2021 Authorized Buyers releases archive

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.txt verification process

A small set of publishers work with other publishers to share revenue, which results in two publisher IDs present in an ads.txt entry. We no longer require both publisher IDs be present in an ads.txt entry to verify these entries. If either of these publisher IDs exist in the ads.txt file, Google considers the ad request to be verified. This allows ads.txt files 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_id has been added to the BidRequest object. For OpenRTB, host_publisher_id has been added to the Google OpenRTB extensions, in the PublisherExt message.

Policy

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

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 Deals.

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.

Review the full Adult Content policy update announcement

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.

There 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.