that you contact Google to set up an account, whereas the small business solution can be registered with a couple of online forms.
Google Ad Manager Small Business requires that you be registered as an AdSense publisher, though you are not required to run AdSense on your site. If you’re not currently an AdSense publisher, sign up here to get started with AdSense.
Once your AdSense registration is complete, you can sign up for Google Ad Manager Small Business.
Adding video ad units to Google Ad Manager
This section includes instructions for setting up video ad units in Google Ad Manager. This is required before generating the ad tags you will provide to BLOX VMS to be inserted into your video player.
Before you can create a campaign or generate ad tags for your video ads, you will first need to setup ad unit(s). The ad unit defines the size or sizes and basic behavior for the video ad.
To begin, log into your Google Ad Manager account, and navigate to the Inventory tab.
If not already selected, click Ad Units->Ad Units from the left-hand navigation.
You can either create a new ad unit specifically for your video ad, or modify an existing ad unit. To create a new one, click the New ad unit button at the top of the page.
- Populate the Code field with a unique name for the ad unit, such as [organization]-preroll. You can use whatever naming convention you like. This cannot be changed.
- Populate the Name field. Again, use whatever naming convention you prefer, but make it something you will recognize. If you are planning to traffic pre-roll and post-roll, you will want to make sure to specify what the ad unit is in the Name. Including pre-roll or post-roll in the name is advisable.
- Add your video ad size(s). The size of the video ad can be whatever size you prefer. Google Ad Manager will give you a couple of default options, but you can add any additional size you want. You may also include multiple ad sizes.
- We recommend you include a size that is consistent with your most commonly used video display size. For example, if your desktop video player is typically 640x360px in size, then add that as your video ad size as well. This will ensure some video quality consistency when transitioning from pre-roll to video during playback.
- Your video player is likely responsive and will shrink in size for smaller screens. Your video ad will scale as well, so you do not need to add smaller sizes.
- Your ad unit size can be changed later, although it will also mean you will have to generate a new ad tag.
- If you intend to traffic companion ads, then you should also add the companion ad size as well. The most common companion ad size is 300×250.
- Set the Target window setting from the dropdown. _top and _blank are your only options.
- Set your AdSense inventory settings. Please note that you can set the default (Enabled/Disabled) for AdSense delivery under Network Settings within your Google Ad Manager account. This option is enabled by default. To disable AdSense, click ‘override’, then uncheck the AdSense checkbox.
- When you have completed all the required fields, click Save.
Creating Key-values for video targeting
This step is optional, but is required if you wish to target video only to specific videos. For this guide, we will include instructions for targeting video against Categories and Keywords; two fields present in BLOX VMS available for identifying and grouping content.
There are other methods of targeting video such as path based targeting. Section or path specific targeting is dependent on your site hierarchy and varies greatly depending on the CMS. For the purpose of this guide, only Categories and Keywords are included.
To begin, navigate to the Inventory tab, then select Key-values from the left-hand navigation (located directly under Ad Units). You will need to setup two new Key-values for targeting: Category and Keyword.
Category
Click the New Key button.
- Give your key-value a name. (We suggest Category.)
- Select the pre-defined targeting values option.
- Since categories are pre-set in the BLOX VMS Manager, you can pre-define these key-values to take the guesswork out of targeting video campaigns.
- Click the Add values button and enter each of the categories listed in the manager. For your convenience, here is the full list: Automotive, Business, Culture, Education, Entertainment, Games, Health, Information, Lifestyle, News, Politics, Religion, Shopping, Sports, Technology, Travel, Weather.
- Click Save to complete the Category setup.
Keyword
Click the New Key button.
- Give your key-value a name. (We suggest keyword.)
- Select the users will enter targeting values option.
- Keywords can be any word or phrase, and may change over time. So, this field will be populated as new campaigns are created.
- If you already use specific keywords, you can add those values now to make targeting more expedient during video targeting.
- Click Save to complete the Keywords setup.
Why do I need Categories and Keywords? Aren’t they basically the same?
In some ways, yes, they are functionally the same. In a sense, categories function like pre-set keywords. You can think of categories as broadly organized keywords. By using two distinct key-values for targeting in Google Ad Manager, you can target video very broadly (such as to all sports videos) or to a single video within a category (such as ‘high-school-football’). If you plan to target all ads to all videos, then neither of these key-values are required. However, setting the key-values up now, and including them in your video ad tags, will ensure they are available if and when you need them in the future.
Generating video ad tags
This section provides instruction on generating your video ad tags in Google Ad Manager, which will be provided to BLOX VMS to be inserted into your video player.
Video Tags
To begin, navigate to the Inventory tab, then select Generate tags from the left-hand navigation.
- Locate the ad unit you wish to add to your tag and click include.
- Click Generate tags as indicated in the screenshot below.
- Choose Google Publisher Tag from the Select Tag Type drop-down menu. (It should be pre-selected), then click Continue.
- Under Select Tag Options, next to Page level targeting, click Add Targeting. Then, click the box labeled select a key. Your previously created key-values will appear as options. Add both category and keyword. Leave the select targeting values field empty.
- The Inventory unit sizes field will be pre-populated with the ad sizes you specified when creating your ad units.
- Click Continue.
You should now see your video tags displayed, as well as a header script and ad units tag for your companion ad. Your video tag will look similar to this:
pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=1280×720|640×360&iu=/67700620/kyur&ciu_szs=300×250&cust_params=category%3D%26keyword%3D&impl=s&gGoogle Ad Manager_req=1&env=vp&output=xml_vast2&unviewed_position_start=1&url=[referrer_url]&description_url=[description_url]&correlator=[timestamp]
Copy your tag and provide it to BLOX VMS. We will modify the tag slightly before insertion into the manager. The end result will look similar to this:
pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=640×360|1280×720&iu=/67700620/kyur&ciu_szs=300×250&cust_params=category%3D{categories}%26keyword%3D{keywords}&impl=s&gGoogle Ad Manager_req=1&env=vp&output=xml_vast2&unviewed_position_start=1&url=[referrer_url]&description_url=[description_url]&correlator=[timestamp]
Note the {categories} and {keywords} variables added to the tag. The keyword and category parameters will dynamically insert a video’s category and keywords into the tag when the player is generated on a webpage.
Post-roll – If you are planning to traffic post-roll, you will need to follow the instructions above to create video and companion ad tags for your post-roll ad units as well. So, for each ad unit, you will supply a separate video ad tag. Once you have collected all of your tags, please open a support ticket to provide your tags to BLOX VMS. Once the tags have been inserted into the manager, support will let you know when you can begin adding ad campaigns to Google Ad Manager. We can set up a test player and video that you will be able to traffic ads to for testing, before going live with your video ad campaigns.
Creating video ad campaigns in Google Ad Manager
This section provides step-by-step instruction for trafficking a video ad to your video content. The instructions provided here assume you have previously set up a Google Ad Manager account, have set up your ad units, and supplied tags to BLOX VMS. This guide focuses on the fields required to traffic pre-roll, and will not cover all optional fields.
There are 4 important hierarchies in Google Ad Manager.
Advertiser – The name of the client purchasing the ad.
Order – The field in Google Ad Manager where your ad network, advertiser, and trafficker is labeled. Multiple orders can exist under a single advertiser.
Line Item – The breakdown of your ad units’ ad targeting and settings. Multiple line items can exist within a single order.
Creative Set – This refers to the image or video. Multiple creatives can exist within a single line item.
To begin, navigate to the Delivery tab in Google Ad Manager.
- Click the New Order button to create a new order.
In the New Order area of the screen that appears, fill in the following fields:
- Name: The name of the Order. Click the Optional order fields link to expand the tab if you need to enter additional details, such as contact information or other notes.
Google Ad Manager Naming Conventions – You can use whatever naming conventions you like in Google Ad Manager. Be aware, however, that no two Orders can have the same name. Also, Order names cannot be changed (line items can). So, you should establish a naming convention for Orders that makes sense to you, and is verbose enough that you can easily locate Orders in the future.
- Advertiser: The name of the company running the ad. To find the advertiser, type the name in the field. Google Ad Manager will return the advertiser if it already exists, or you can create a new one.
In the New Line Item area, fill in the following fields:
- Name: The name of the Line Item.
Google Ad Manager Naming Conventions – Like the order name, use whatever naming conventions you like for the Line Item name. If the advertiser is running multiple creative types, you could create separate line items for pre-roll and display ads, or they can be combined into a single line item.
- Inventory sizes: Select “Video VAST” and then enter the size of the video ad in pixels.You will need to enter the size that you setup in your ad unit, and which is also present in your ad tag. You should also select the companion ad size if you plan to include it.
- In the Max Duration field, enter a number for the maximum length of video allowed in this line item.
Pre-roll duration – BLOX VMS recommends a maximum duration of 30 seconds for pre-roll on VOD segments. Longer video ads should be reserved for post-roll or as pre-roll on live stream video.
- In the Settings area, fill in the Type area. You have several options in this section. Here are 3 of the most commonly used:
- Sponsorship: This is the highest-priority type, and can cause the ad to take over 100 percent of the impressions in whatever ad positions it appears. All you need to fill in after selecting Sponsorship are the Start time and End time fields, as well as the Goal field with whatever percentage of overall ad impressions you’d like this ad to occupy.
- Standard:This type is for your basic impression-based campaign. If you select this option, you’ll also need to fill in the Start time and End time fields with the start/end dates/times and the Quantity field for the number of impressions in this campaign.
- Price Priority: This type is used for ads that just have a start and end date/time, with no impression cap. If you select this type, fill in the Start time and End time fields with the start/end date/time, and then select None in the Limit drop-down menu.
- Scroll down to the Add Targeting area to determine where the ad will appear on your site. Then, click the Ad units link in the box. The box should populate with a list of your various ad units. If you have created ad units for pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll, choose the ad unit to which you wish to target.
- By default, the video ad will traffic to all video positions on your site. To limit the ad to specific videos, select the Key-values link in from the left-hand navigation within the targeting box. This is where you can target ads to specific videos on your site. In the Select a Key field, type in category or keywords.
- Category – Categories are pre-set, and should match the categories in the BLOX VMS Manager (provided they have been added correctly during the key-values setup). Select from one of the available options (such as News or Weather)
- Keywords – Keywords can be manually entered and must match the keyword assigned to a video exactly.
- Click Save and… Upload Creatives in the menu that appears.
You’ll be taken to a screen where you can upload the actual video and companion.
- Creative Set Name: Enter the name of the Creative.
- Under Select a creative type, click Linear, then Video.
- Name: Enter a title for the video asset.
- Click-through URL: Enter the click-through URL in the space provided.
- Duration: Enter the duration of the video asset. This must match the actual duration of the video ad.
- In the large Drag and drop files here field, you can either drag the creative file from your computer into this area to begin uploading it or you can click the Or upload a new asset to open an item browser to locate and select your video asset.
Optional but highly recommended – Advertisers often provide video assets in a variety of formats. Some are more compatible than others. Google Ad Manager does a pretty good job of transcoding videos into the proper formats for delivery to all devices. But, not always. Before you upload a video asset, we recommend you upload it to the BLOX VMS Video Manager to process it into the correct size and format (mp4). This will ensure maximum compatibility with all devices (especially mobile), and that it is the correct file type and has the correct frame size. To process the video, simply upload it to the manager, wait for it to finish, then download the completed .mp4 file. You will then upload that processed video asset into Google Ad Manager.
- If a companion is provided, select the creative type (such as image). Give it a title, upload the image, and enter the click-through URL.
- Click the Save button to save the ad.
- If you have just created a new order, you will be prompted to approve the order after saving it. If you encounter that prompt, just click the Approve button. Your Order is now complete and its status should say Ready.
Please note that new orders (or changes to orders) can take up to 30 minutes to be reflected on your site. If you’ve setup a new campaign to start immediately, it may take a while for delivery to begin. Once delivery begins, the Line Item status will change from Ready to Delivering. Also, Google Ad Manager can be slow to recognize changes when navigating from page to page. For example, line items will often show a message that reads Needs creatives, when in fact, creatives have already been added. Just give the system a few minutes to process the creatives and the warning will disappear.
For more information related to Google Ad Manager, or for more training on specific elements of Google Ad Manager not covered in this document, please refer to the Google Ad Manager Help Center.