Rich Media QA guidelines

Quality Assurance (QA) involves testing based on the format and features of each creative. These tests confirm that a creative behaves according to both advertiser and publisher specifications. QA tests do not judge design; such qualitative questions are for the client to decide.

Find creatives that are ready for QA

Filter the list of creatives to show them by status. To find creatives that are ready for QA testing:

  1. Go to the Creatives tab, then open a campaign.
  2. Add a Status filter, then select Published. The list is filtered to show only creatives that are ready for QA testing.

Use QA checklists to test your creative

Use the QA checklists to test your creative's functionality and review publisher best practices. Some checks may not apply to your creative format or your specific publisher's recommendations, but it's a good idea to follow these guidelines to avoid campaign delays.

Test creatives

QA from Preview

To view an external preview for testing:

  1. In the Creatives tab, click Campaigns, then select your campaign.
  2. Click the preview URL at the top.

To share a preview externally, you can email the external preview link:

  1. In your campaign view, click Email preview link and enter the necessary information.
  2. An email containing the external preview link is sent to the email address provided in the "Notify" field. No edits can be made to the creative from an external preview.
Test events

Test any custom events you wish to record in your creative to make sure they're recording at the right time. This ensures that the right metrics will be included in your campaign reports. To test events, use the Event summary panel, which logs standard and custom events. Events are displayed at the bottom of the event summary panel.

Test creative event recording

  1. Click Show details , then click Event summary.
  2. Play around with your creative preview. Click on any buttons that should trigger custom counters, exits or timers. If your creative has video, play the video and try out the video controls to make sure video events are logged.
  3. If events don't fire when expected, check your creative code to make sure the appropriate custom event code has been added.

See a list of events with counts

The Event summary displays the total number of events in your creative, and real-time event logging as you interact with your creative preview. You can also see a count of how many times each event is triggered.

Here are some tips for using the panel as you review events:

  • Enter an event name in the "Event name" field to search for a specific event.
  • Make the event list easier to review by applying filters to the event list:
    • Type: Filter the display by event type:
      • All: List all events.
      • Custom: List only custom events added by the creative developer.
      • Standard: List Studio standard events, which are automatically added to the creative.
    • Show: Filter the display by triggered or untriggered events, depending on whether you tested them in the Preview tab.
      • All: List all events.
      • Triggered: Show only events that have been triggered in the current preview session.
      • Untriggered: Show events that haven't been triggered in the current preview session.

See a log of events with timestamps

Click Event log (below Event summary, you may need to scroll down to see it). The Event log shows real-time logs for standard and custom events. Events include a time stamp, event type, and event name. As events are triggered in the preview, each new event is displayed at the top of the list.

Click Clear log if you need to clear out the list and start over. Only the log display is cleared; counts in the summary will not cleared.

Test in multiple browsers

The Studio QA team performs tests on the most popular browsers and operating systems. If you're doing your own QA, review your media plan to decide which browsers, environments and devices to test.

Tools for QA testing

These are the applications and tools you'll need when conducting QA checks.

Platform requirements

  • OS: Windows XP, Macintosh
  • Browser: Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari. Be sure to test on the latest fully released product-supported version (not beta).

HTTP debugging and monitoring tool

Use an HTTP debugging and monitoring tool such as Firefox DevTools or Microsoft Edge DevTools or Chrome's DevTools when testing creatives. These tools help you check that files are correctly loaded, whether external assets are being loaded, and whether the creative is making any external tracking calls.

Performance monitor or activity monitor

Use Performance Monitor (Windows) or Activity Monitor (Mac) to check the CPU usage of the creative. These performance monitors are already installed with your operating system. Make sure that you aren't running any other programs that could affect CPU usage while you're going through the QA process.

When a creative is live, you may not know for sure what environment it will be served into. There could be a number of complex animations and other processor-intensive objects running on the page at the same time. As a result CPU usage shouldn't exceed 40% on an average computer when you preview this creative.

Video player

It's helpful to have a standalone video player, like QuickTime to test video files.

After review

If the creatives passed all of your tests, you can approve them, reject them, add notes about them or send notifications to other people about their status. You can also send them to the associated Campaign Manager 360 advertiser.

Approve creatives

  1. Go to the Creatives tab, then open a campaign.
  2. Check the checkboxes next to the creatives you want to approve.
  3. You can approve creatives and leave them in Studio, or approve them and send them to an associated Campaign Manager 360 advertiser.
    • Approve only: Click QA optionsand thenApprove. The selected creatives' statuses change from “Pending” to “QA approved”.
    • Approve and submit: Click QA optionsand thenApprove & Submit. The statuses of the selected creatives change from “Pending” to “QA approved” and they're sent to the associated Campaign Manager 360 advertiser.

Send approved creatives to Campaign Manager 360

If creatives are QA approved, but haven't been sent to Campaign Manager 360 yet, you can select them and click Click QA optionsand thenSubmit Approved.

Reject creatives

  1. Go to the Creatives tab, then open a campaign.
  2. Check the checkboxes next to the creatives you want to reject.
  3. Click QA optionsand thenReject. A pop-up appears where you can enter feedback for the creative developer. The statuses of the selected creatives change from “Pending” to “QA rejected”.

Add or view notes about a creative

  1. Click a creative’s name to open it.
  2. On the page that loads, click Add comment .

Send notifications

  1. Go to the Creatives tab, then open a campaign.
  2. Check the checkboxes next to the creatives you want to send notifications about. You can only send notifications about creatives with the statuses "QA approved" or "QA rejected".
  3. Click QA optionsand thenNotify. A pop-up window appears.
  4. Enter email addresses, select whether you want a copy, and add an optional message.
  5. Choose a notification option:
    1. If you want to send emails only, click Notify.
    2. If you want to send emails and submit the creatives to the associated Campaign Manager 360 or Google Ad Manager account, click Notify and submit.

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