Manage ads

Set up standard ads

A standard ad shows your creative to users. They serve to a placement and display the creatives assigned to them. To set up a standard ad, click New > Standard in your campaign.

When someone visits a site with Campaign Manager 360 placement tags, Campaign Manager 360 serves the ad and the creative appears. The creative assigned to your ad is what the user sees on the site. Different ads may serve depending on targeting criteria. Standard ads are either interstitial or in-page. You can use standard ads for any creative type you want: display, in-stream, and rich media. You can also use standard ads for redirect creatives.

Learn more about standard ad properties, serving requirements, and scheduling in the sections below.

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Standard ad properties

To edit ad properties, click an ad in your campaign.

Identification

The fields in the Identification section set the basic properties of the ad.

Ad name: The name is used in the interface and in reports.

Ad type: An ad's type describes how it is displayed to the user. When ads are created automatically, the type is based on the associated creative. This field is also used to identify default ads.

In-page ads are displayed on the webpage where the Campaign Manager 360 placement tags are placed. Banner ads are a common example. This is one type of standard ad.
Interstitial ads are displayed on a separate webpage as a pop-up or pop-under, or contained within the main webpage as an interstitial ad. This is another type of standard ad.
Click trackers record the number of clicks on text links, links in emails, or on other elements that are hard-coded on a website. They can also be used to track clicks on creatives that are not delivered by Campaign Manager 360, including clicks on distinct parts of multi-file creatives. They don't display anything to the user. This is not a standard ad type. Learn more
Tracking ads record impressions and clicks on ads that are not served by Campaign Manager 360. This way you can use Campaign Manager 360 reporting tools to track non-Campaign Manager 360 ads. Unlike click trackers, tracking ads track impressions as well as clicks. This is not a standard ad type. Learn more

Status: Set ads to Active to enable them to be served. When ads are created automatically, they are set active by default. Learn more

SSL: SSL is a way to keep content secure over the internet. Secure sites (URL starts with https) use SSL. In this section, Campaign Manager 360 checks SSL compliance for your ad and tells you if it is on placements that require SSL compliance. Learn more

Compliant: All assigned creatives use SSL and are okay for secure sites.
Non-compliant: One or more assigned creatives is not compliant, so you cannot assign this ad to placements that require SSL.
Required: The ad is on at least one placement that requires SSL.
Not required: No placements require SSL, so the ad doesn't need to be SSL-compliant.

Dimensions: The dimensions of all assigned creatives, in pixels, in width-x-height format. If you assign multiple display creatives, the ad will inherit all of their sizes. Click tracker ads and ads with interstitial creatives don't have dimensions.

Comments: Enter any comments about this ad.

Delivery properties

Start date / Start time: Set the start date and start time for your ad to start serving.

End date / End time:

Ads using hard cut-off: If you select the hard cut-off box, your ad will stop serving on this date regardless of its status. Seven days after the end date, the status of the ad will be updated to inactive.
Ads not using hard cut-off: Ads that do not use a hard cut-off can serve indefinitely after the end date as long as the status of the ad is active and it has creatives that can serve. If there is a 30-day period following the end date with no clicks or impressions, Campaign Manager 360 will set the status of the ad to inactive.

Learn more about ad status.

Impression ratio: Choose this option to divide impressions between ads on a placement. The numbers you enter determine how often each ad is served relative to the others.

For example, Ad A has an impression ratio of 1 and Ad B has an impression ratio of 3. That means Campaign Manager 360 will serve Ad B three times as often as Ad A. For every impression on Ad A, Campaign Manager 360 will make sure it serves Ad B three times.

Priority: This determines which ad serves when a user is eligible for multiple ads on the same placement. Priority is set by default based on ad type and scheduling. The lower the priority number, the greater the priority with which it is served.

Changing the priority of an ad from the default can have dramatic effects on other ads and can prevent them from being served. If you are uncertain about using this feature, check with support before you move forward.

Frequency cap: Set the maximum number of times your ad can serve to any given user over particular time period. Learn more about frequency caps.

Learn more about scheduling below.

Creative assignments

This section of the creative properties helps you assign creatives to your ad and choose details about how the creatives are delivered. Scroll to the right in your interface if you can't see all the columns you need.

Click Edit creative assignments to assign or unassign creatives from your ad. Or select the checkbox next to a specific creative to unassign it individually (Actions > Unassign).

Dimensions: You can assign display creatives with multiple dimensions to a standard ad. This can be a single responsive creative that supports multiple sizes, or many display creatives that are all different sizes. If you assign multiple display creatives to an ad, the ad will inherit all of their sizes.

Creative rotation: Click the rotation menu to set the creative rotation for your ad.

Include in rotation: By default, any creative assigned to your ad is set to Yes, meaning it's part of the creative rotation. Select No to remove your creative from the rotation without unassigning it. A creative set to No stays active and will serve with any other ads it is assigned to, but it won't serve with this particular ad. If you want to permanently remove a creative from this ad's rotation, unassign the creative from your ad.

Preview: View the creative in a preview window. For rich media creatives, you can change properties in preview and save your changes directly to the creative.

Type: The creative type of the associated creative.

Creative groups: Creative groups are a way to label your creatives in reports. To help you organize your creative groups, Campaign Manager 360 splits them up into two categories, Creative Group 1 and Creative Group 2. You can add your creative to one group in either category, or in both. Use these grouping options in any way you like. Learn more

Event tags: Leave this ON unless you want to disable event tag tracking for the creative in this ad. A creative set to OFF will not use event tags for this ad. Your settings here do not affect the creative in other ads, just this one.

Landing page: A landing page is the final page to direct people to when they click or tap your ad. The landing page you set here only applies to the creative for this ad. You can assign a creative to several ads and set a different landing page for each ad. Learn more

Start date / End date: This is the period of time when an assigned creative can serve with your ad. By default, your creative is scheduled to run as long as your ad does.

Placement assignments

Here you can view which placements your ad is assigned to, plus information about the placements: status, site the placement will be on, start/end dates, and whether the ad is included in rotation.

Assignments: Click Edit placement assignments to change the placements your ad is assigned to.
Rotation: You can also select a placement's checkbox and use the Actions menu to unassign the placement or take the ad out of its rotation. When an ad is included in rotation on a placement, it serves in rotation with the other ads assigned to the placement. Just make sure your placement still has other ads that can serve (check your campaign view to check its assignments). Otherwise, only the default ad will serve.
Dimensions: There needs to be at least one creative assigned to an ad for every size supported by each assigned placement.

Landing page URL suffix

Here you can enter a suffix to be appended to the landing page URL of this ad. Leave Inherit URL suffix on to use whatever suffix is set at the advertiser or campaign level. Learn more

Dynamic targeting keys

Dynamic targeting keys are unique, friendly labels that can be assigned to ads, creatives and placements and used for targeting with Studio dynamic creatives. Use these labels to save time and avoid the errors that may arise when you use numeric Campaign Manager 360 IDs (such as placement IDs) in your dynamic feeds.

Click Assign targeting key to create and assign a key to your ad. Learn more about dynamic targeting keys

Event tags

Event tags allow parties outside Campaign Manager 360 to log information about impressions and clicks on your ads. You can create event tags in your advertiser or campaign and choose whether to apply them automatically to your ads or require they be added manually. Choose which impression and click tags to apply to this particular ad here. Learn more

Targeting sections

Targeting sections help target your ad to your audience based on different criteria, including geography, time and day, and keywords. Targeting is complex and there isn't space to cover all of it here. See our targeting guide articles:

Audience Segmentation

Here you can manage different groups of users from your campaign's audience called segments. You can target different ads to each segment and compare results. If you create multiple segment groups, each group will divide your audience separately from the others.

Requirements for your ad to serve

Requirements for standard ads to serve or tracking ads to collect data

These are the requirements for standard ads to serve and tracking ads to collect data. If your ad isn't working, check these details to troubleshoot the issue.

Required status and rotation

At least one active creative must be assigned to the ad.
The ad must have an active status. At least one of its creatives must be active, too.
The ad must be included in rotation for the placement. And at least one of the creatives must be included in rotation for the ad. (Check the Include in rotation column in your campaign view.)

Required scheduling / delivery properties

The ad and creative must have both reached their start dates. Make sure the current date and time is after the start date for the ad and creative.
At least one assigned creative must be between its start date and end date. Otherwise, no assigned creatives can be delivered and the ad cannot serve.
If the ad has a hard cut-off, the ad end date must be in the future. If the ad does not have a hard cut-off, the end date does not have to be in the future. (There is a hard cut-off checkbox that you can enable next to the ad end date in the ad properties.)
The ad must have a priority that allows it to serve. Campaign Manager 360 will always serve ads with a low priority number before it serves ads with a high priority number.

If you ad is not serving, check the other assigned ads. Do the other assigned ads have a lower priority number? Your ad will not serve if other eligible ads have a lower priority number and are always eligible to serve. This may happen if you change the priority manually.

Learn more about scheduling below.

Required site and user details for your ad to serve

The placement tags must be live and functional on the publisher's site or network.
Site visitors must meet any ad targeting criteria set in Campaign Manager 360, and Campaign Manager 360 must detect that the user's device can support the assigned creatives.
If you set a frequency cap, the ad must not have reached it. That means it has not served too many times to the same user (i.e., to a browser associated with the same DoubleClick cookie) based on your frequency cap settings in the ad properties.
As noted above, a standard ad must have a click or impression in the last 30 days after the ad end date. Campaign Manager 360 will automatically deactivate the ad if it goes more than 30 days after the end date without a click or impression.

Required dimensions

Display placements can have many sizes, and the ads assigned to them need to have at least one creative of each size. Only creatives that match the placement size will serve from the assigned ad.

Ad and creative scheduling

How it works

Standard ads can start serving on the ad start date under "Delivery properties". They can deliver any creatives that are also scheduled to start (based on the creative start dates). By default, any creatives you assign are set to start delivery at the same time. But you can change your creative schedule under "Creative assignments." There are fields for start/end dates for each assigned creative. This way, you can schedule different creatives to serve at different times.
Tracking ads can start serving (i.e., collect data) on the ad start date. By default, the assigned tracking creative is scheduled to start delivery and collect data at the same time. As with standard ads, you can change this under "Creative assignments."
Standard and tracking ads only stop serving on the ad end date if you check the "Hard cut-off" box. Otherwise, the ad will continue delivery, provided its Campaign Manager 360 settings meet the other criteria. This includes having one or more creatives that are scheduled to serve.

How to change your ad and creative schedule

How to schedule ads

Click the "Start date and time" and "End date and time" fields to edit them. The ad end date doesn't apply unless you check the "Hard cut-off" box next to it.

If you want your ad to continue serving past its end date, uncheck the hard cut-off box and make sure at least one creative end date is inherited from the ad.

How to schedule creatives

Open the "Creative assignments" section and find the start/end date columns. Unlock any date you want to change.

An inherited date and time matches your ad's schedule: it updates automatically to match your ad. For example, if you set an ad to start on 3/1/14 12:00 pm, the creative updates to start on 3/1/14 12:00pm. That way, your creative is always able to serve with the ad.
If you don't see "Inherited" next to the date and time, it doesn't update to match your ad's schedule. This option is useful if you want to set different creatives to run with your ad at different times. For example, you might schedule one creative to run the first week and another creative to run the second week. To turn off inheritance, click Edit , turn off "Inherit start date" or "Inherit end date", and set your start or end date.

Tips for creative scheduling:

Creative assignment settings only affect when your creative can be delivered with this particular ad. Your creative can have different run dates for each ad it's assigned to.
Make sure at least one creative is scheduled to serve on the ad start date. Otherwise, your ad will not be able to deliver anything to the placement and Campaign Manager 360 will need to pick another ad. Or, in the case of tracking ads, the tracking ad will stop collecting data.
If you don't set the creative to inherit the ad's end date and you disable the ad's hard cut-off, the ad can continue serving indefinitely, even after the ad and creative end dates. However, Campaign Manager 360 will automatically deactivate a standard ad if it goes more than 30 days after the end date without a click or impression. This does not affect tracking ads.

How hard cut-offs and creative dates work together

Ad settings	Creative start date	Creative end date	What happens after the creative end date?
Hard cut-off + non-inherited creative start or end dates	This can be any date within the ad start and end dates. It defaults to the ad start date, but you can edit it because it's not inherited.	This date can be any date within the ad run dates. It defaults to the ad end date, but you can edit it because it's not inherited.	Standard ads: If your ad is still scheduled to serve after the creative end date, then Campaign Manager 360 will pick another assigned creative to deliver. If the ad has no other eligible creatives, then Campaign Manager 360 will choose another ad for the impression. If your placement has no other eligible ads, then Campaign Manager 360 will send a transparent pixel. Tracking ads: The ad stops collecting data.
Hard cut-off + inherited creative start or end dates	Same as the ad start date. The creative dates are inherited from the ad.	Same as the ad end date. The creative end date is the same as the ad end date because it's inherited from the ad.	Standard ads: Creative delivery stops on the ad end date, so Campaign Manager 360 must serve a different ad in this case. If your placement has no other eligible ads, then Campaign Manager 360 will send a transparent pixel. Tracking ads: The ad stops collecting data.
No hard cut-off + non-inherited creative start or end dates	This date can be any date within the ad run dates. It defaults to the ad start date, but you can edit it because it's not inherited.	This date can be any date within the ad run dates. It defaults to the ad end date, but you can edit it because it's not inherited.	Standard ads: The ad stops delivering the creative on the creative end date. Campaign Manager 360 must pick another creative for new impressions. If the ad has no other eligible creatives, then Campaign Manager 360 will choose another ad for the impression. If your placement has no other eligible ads, then Campaign Manager 360 will send a transparent pixel. Tracking ads: The ad stops collecting data.
No hard cut-off + inherited creative start or end dates	Same as the ad start date. The creative dates are inherited from the ad.	Same as the ad end date. The creative end date is the same as the ad end date because it's inherited from the ad.	Standard ads: The ad can continue delivering the creative indefinitely. However, if there are no clicks or impressions on the ad for any 30-day period after the ad end date, Campaign Manager 360 will automatically deactivate the ad. If your placement has no other eligible ads, then Campaign Manager will send a transparent pixel. Tracking ads: The ad can continue collecting data with the tracking creative indefinitely.

How Campaign Manager 360 sets start/end dates when you create an ad

When you create an ad, Campaign Manager 360 sets a default start and end date. Campaign Manager 360 chooses different dates depending on when your campaign starts. You can edit these at any time. Here's how it works:

Campaign run dates	Ad run dates	Example
Campaign start date is in the future.	By default, new ads take the current date as the ad start date and the campaign end date as the ad end date.	Say your campaign starts May 1st and ends July 1st. You create an ad on March 2nd, which is before the campaign start date. By default, Campaign Manager 360 will set the ad to start March 2nd (current date) and end July 1st (campaign end date).
Campaign start date has arrived but not the end date.	By default, new ads take the current date for the ad start date and the campaign end date for the ad end date.	Say your campaign starts May 1st and ends July 1st. You create an ad on June 16th. By default, Campaign Manager 360 will set the ad to start June 16th (current date) and end July 1st (campaign end date).
Campaign end date has arrived.	By default, new ads take the current date for the ad start date and the ad end date is set one month later.	Say your campaign starts May 1st and ends July 1st. You create an ad on August 16th. By default, Campaign Manager 360 will set the ad to start August 16th (current date) and end September 16th (one month later).

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