Mediation

See About AdMob Mediation for a walk-through of what mediation is and how to use the AdMob Mediation UI. Then, continue reading these instructions for adding mediation code to your app.

Add mediation to your project

1. Integrate AdMob ads

Follow the same instructions used for integrating AdMob ads into your app. To integrate non-interstitial ads (banner size, leaderboard size, and so on), see Banner Ads. To integrate interstitial ads (full-screen ads that mask all other content), see Interstitial Ads.

Once you've completed these integration steps, you'll make a few small modifications described below to change your AdMob ad placement into a mediation placement that can show ads from multiple networks.

2. Add network adapters and SDKs

You're now ready to download and add to your project the adapters and SDKs of all the ad networks you'd like to serve ads from. To find links to them, see Mediation Networks.

To add the downloaded network adapters/SDKs in Xcode, right-click on your project and click Add Files to project.

3. Include network configurations

You need to include any frameworks, compiler flags, or linker flags that your chosen networks require. For your convenience, the mediation networks page has links to each network's instructions.

There is no need to write additional code to create ad views from each ad network. Mediation invokes each ad network's adapter and SDK as necessary to create ads. Below, you can see how to set up mediation listeners that notify you of ad events for all of your networks.

That's it!

Optional setup

Specify additional request parameters

Demographic targeting

You can optionally add the user's location, gender, and birthday to your requests. These are not required but can be used by networks to serve more finely targeted ads. GADRequest provides methods for setting birthday and location, and a property for setting gender. These parameters are forwarded to all networks that you mediate. Here is an example:

GADRequest *request = [GADRequest request];
request.gender = kGADGenderFemale;
NSDateComponents *components = [[NSDateComponents alloc] init];
components.month = 1;
components.day = 1;
components.year = 1985;
request.birthday = [[NSCalendar currentCalendar] dateFromComponents:components];

let request = GADRequest()
request.gender = .Female
let components = NSDateComponents()
components.month = 1
components.day = 1
components.year = 1985
request.birthday = NSCalendar.currentCalendar().dateFromComponents(components)

Network-specific parameters

Some networks also support other request parameters that are specific to their network. These are not required but can be used by networks to serve more finely targeted ads. Ad networks with extra parameters expose a class in their adapter that extends GADExtras.

Let's say there is a sample ad network that exposes an income parameter. That ad network may provide a class that looks like this:

@interface SampleExtras : GADExtras

  @property(nonatomic, assign) NSInteger income;

@end

class SampleExtras: GADExtras {
  var income = 0
  ...
}

If you're mediating this network, you can provide the income to that particular network by passing an instance of their extras class to registerAdNetworkExtras::

SampleExtras *sampleExtras = [[SampleExtras alloc] init];
sampleExtras.income = 65000;
[request registerAdNetworkExtras:sampleExtras];

let sampleExtras = SampleExtras()
sampleExtras.income = 65000
request.registerAdNetworkExtras(sampleExtras)

Request agent (for third-party libraries)

Third-party libraries that reference the Mobile Ads SDK should call the setRequestAgent() method to denote the platform from which the ad request originated. For example, if a third-party ad network called "Cool Ad Network" mediates requests to the Mobile Ads SDK and wants to tag its requests for Analytics purposes, it can do so like this:

GADRequest *request = [GADRequest request];
request.requestAgent = @"Cool Ad Network"

let request = GADRequest()
request.requestAgent = "Cool Ad Network"

Set up event notification

To be notified of ad lifecycle events like impressions, you can implement a GADBannerViewDelegate. When using AdMob Mediation, this delegate is notified of events from all the networks you're mediating. For example, impressions from any ad network are reported through the GADBannerViewDelegate method adViewDidReceiveAd:().

See the Ad Events guide for instructions on how to register for ad events.

Check the value of adNetworkClassName

You can optionally check the adNetworkClassName property of GADBannerView, which returns the class name of the ad network that fetched the current banner. This property can be checked once adViewDidReceiveAd is called:

- (void)adViewDidReceiveAd:(GADBannerView *)bannerView {
  NSLog(@"Banner adapter class name: %@", bannerView.adNetworkClassName);
}

func adViewDidReceiveAd(bannerView: GADBannerView!) {
  print("Banner adapter class name: \(bannerView.adNetworkClassName)")
}

Similarly, the adNetworkClassName property of GADInterstitial can be checked once interstitialDidReceiveAd is called:

- (void)interstitialDidReceiveAd:(GADInterstitial *)interstitial {
  NSLog(@"Interstitial adapter class name: %@", interstitial.adNetworkClassName);
}

func interstitialDidReceiveAd(ad: GADInterstitial!) {
  print("Interstitial adapter class name: \(ad.adNetworkClassName)")
}

For ads returned from AdMob, adNetworkClassName returns GADMAdapterGoogleAdMobAds. For ads fetched via custom events, it returns GADMAdapterCustomEvents.

FAQ

What if I want to mediate with a network, but there is no supported adapter for it?

You can write your own mediation adapters using Custom Events.

Does GADBannerViewDelegate still work with mediation?

Yes, it still works with all mediation networks.

I want to add a new network to my mediation configuration for the next version of my app. How will that affect the current version of my app that doesn't include this network?

The SDK detects when an adapter isn't there and fails gracefully; the request then goes to the next network in the mediation waterfall.

What does the "<Google> Cannot find an ad network adapter with the name(s): (GADMSomeAdapter)" error message mean?

Your project is likely missing the adapter library that contains this class. You need to add network adapters and SDKs for all ad networks you're mediating.