DFP Premium and Ad Exchange releases archive

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• DART tag deprecation
  DART tag deprecation is scheduled to take place on April 5, 2016. After deprecation, DART tags will no longer deliver ads; instead, they will respond with an HTTP 400 error. Be aware that DART tag deprecation affects all DFP DART tags (includes internal redirects/DFP JS tags used as third-party tags), but NOT DCM legacy tags. Please replace any DART tags on your sites with Google Publisher Tags (GPT) prior to the cutoff date to ensure seamless ad serving. Learn more
• Changes to reporting of eCPMs and impressions
  To help provide clarity, we’ve made three CPM-related changes to the Ad Exchange.
  • Changed the default CPM metric from eCPM to “Ad eCPM (new)”
  • Renamed eCPM to “Matched eCPM”
  • Added new versions of Ad eCPM and Ad Impression that count a single ad impression if an ad request returns multiple text ads to a single slot, the deprecation of old versions of these two metrics, and the removal of old versions over time.
  Learn more about eCPM in Ad Exchange

DFP Premium

• DFP Mediation for mobile apps
  Access mobile app demand from third-party ad networks while continuing to use DFP and Ad Exchange. Learn more
• DFP Dashboard includes new filters
  Ad unit, advertiser, and country name filters are available in the network snapshot card and leaderboard card.
• Dynamic allocation for sponsorships
  Dynamic allocation now supports standard and sponsorship line items; both types can compete with Ad Exchange and other lower-priority remnant line items while ensuring reservation delivery. Ad Exchange and other lower-priority line items still cannot compete when a 100% sponsorship line item is eligible, or when a combination of sponsorship line items at the same priority with goals that add up to greater than or equal to 100% are eligible.

Ad Exchange

• Notable changes to Ad Exchange Query Tool
  We've removed some already deprecated dimensions that have outlived their value and utility. Here is the list of dimensions:
  • Settings rules
  • Ad units
  • Bid types
  • Bid results
• Ad Exchange Creative review includes policy status and more
  When reviewing an upcoming ad in Creative review, the policy status appears in the left sidebar. This includes the ad’s deals status and open auction status. The sidebar also includes the creative file size and whether the creative uses data collection pixels. Learn more
• Changes to Ad Exchange Block Override for Preferred Deals
  As of March 30, the Block Override feature overrides Open Auction policy restrictions for Preferred Deals. Learn more
• Deprecating reparenting in Ad Exchange
  We've removed the ability to assign a new parent to a child ad slot.

DFP Premium

• vCPM (viewable impressions)
  You can now forecast, traffic, serve, and report on viewable impressions (vCPM) line items using Google’s Active View technology. Viewability helps determine how likely it is that an ad was actually seen by a user. Publishers with the most viewable inventory will be in the best position to earn more revenue from this trend. Learn more.
• Advanced video: improved metadata key-value mapping
  It’s now easier to map your CMS keys and values to DFP key-values. Learn how to manage CMS keys and values.
• DFP Dashboard includes unfilled impressions
  Unfilled impressions are now available in the network snapshot card. If you haven’t yet added the network snapshot card, unfilled impressions will be included upon addition of the card. If you added the card before this release, you’ll need to remove then re-add the card to show unfilled impressions. Learn more
• Removed the “Text and image” creative type
  We removed the seldom-used “Text and image” creative type. This creative type is still available as a system-defined creative template named “Mobile application download”, so there’s no loss in functionality for publishers. Existing "Text and image" creatives have become identical "Mobile application download" template creatives with no interruption to ad serving.

Ad Exchange

• Advertiser name added to the Data Transfer report
  A new Advertiser name field has been added to the report entries. Learn more about protocol buffers in Data Transfer.

DFP Premium

• DFP API v201602: Highlights from this API release include:
  • Support for Active View (vCPM)
  • Support for forecasting with alternative unit types
  • Availability of terms and conditions on proposals via API

  Learn more on the Google Ads Developer Blog.

• Changes to data protection report
  Creatives delivered via dynamic allocation are no longer scanned by DFP and so are not included in the data protection report.
• Changes to custom fields
  Location and type can no longer be changed for a custom field after it has been saved. Learn more about custom fields.
• Deprecation of segments overlap report
  Because of reliability issues, we have deprecated the segments overlap report. In place of this report, consider running a forecast of two potentially overlapping segments in an AND relationship, with a lifetime per-user frequency cap of 1. Note that forecasting is designed to estimate future impressions based on past traffic, whereas the segment overlap report compared identifiers comprising two audience segments. The forecasting workaround is therefore only a rough approximation of the overlap size between the two segments, and should not be viewed as replicating the report.

Ad Exchange

• Deal check enhancement
  Deal Check now shows “Bids not for this deal,” which happens when a buyer receives a request for impressions, but chooses instead to either bid for the impression in the Open Auction, or bid on a different overlapping deal. Learn more
   

Training and Help Center updates

• Publisher University: What’s New in DFP
  In the March 2016 edition of "What's New in DFP," we take a look at new feature updates covering the DFP Dashboard, more granular geographical targeting options, creative-level targeting, new GPT targeting macros, companies filtering, and more. Check out the video on Publisher University.

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DFP Release notes card
Starting February 16th, 2016, you can view DFP releases in the “Release notes” card of the DFP Dashboard.

DFP Premium

• Notable change to DFP Query Tool reporting
  DFP Query Tool has phased out reporting on orders, line items, ad units, and placements that don't include metrics. You can continue to export orders and line items from the "Delivery" tab. We're also working on a future feature to export ad units from DFP Inventory management. Be aware that ‘scheduled reports without metrics’ will no longer run. Note that reports related to Sales Manager don't change as a result of this update.
• Postal code targeting
  Postal code targeting is now available for France (FR), Germany (DE), India (IN), and the United Kingdom (GB). 
• Ads status dashboard
  We’ve released the Ads Status Dashboard, a new, publicly-accessible tool that enables you to learn about major outages or functionality concerns across DoubleClick products, including DoubleClick for Publishers, DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DoubleClick Sales Manager.
• Advanced video: MPEG-DASH
  For DFP-hosted assets, DFP can now transcode media files into the MPEG-DASH format. Learn more about transcoding.
• Change History update
  We’re releasing a new, improved version of change history. This will be a gradual rollout, with new changes migrated to the new change history in groups. As a first step to this rollout, changes to Roles will be temporarily unavailable via the Admin page and instead should be viewed from the details page for a given Role.

Ad Exchange

• Flexible Ad Exchange sizes for apps
  Flexible sizes, which allow you to specify a range of creative sizes that a segment of your inventory will accept, can now be used for apps. This removes the previous limitation where creative size must equal inventory size on apps. 

Training and Help Center updates

• What’s New in Ad Exchange
  In the February 2016 edition of "What's New in Ad Exchange," we take a look at updates including the rollout of video interstitials for mobile app publishers, the deprecation of Ad Exchange seller names, and the removal of the “Hold placement ads for 24 hours” option from Creative Review. Check out the video on Publisher University.
• Register now for the March 2016 Display Ads API Workshops:
  We're pleased to announce that we’ll be holding a series of Display Ads API Workshops in March 2016. These workshops are a half-day of tech talks, group discussions, and office hours geared toward developers who use the DoubleClick for Publishers API, Interactive Media Ads SDK, or Mobile Ads SDKs. The workshops will be held in the following cities:
  • San Francisco - March 14, 2016: Register here
  • New York - March 21, 2016: Register here

For more information on the 2-session agenda and a preview of our talks, see our workshop page.

DFP Premium

• Notable change to DFP Query Tool reportimng
  DFP Query Tool has phased out reporting on orders, line items, ad units, and placements that don't include metrics. You can continue to export orders and line items from the "Delivery" tab. We're also working on a future feature to export ad units from DFP Inventory management. Be aware that ‘scheduled reports without metrics’ will no longer run. Note that reports related to Sales Manager don't change as a result of this change.

Ad Exchange

• Traffic app video interstitials: rollout is complete
  We’ve completed the rollout of the ability for Ad Exchange App publishers to show video interstitials, including TrueView and Video click-to-download. You can display both skippable and standard videos. Video demand competes with standard image ads to maximize performance for the publisher. Learn more
• Ad Exchange seller names deprecation
  You can no longer associate a seller name with inventory channels, and existing seller names have been removed from your inventory. Reporting channels are not affected by this change.

Training and Help Center updates

Register now for the March 2016 Display Ads API Workshops:
We're pleased to announce that we’ll be holding a series of Display Ads API Workshops in March 2016. These workshops are a half-day of tech talks, group discussions, and office hours geared toward developers who use the DoubleClick for Publishers API, Interactive Media Ads SDK, or Mobile Ads SDKs. The workshops will be held in the following cities:

• San Francisco - March 14, 2016: Register here
• New York - March 21, 2016: Register here

For more information on the 2-session agenda and a preview of our talks, see our workshop page.

Coming soon...

• DFP Reporting
  We’ll be retiring the report size column in the DFP Queries and Report listing. We're replacing it with a column that shows the number of rows in each report, to give you a better idea of the size of your reports.
• DFP Release notes card
  Starting February 16th, 2016, you’ll be able to view DFP releases in the “Release notes” card of the DFP Dashboard.
• DFP Targeting
  Postal code targeting will soon be available for France (FR), Germany (DE), India (IN), and the United Kingdom (GB).

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More granular targeting within country geo

The following countries now provide more granular targeting: Estonia, Greece, Hong Kong, Latvia, Lithuania, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

DFP Premium

Tagging

New GPT targeting macros
You can now insert one or both of these macros into your creative code:

• %%PATTERN:TARGETINGMAP%%: Expand the complete key-value string and dynamically create passback tags. This serves the same function as the %p macro in DART tags.
• %%ADUNIT%%: Insert the complete ad unit path into your creative code.

Learn more about these new macros.

DFP-to-DFP internal redirects
You can now traffic tags between two separate DFP networks by using internal redirects. Learn more.

DART tag deprecation
Fewer than 75 days remain before DART tag deprecation. Please migrate to Google Publisher Tags (GPT) as soon as possible. Learn how to re-tag from legacy DART tags to GPT.

Delivery

Change in how “Ready” line items are indicated in the user interface
Line items in the “Ready” state will now be displayed with a blue background to more easily distinguish them from line items that are in the “Paused” state.

Admin

Broader availability of filters
Filters are now available on the “Companies” section of the Admin tab, allowing you to quickly locate companies with certain characteristics. You can also save filters for reuse, a convenience for searches that you use often. Learn more about filters.

Partner management

Simplified DFP partner management
This approach allows you to indicate a simple percentage revenue share for each of your partners right on their details page. This replaces the separately managed financial terms. As part of this launch, the “Partner management” metrics replace the existing dimensions and metrics for partner management. Learn more.

Ad Exchange

Creative review

Removal of “Hold placement ads for 24 hours” from Creative review
On January 27, 2016, this feature will no longer be available in Ad Exchange. This mode currently only applies to a small fraction of ads (those that are placement targeted). Learn more about why we’re removing this setting.

Training and Help Center updates

Register now for the March 2016 Display Ads API Workshops: We're pleased to announce that we’ll be holding a series of Display Ads API Workshops in March 2016. These workshops are a half-day of tech talks, group discussions, and office hours geared toward developers who use the DoubleClick for Publishers API, Interactive Media Ads SDK, or Mobile Ads SDKs. The workshops will be held in the following cities:

• San Francisco - March 14, 2016: Register here
• New York - March 21, 2016: Register here

For more information on the 2-session agenda and a preview of our talks, see our workshop page.

Programmatic Guaranteed (Beta) training videos are now available: To support the recent beta, three new Programmatic Guaranteed training videos are available on Publisher University. The list includes Programmatic Guaranteed: Overview, Create a Proposal, and Create a Product.

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DFP Dashboard

The DFP Dashboard is the new homepage in DFP that provides quick insights and information about the campaigns and inventory that matter most. Learn more.

DFP Premium

Creative-level targeting
You can now target creatives across devices and other criteria within the same line item, allowing for more granular control over which creatives serve, and where. The feature is particularly useful for matching creatives to operating systems (for example, iOS and Android). Learn more.

Ad Exchange

Reporting

Notable changes to Ad Exchange Query Tool
We’ll be deprecating some dimensions that have outlived their value and utility. These changes will occur from time to time. Please check this article periodically to learn about these updates.

Updates to Benchmark reporting
As of December 8th, Publisher Benchmark reporting has new dimensions and metric support:

Dimensions--

• Creative sizes
• Ad locations
• Device
• Operating systems

Metric-- Average viewable time

Learn more about compatible dimensions and metrics for Benchmark queries.

Mobile

Traffic app video interstitials
We’ve begun rolling out the ability for Ad Exchange publishers to show video interstitials, including TrueView and Video click-to-download. They can display both skippable and standard videos. Video demand will compete with standard image ads to maximize performance for the publisher. The rollout will be complete in January. Learn more.

Training and Help Center updates

Ad Exchange Publisher Profiles: As a publisher, you can increase your visibility to advertisers and buyers looking to run ads on your sites using a publisher profile. If you don’t have any profiles created for your account, these two newly updated training videos can help you get up and running: Publisher Profiles: Overview, Create a Publisher Profile.

What’s New in DFP: In the December 2015 edition of "What's New in DFP," we take a look at new feature updates covering terminology changes in the UI, in-line targeting editing for line items, trafficking direct-sold native ads in apps, the new IDFA/AdID macro for mobile app creatives, and DFP multi-login. Check out the video on Publisher University.

DFP Premium

API

DFP API v201511: This release includes some trafficking clean-up to make the API easier to use. We also added a few sales manager reporting dimension attributes, and you can now set DeliverySettings on ProductTemplates. Learn more.

Ad Exchange

Reporting

Notable changes to Ad Exchange Query Tool: We’ll be deprecating some dimensions that have outlived their value and utility. These changes will occur from time to time. Please check this article periodically to learn about these updates.

Deals

Send offers directly to clients of Ad Exchange buyers: You can now send Preferred Deal or Private Auction offers to specific clients of buyers. Clients must have explicit permissions from their buyer to be able to receive direct offers from publishers.

Training and Help Center updates

• What’s New in DFP: In the December 2015 edition of "What's New in DFP," we take a look at new feature updates covering terminology changes in the UI, in-line targeting editing for line items, trafficking direct-sold native ads in apps, the new IDFA/AdID macro for mobile app creatives, and DFP multi-login. Check out the video on Publisher University.
• DFP Admin training in Publisher University: We’ve overhauled the tutorials that cover the different features and configurable options within the DFP Admin tab. Check out the new Admin module in the DFP Fundamentals for Administrators course, or watch the video tutorials in the Mix & Match section.

DFP Premium

Finance

Improved reconciliation experience: Each billing cycle for reconciliation now starts with a simplified list of orders that served in that billing cycle. From this list, you can select just the orders on which to perform reconciliation. Prior to this, reconciliation was performed on a list of all orders in a billing cycle. This approach improves performance and allows you to focus only on orders that require your attention. Learn more.

Reporting

You can now report on ActiveView metrics when using the "Device Category" dimension.

Ad Exchange

Deal health improvements

We’ve made several improvements over the last several months to our tools to make it easier for publishers to monitor their active deals. We have enhanced Deal Check to surface additional insights on deal competition including “Lost to DFP” and “Bid met minimum price but was outbid.” Buyers must also input an email address for new deals so that publishers know whom to contact if there are problems. Last but not least, we’ve added metrics (ad requests, impressions, and fill rate over the last 7 days) to the active deals table to allow publishers to quickly identify “unhealthy” deals.

Training and Help Center updates

• What’s New in Ad Exchange - November 2015: Want to stay up to date with the latest Ad Exchange releases? In the November 2015 edition of "What's New in Ad Exchange," we take a look at organizational updates to the Ad Exchange user interface, the introduction of Benchmark Queries in reporting, and a feature that allows the ability to traffic video interstitial ads to Ad Exchange using DFP dynamic allocation. Check out the video on Publisher University.
• Ad Exchange Benchmark Queries, New Video Tutorial: Benchmark Queries is a new query type in the Ad Exchange reporting tool that gives publishers the ability to see how their business is performing in comparison to their peers, or even the entire Ad Exchange market, across different performance metrics. Check out the new video tutorial, now available on Publisher University as part of the Reporting with Query Tool course, and the Ad Exchange Mix & Match page!
• DFP: Troubleshooting - Ad Selection / Dynamic allocation, New Video Tutorial: Ever wonder what goes on behind the scene of DFP ad selection and dynamic allocation? The "Troubleshooting: Ad Selection" video is now available on Publisher University. This video walks through the steps of the ad selection process, including when a request is eligible for dynamic allocation. Watch it now on Publisher University.

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Traffic app video interstitials from Ad Exchange

DFP app publishers who backfill through dynamic allocation can now show video interstitials, including TrueView and Video click-to-download, from Ad Exchange. They can display both skippable and standard videos. Video demand will compete with standard Image ads to maximize performance for the publisher. Learn more.

DFP Premium

Account management

Multi-login now enabled for all DFP accounts: You can now access multiple DFP accounts in the same window. No need to sign out or open an incognito (or private browsing) window. Click the account drop-down on the top navigation bar, click Add account, and then select the email address with which the additional DFP account is associated.

Ad Exchange

Deals

Access and monitor your active deals: When accessing your active preferred deals or private auctions, you can quickly monitor and identify any potential issues by viewing key metrics for all deals at once. Ad Exchange allows you to filter and sort the list of deals to easily highlight those that may not be transacting. Learn more.

Manage your deals settings: You can configure your settings for deals to control how buyers see you as a publisher, and to which buyers you are visible. Settings previously configured individually for display, video, and app properties are now managed together at your account level. Learn more.

Training and Help Center updates

• Update to the DFP reporting modules in Publisher University: We’ve produced seven new tutorials to help you understand the Query Tool and learn how it’s used to produce, schedule, and share reports. You can access the tutorials in the DFP Fundamentals for Traffickers and Administrators courses, or in the DFP Mix & Match section.
• New video interstitial training video in Publisher University: Mobile app video interstitials are now available to serve in Ad Exchange via DFP Dynamic Allocation. To help you understand all of the details, a new training video is available on Publisher University.

DFP Premium

Targeting

Inline editing of targeting criteria: You can now edit a line item’s targeting criteria directly from the “Line items” page using text strings. Learn more

Advanced video

Multiple midrolls supported in ad rules: You can now set podding, max number of ads, ad durations, and bumpers for midroll ads at each cue point. Learn more

Ad Exchange

User interface

Changes to the Ad Exchange user interface have been made to simplify options in the navigation sidebar and to achieve a consistent experience with the DFP user interface. Syndication types (Display, Video, Games, and Mobile In-App) have moved from the navigation sidebar and are now accessible as sub-tabs from individual inventory, rules, and creative review pages. All other functionality is not affected by these changes.

Query Tool

Publisher benchmark report: The Ad Exchange Publisher benchmark report now provides information on how your business is performing across different performance metrics compared to peer groups or all publishers in the exchange. You are able to gather insights into such areas as percentage of impression growth, eCPM averages across certain inventory, viewability coverage by ad size, or identify potential opportunities in advertiser categories.

Admin

Payment ID (this change applies to Network Partner Management publishers only): There now exists a payment ID across DFP and Ad Exchange, for all publishers to ensure that there is a single identifier that indicates the entity that is paid for an impression. The buyer of an impression receives a chain of unique, persistent supplier identifiers for the publisher for branded inventory.

DFP Premium

Reporting

DFP Query Tool and Data Transfer reports have undergo changes in reporting values related to user devices making ad requests. While the value outputs are generally not documented, we did want to alert you of the updates. The changes went into effect on October 1st.

• In DFP Query Tool, these changes appear in output of reports that use the Targeting dimension. The keys and values below appear in the output of the Targeting dimension and these keys are affected: Browser, DeviceCapability, MobileCarrier, OperatingSystemVersion, and Platform.

  Here are the changes:

  • The letter case of some values have been adjusted. For example, iphone3,3_from_apple have become iphone3,3_from_Apple
  • For OperatingSystemVersion key, some values were prefixed with EqualTo. These prefixes have been dropped.
  • For the OperatingSystemVersion key, "iphone" and "ipad" have changed to "iOS"
  • For Platform
    • "HighEndMobile" has changed to "Mobile Highend"
    • "MidrangeMobile" has changed to "Mobile Midrange"
  • For DeviceCapability, "supports calls" has changed to "Phone calls"
• In DFP Data Transfer, the changed values appear in columns: Browser, DeviceCategory, MobileCapability, MobileCarrier, and OSVersion.

We're making these changes in order to standardize values across our Query Tool, Data Transfer and API services. Please prepare any of your services that depend on these values.

Ad Exchange

No updates

Training and help center updates

• What’s New in Ad Exchange - October 2015: Want to stay up to date with the latest Ad Exchange releases? In the October 2015 edition of "What's New in Ad Exchange," we take a look at new feature updates covering Open auction pricing rules, renamed dimensions in the Query Tool, declaring the use of Sticky ads in your account, as well as an introduction to the multi-size pricing feature. Check out the video on Publisher University.
• Rules training videos: Two new training videos related to Rules have been added to Publisher University. The first tutorial, Rules Overview, navigates through the “Rules” tab in your account. The second tutorial introduces Blocking Rules, including how to block certain categories of ads, or ads that come from certain URLs, from showing on your sites or apps.
• Three new articles on DFP Audience: We’ve created the following new articles to help clarify differences between types of identifiers and segments, and to detail some use cases specific to DFP Audience for mobile apps:
  • Understanding audience identifiers
  • Differences between types of audience segments
  • Audience for apps

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DFP native ads for apps

DFP now gives publishers the tools to monetize their inventory with direct-sold native ads in apps. Native ads are a rapidly growing class of online ads that match the look, feel, and content of the publisher’s property. You can use DFP to:

• Traffic your mobile native ads with simplicity.
• Control the ad’s look and feel with custom rendering in your app’s code.

Learn more

DFP Premium

Video and Mobile

Required update to IMA SDK for iOS 9: We’re pleased to announce version 3.0.b16 of the IMA SDK for iOS, which was updated to be compatible with a new security feature introduced in iOS 9 called App Transport Security. If you are building for iOS 9, this is a required update, as video ads will not serve correctly without it. The new SDK can be found on the downloads page. Learn more

Advanced video

Reduced latency for content source syncs: New content is now pulled from the delta feed up to 15 times per hour. In most cases, new content is targetable and reportable within 6 minutes of being added to your delta feed. Learn more

Support for HLS transcoding: We’ve added HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) to the list of automatically transcoded formats for hosted media files. Learn more

Ad Exchange

Reporting

Within Ad Exchange Query Tool's "Product" dimension, the "Application" value has been renamed to "Mobile In-App" for consistency within the product.

Rules

Apply pricing and blocking rules for brands: Brands are children that are mapped to parent advertisers, providing you with more granular pricing and blocking options and reporting data. Using brands can help you increase demand through more granular blocking rules.

Apply pricing and blocking rules for unclassified advertisers: An advertiser is considered "unclassified" if it doesn't appear on our list of top 9,500 advertisers available for setting pricing and blocking rules. Any brands belonging to these advertisers are also considered unclassified.

Training

Ad Exchange User Interface Tour: If you're brand new to DoubleClick Ad Exchange, the new Ad Exchange UI Tour training video provides a great way to get started navigating your account.

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Delivery Diagnostics

We've recently made enhancements to our Delivery Diagnostics tool, including:

Delivery Diagnostics, accessible through Publisher Console, shows information about the winning line item for a particular ad unit, as well as contending line items. Learn more about delivery diagnostics.

DFP Premium

Generate ad tags

You can easily customize and generate ad tags from the DFP interface without having to manually edit code. It is now possible to generate tags with advanced functionality such as page-level targeting, inventory unit level targeting and sizes, and passback tags. Learn more

Improved global search

Global search in DFP now returns results that are more intuitive and up to date. For example, searching for “he wo” would now return “hello world.” (Earlier versions of global search would require “hello wo” in order to return the same result.) Smaller improvements, such as to the treatment of special characters, should also enhance usability.

These improvements already affect orders and will roll out to line items and other entities, such as creatives and ad units, in the next two quarters.

Ad Exchange

Sticky ads

You may now monetize sticky ad units by declaring them through rules. A sticky ad is a persistent/fixed ad unit that stays visible while the user scrolls content on the page up or down.

If you use sticky ad units, you must set up rules that declare their existence. Learn about Google restrictions on sticky ads and how to declare them

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Admin

First Look for Contributor: First Look for Contributor extends Contributor users’ eligible inventory to include all impressions for your network, including reservation and sponsorship inventory. Learn more

DFP Premium

Mobile

MRAID v2 support in the new Google Mobile Ads SDK: The new Google Mobile Ads SDK is now available for Android (v7.8) and iOS (v7.4). This SDK release includes support for MRAID v2 (now in open beta), which is the latest version of IAB’s Mobile Rich Ad Interface Definitions standard for advertising in mobile apps. In DFP, you can now target a line item to MRAID v1 or MRAID v2. 

For a full list of SDK updates, see the developer documentation for Android and iOS.

Data Transfer now includes Network Backfill file for Active View

Publishers who are configured to receive Active View files now receive a second file type that contain ActiveView data for backfilled impressions, if applicable. The file name are prefixed with NetworkBackfillActiveViews.

Training

DFP Trafficking Lab
We’re excited to announce the relaunch of DFP Trafficking Lab in Publisher University. Through Labs, you will have an opportunity to sign into a DFP test network where you can practice navigating the DFP Orders Tab, and identify key information about the campaign. Start practicing today on Publisher University!

Ad Exchange

Reporting

Ad Exchange Data Transfer updated: Three new report entry fields have been added to the Ad Exchange Data Transfer reporting functionality:

// Transaction type (0 = second price auction, 1 = fixed cpm, 2 = private exchange)
optional int32 transaction_type = 23;

// Dead ID of winning impressions, separated by '+'
optional string deal_ids = 24;

// Network names of DSPs, separated by '+'
optional string buyer_network_names = 25;

For more information, refer to the Ad Exchange Data Transfer guide for sellers.

AdX Query tool "Platform" dimension has been renamed to "Device Categories". We made this change to improve consistency across Ad Exchange and align with Rules' targeting.

General

To optimize the auction for the purpose of maximizing publisher revenue and buyer return on investment, we are continually exploring changes in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. As we develop new ways to improve the exchange for buyers and sellers, we want to make sure our Help Center documentation remains accurate and accounts for behavior you might see due to optimization. Recently we launched a small update to the main auction dynamics article, we encourage you to review the changes.

Training

What’s New in Ad Exchange - July 2015
Want to stay up to date with the latest Ad Exchange releases? In the July 2015 edition of "What's New in Ad Exchange," we take a look at new feature updates including new custom inventory sizes and the new "Flexible sizes" rule type, as well as updates to options when creating a new Preferred Deal. Check out the video on Publisher University.

Coming soon...

• DFP terminology changes in the user interface will take place in the following month. All other functionality will not be affected by these changes.
  • All instances of Order tab in the user interface will be renamed “Delivery” tab.
  • All instances of custom targeting in the left navigation bar will become “key-values.”
  • Custom criteria in the Inventory picker will become "Key-values and audience segments."
     
• After September 1st, there will be a retirement of the following Ad Exchange Query Tool dimensions: Bid type, Bid results, and Settings rule.
• Within Ad Exchange Query Tool's "Product" dimension, the "Application" value will be renamed to "Mobile in App" for consistency within the product.
• Within Ad Exchange Query Tool, we’ll be making the "Change History" feature more prominent by displaying a "history" button next to the graph buttons. Whenever your data spans over several days, use this button to quickly display all changes that happened over these days.

DFP Premium

Training

Google Publisher Tags certification course
Ideal for publishers who are migrating from DART tags to Google Publisher Tags (GPT), or those who have already implemented GPT, the new Google Publisher Tags certification course is now live on Publisher University. ​The course is comprised of eight video tutorials that provide publisher development teams and other technical users with the information necessary to serve ads in DFP using GPT.

The course is located in the Certification Courses section of the site, or as individual video tutorials in the Mix and Match section.

Ad Exchange

Training

New Query Tool training
The Ad Exchange Query Tool continuously evolves to provide a more robust reporting experience. To help, the course Reporting with the Query Tool is now available on Publisher University. The course consists of ten video tutorials, knowledge checks, example reports, a course glossary, and course exam. Localized versions of the course are available in German, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified), and Chinese (Traditional).

New Query Tool training material is also available in the following Help Center articles:

• Review the Query Tool overview for more information about what the Query Tool offers.
• Two ways to create a query provides information about how to build and manage your queries.
• For more details on working with queries, take a look at Create or edit a query, specifically dimensions and metrics as well as how to share your report with non-Ad Exchange account users.
• Review Understand your report to learn more about the scorecard, charts, and tables.
• Manage system queries covers how to run canned reports and copy system queries for customization.
• Take a look at Rejected ad requests report and Crawler errors report to learn about diagnostic queries.

 

Coming soon...

First Look for Contributor
When you enable First Look for Contributor, you’ll extend Contributor users’ eligible inventory to include all impressions for your network, including reservation and sponsorship inventory. Learn more about Contributor.

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Integration with Google Analytics

DFP publishers using Google Analytics Premium can view their publisher reporting data in their Analytics account to help understand the intersection of ad serving, monetization data, and Analytics data. DFP publishers need to have 90% GPT coverage to qualify (Learn more). Publishers who do not use DFP and do use Ad Exchange directly on their site can integrate Ad Exchange directly with Google Analytics (Learn more). To activate this feature, contact your Google Analytics Premium representative.

DFP Premium

Video

VPAID JS friendly iframe support for DFP video: The IMA SDK now supports VPAID 2 JS creatives rendered in a friendly iframe. Learn more

Audience

'Estimate segment size' feature has been deprecated: In place of this feature, you can pre-populate segments and then check their size a few hours after doing so.

Training

New DFP Reporting 101 & 201 Labs!
We’re excited to announce the launch of DFP Reporting 101 and DFP Reporting 201 Labs in Publisher University. Through Labs, you have an opportunity to sign into a DFP test network with live data and complete a series of Query Tool exercises. The Labs provide you with a practice environment to test the concepts you’ve learned in the Publisher University courses.

Check out the DFP Reporting 101 & 201 Labs!

Ad Exchange

Query Tool

Active View for mobile apps in Ad Exchange Query Tool
With this feature, mobile app publishers can report on Active View insights across their entire inventory, through viewability metrics. You can better understand how mobile apps, ad formats, and sizes perform according to their viewability, and prepare or enhance them for future performance.

Training

New video tutorials on Custom Inventory Sizes and Flexible Ad Sizes
Three new training videos are now available for Ad Exchange publishers on Publisher University. Introduction to Custom Inventory Sizes and Flexible Sizes Rules, Custom Inventory Sizes, and Flexible Sizes Rules provide a great foundation to understand the new inventory size options now available in your account.

Coming soon...

Improvement to companion banner impression reporting in DFP Query Tool: Currently, if you want to see delivery metrics for Companion banner ads, you need to use the "Master or Companion creative" dimension. With this improvement, whenever you use the "Creative Size" dimension in DFP reports, both master and companion ads are included with their respective metrics in reports.

Ad Exchange Highlight

Custom and flexible Ad Exchange sizes

These new size features eliminate some of the restrictions for sizes on Ad Exchange, while also offering greater earning potential for publishers by expanding competition for your inventory:

• Custom sizes expand Ad Exchange support for inventory and creative sizes beyond the previously supported set of “standard” sizes. With this feature, you’ll be able to send Ad Exchange ad requests for any size, and Ad Exchange buyers can bid with creatives of any size.
• Use the new Flexible sizes rule type to specify a range of creative sizes that a segment of your inventory will accept. This removes the previous limitation where creative size must equal inventory size. Flexible sizes make inventory and creatives more compatible with each other and enable more ads to compete for your inventory.

DFP Premium

Reconciliation

Each billing cycle for reconciliation now starts with a simple list of orders which served in that billing cycle. Prior to this, billing cycles listed all orders and line items that served in a billing cycle. Now, from the list of orders, you can select just the ones you want to focus on instead of sorting through all orders and line items. The list of orders and reconciliation table also now show order ID. Learn more

Training

What’s New in DFP - June 2015
Want to stay up to date with the latest DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) releases? In the June 2015 edition of "What's New in DFP," we take a look at new feature updates covering the Query Tool, system limits, video creative sets, and click tracking line items. Check out the video on Publisher University.

Ad Exchange

Deals

Override blocking rules for deals
The Block Override feature now defaults to ON for new Preferred Deals. You still have the option to turn this feature off for any deal, at any time. The feature can be used for Private Auctions, but must be explicitly turned on for individual Private Auctions. Learn more about overriding blocking rules for deals.

Publisher auto finalize
This feature allows publishers to remove the “finalize” step of deal negotiation if the buyer has accepted your latest changes without any modifications. It can be turned on or off for any Preferred Deal. Learn More

Reporting

Report scheduling
We have adjusted the delivery times of scheduled reports. Reports should now arrive between 9 am and 10 am EST. Learn more

Coming soon...

Active view for mobile apps in Ad Exchange Query Tool: With this feature, mobile app publishers will be able to report on Active View insights across their entire inventory, through viewability metrics. You’ll be able to better understand how mobile apps, ad formats and sizes perform according to their viewability, and prepare or enhance them for future performance. 

Improvement to companion banner impression reporting in DFP Query Tool: Currently, if you want to see delivery metrics for Companion banner ads, you need to use the "Master or Companion creative" dimension. With this improvement, whenever you use the "Creative size" dimension in DFP reports, both master and companion ads are included with their respective metrics in reports. 

DFP native ads for apps: DFP will give publishers the tools to monetize their inventory with direct-sold native ads in apps. Native ads are a rapidly growing class of online ads that match the look, feel, and content of the publisher’s property. You'll be able to use DFP to traffic your native ads with simplicity and the power to control the ad’s look and feel with custom rendering. Learn more

Integration with Google Analytics:  DFP publishers using Google Analytics Premium will be able to view their publisher reporting data in their Analytics account to help understand the intersection of ad serving, monetization data, and analytics data. DFP publishers need to have 90% GPT coverage to qualify (Learn more). Publishers who do not use DFP and do use Ad Exchange directly on their site can integrate Ad Exchange directly with Google Analytics (Learn more). To activate this feature, contact your Google Analytics Premium representative.

The audience 'Estimate segment size' feature will be deprecated: In place of this feature, you can pre-populate segments and then check their size a few hours after doing so.

Ad Exchange Highlight

Query Tool 

Bar charts are now available
In addition to line charts, bar charts are now available in the Ad Exchange Query Tool. You can use this charting option to provide a visualization of key data points in the Query Tool. Charts allow you to quickly gain a high-level understanding of your advertising performance, represent multiple data elements, and identify trends over time. A bar chart is used to perform comparisons through the use of parallel bars of varying lengths to show numerical values of variables. Learn more about charting in the Query Tool.

DFP Premium

Query Tool

Improvement to companion banner impression reporting
Previously, if you wanted to see delivery metrics for Companion banner ads, you needed to use the "Master or Companion creative" dimension. Now, whenever you use the "Creative Size" dimension in DFP reports, both master and companion ads are included with their respective metrics in reports. Learn more.

System limits

Ability to deactivate custom targeting keys and values
If you have custom targeting values that are no longer being used, you can deactivate them and they are no longer counted toward system limits. Deactivating values can also improve reporting performance on active custom targeting criteria.

Two additional limits with no expected impact
We’ve made the following additions to system limits:

• Active placements per network: 60,000
• Total line items per network: 600,000

Neither of these limits should adversely affect any publishers. However, if you feel your network needs an exception to either of the above, please contact your DoubleClick representative.

Coming soon...

Custom Ad Exchange sizes: Custom sizes expand Ad Exchange support for inventory and creative sizes beyond the previously supported set of “standard” sizes. With this feature, you’ll be able to send Ad Exchange ad requests for any size, and Ad Exchange buyers can bid with creatives of any size. 

DFP native ads for apps: DFP will give publishers the tools to monetize their inventory with direct-sold native ads in apps. Native ads are a rapidly growing class of online ads that match the look, feel, and content of the publisher’s property. You’ll be able to use DFP to traffic your native ads with simplicity and the power to control the ad’s look and feel with custom rendering.

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DFP Query Tool--New Advertiser dimension attributes

New dimension attributes have been added to the DFP Query Tool: Advertiser credit status and Advertiser type. Credit status is the current credit state of the advertiser, which includes Active, On hold, Credit stop, Inactive, or Blocked. Learn more about credit approval statuses. Type is the classification of advertiser, which includes Advertiser, House advertiser, or Ad network. Learn about advertiser types.

DFP Premium

Reporting 

Query Tool

• Default queries renamed
  To provide more consistency within our products, "Default queries" have been renamed to "System queries," but the functionality has remained the same.
   
• Nielsen OCR renamed
  To abide by changes made by Nielsen, we’ve changed the name of their OCR product to “Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings”. This change is reflected in the Reach report, under the Orders page, in line items, and under forecasting > check inventory page.
   

Data Transfer reports
Our Engineering Team has recently observed occasional increased Data Transfer processing time. Therefore, in order to more accurately reflect the timing of file delivery, we're updating documentation in our help center. Moving forward, the help center will state that processing and delivery of each file may take up to 15 hours, in contrast to the previously documented 10 hours.

This won’t impact the actual delivery times. Our Product and Engineering teams are constantly working on improving the delays you’ve been experiencing and they will continue to enhance this service for all of our clients.

Ad Exchange

Query Tool 

Advertiser verticals dimension added
Advertiser verticals dimension has been added to the Ad Exchange Query Tool. Advertiser verticals show performance by specific advertiser categories, for example, Arts & Entertainment and Travel & Tourism, which is useful to help understand performance across different advertiser segments. The categories displayed are identical to the ones that you can block. Learn more about dimensions in the Query Tool.

Coming soon...

Custom sizes: Custom sizes expand Ad Exchange support for inventory and creative sizes beyond the previously supported set of “standard” sizes. With this feature, you’ll be able to send Ad Exchange ad requests for any size, and Ad Exchange buyers can bid with creatives of any size.

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Audience: globally licensed segments

DFP now allows third-party data providers to offer their audience segments with global licenses to all DFP publishers using audience management. This means you can buy and use third-party segments seamlessly, without the need to negotiate and sign a direct license with each data provider. Learn more

 

New feature

Forecasting

• Forecasting of underdelivery: DFP now predicts when your line items will underdeliver and alerts you, giving you the opportunity to stop underdelivery before it happens. Underdelivery is a lost opportunity for your line item to meet its goals, and it’s primarily caused by insufficient inventory. With forecasting of underdelivery, you’ll know in advance which line items may not have enough inventory, and have the time to take action and give your line items a better chance to deliver. Learn more.

Updated features

Creatives

• Video creative sets and roadblocks: It's now easier to create and reuse video creative sets and roadblock ads.
  • You can now create video creative sets by clicking “Creative sets” in the left-hand panel instead of via a standalone button. Learn more
  • Video creative sets and roadblock ads are also now available for reuse when adding existing creatives. Learn more
  • Finally, video creative sets and roadblocks are included in global search results.

Line items

• Click tracking line item type: The “Click-tracking only” line item type setting has been moved from the standalone “Advanced” menu to the “Type” drop-down within the line item workflow. Learn more

Updated feature

Query Tool

• To allow for easier search of Dimensions and Metrics on the Queries and Reports pages, you can now filter for dimensions and metrics in the DFP Query Tool. Learn more about how to create a query.

Updated features

Additional Query Tool changes

• When you perform search in filters, you can now enter a comma-separated list of IDs, for example, line items, orders or ad units. Learn about how to filter in the Query Tool.
• To provide a better overall user experience, the "Reports list" and "Queries list" pages have undergone some cosmetic changes, such as a cleaner look and new colors--but, the functionality has not been changed.

Creatives

• Unlink from creative templates: You can now unlink creative code from its template, allowing you to create a custom creative based on either a user-defined or system-defined template. Learn more

Updated feature

Query Tool changes

• To speed up report generation for reports that use the Ad unit dimension, under the hierarchy display preference, the "flat" view is now the default view.
   

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Forecast queries for an Ad Exchange line item

DFP can now predict the number of queries that will be available for a DoubleClick Ad Exchange line item, how many of those queries the line item will fill, and the resulting revenue of those filled queries. These forecasting numbers will help you when deciding whether to create, modify, or remove DoubleClick Ad Exchange line items. Learn more.

Updated features

Inventory management

• Block competing advertisers from serving together: Competitive advertiser exclusions give you additional control over ad serving for Ad Exchange ads, competing advertisers mapped between Ad Exchange and DFP, and unknown advertisers. Prevent certain advertisers from serving together on specific ad units or across your entire network. Learn more.
• Create out-of-page ad units: If you want your ad unit to serve creatives that don’t fit in a traditional banner space or browser window, select the new Out-of-page size. Out-of-page creatives may include pop-ups, floating line items, and interstitials. Line items with the out-of-page size will continue to target 1x1 ad units for backwards compatibility—no changes are required. Learn more.

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Saved filters

You can now save filters for reuse, up to 25 for each of orders, line items, and creatives. Learn more

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Multiselect in pickers

You can now use standard multi-select functionality for a number of pickers in DFP. Pickers now have checkboxes next to their items and you can use Shift + click to select a range of items. Multiselect is available in the inventory, device, connection and custom criteria targeting pickers, for labels, inventory sizes, and many other elements.

Updated features

API

• Release of DFP API v201502: This release includes a revamp of the ForecastService, including support for Delivery forecasts. There are also new video features including GRP settings on line items, GRP breakdowns in forecasts, and new VIDEO_VIEWERSHIP report columns. In addition, Sales Manager gains three new services, and Type fields have been removed from all entities. Get all the details here

Targeting

• Target a line item to the latest iPhones: When targeting a line item to manufacturers and mobile devices, you can now individually target the latest iPhones: iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus. This provides up-to-date options to help you direct line items to the right audience at the right time. Learn more.

Sunsetting Legacy DART Tags

DoubleClick for Publishers will stop serving ads to legacy DART tags after April 5, 2016. If you are currently using legacy DART tags, to ensure seamless ad serving on your site(s), you will need to re-tag using Google Publisher Tags (GPT) prior to this date.

Google Publisher Tags (GPT) offer the advantages of a five-level inventory hierarchy, reduced page-load timing, asynchronous ad serving, single-request architecture, responsive ad tags, and viewability support. Learn more

For more information on how you might be affected, contact your account manager.

Updated features

Audience

• View segment overlaps: You can now view the number of cookies and advertising IDs that overlap between two segments. For example, if you choose the segment “Gender: Male,” you’ll be able to see both the count and percentage of cookies and advertising IDs that are also contained in the segment “Car buyers.” Learn more
• Segment targeting improvements: A new way to target Audience segments in the DFP targeting picker, with the ability to browse and search by taxonomy and data provider. In addition, more information is displayed in a hover card once a segment is added to the picker.

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Check on the status of your DoubleClick product

Real-time status of many Doubleclick products is now available at ads.google.com/status. Learn more on the Help Center.

Updated features

Forecasting

• Criteria type (free-form or predefined) for custom targeting no longer has an effect on forecasting: You can switch from one to the other anytime, and the change will be reflected in forecasts immediately. Learn more.
• Fresher forecasting numbers for custom targeting: When you check inventory for a prospective line item that includes custom targeting, you’ll now see complete forecasting numbers 28 days after the key-values have been added to ad tags on your website. After those 28 days, you can use the key-values in any forecasts without any other setup required. Learn more.

Video

• Report on video auto-plays: You can now report on "Auto-plays" for your video ads. To implement auto-play metrics in your player, set the autoPlayAdBreaks parameter for your HTML5 IMA SDK or Flash IMA SDK.

Updated feature

Creatives

• Use creative wrappers for mobile: Creative wrappers are now supported for mobile web and apps. Creative wrappers are snippets of code that wrap around a creative when it’s served. You can use them to serve third-party tracking software or other code that’s useful to you. Learn more.

Updated feature

Reporting

Query Tool

• To quickly see the attributes of a query (e.g., date range, dimension and metrics) from the Query overview page, mouse over a query name to display a detailed hover card.
• To save you time, you can now use the Run Now link to execute a query directly from the Query overview page without having to first load the query.

Q4 2014

December 8 Query Tool: Reach reports December 1 Render creatives using SafeFrame in GPT November 24 IMA HTML5 SDK supports Internet Explorer 11 November 17 Import & export creatives / Audience notifications / Improved creative "start time" / New API release / Sort video content table November 12 An Update on DFP November 10 Batch line item editing / Responsive ads in GPT October 20 See how manual adjustments affect your forecast / Target iOS 7.1 and 8.0 / suggestions for verifying advertisers

Q3 2014

September 29 Active View reporting for video / Export forecast results / Single-escaped video title macro September 22 Negative key value targeting September 15 Add API service account access from the Admin tab, export query tool reports to Drive September 8 Preview creative templates / Multi-sized video companion ads September 2 Unified advertiser blocking / Ad exclusions without tag modifications / Ad Exchange opportunity reports / comScore vCE in DoubleClick (Beta) / Notifications about shared reports / VAST 3 August 25 Track app installs in DFP / Improved Inventory tab navigation / Audience pixels in apps August 18 Cost per action (CPA) line items / Code served metrics / DFP API release August 11 New OS, browser, and device targeting / Segment re-approval grace period / Switch to Ad Exchange account August 4 Audience explorer / Select multiple items July 28 Google Media Framework for video / Internet Explorer support update July 21 Change history redesign / Geo-targeting enhancements July 14 Active View metrics / Custom fields / GPT API method July 7 Data protection report / Publisher University / Persistent system messages

Q2 2014

June 30 Better audience pixel creation / Cosmetic improvements / Geo-targeting June 23 DFP visual redesign / Future sell-through reports / Export line item data / Capture unattributed impressions / Troubleshooting help June 16 Batch upload Apple IDFAs / Choose the default tab in line items / Better delivery diagnostics June 9 Pre-release announcement: visual redesign / Include or exclude child ad units in reports / Check competition against segments / Updated GPT API reference guide June 2 Mobile app targeting and reporting / Select columns / Assign categories to audience segments May 27 Better design for inventory targeting / Make multiple copies of line items / See the third-party vendor in the Query Tool May 19 Sticky table searches, filters and paging / Archived entities removed from search / Sort orders by impressions and clicks May 12 Editable ad unit names / AdMob line items / Verified advertisers / Bulk upload creatives in zip files / Comma-separated inventory search May 5 Automatically refresh mobile app ads / DFP Audience segment sharing / Smarter breadcrumbs April 29 Video session ad rules / Improved forecasting numbers / Editable ad unit names notification April 21 Editable ad names / Full launch of query tool / HTTPS support for DFP-hosted assets April 14 Auto-name creatives / Creative SSL compatibility / Improved dynamic allocation workflow April 7 Improved forecasting

Q1 2014

March 31 Future sell-through reports now use 28 days of historical data March 24 Archived orders / Report on unfilled impressions by ad request size / Content bundles March 17 Billing tab / Google Publisher Tag (GPT) event listeners / Flash click tracking / SDK mediation metrics (query tool functionality) March 3 Enhanced dynamic allocation / Targeting presets / Secondary currencies / "Invite contacts" permission / Run default queries (query tool functionality) February 18 Google Publisher Toolbar update February 10 Prevent automatic line item activation February 3 Testing recommendations January 27 %%DESCRIPTION_URL%% and %%REFERRER_URL%% macros / Skippable video skip time at the network level / Creative orientation lock January 21 Play Services SDK for DFP and Ad Exchange / Line item defaults / Unique identifiers for data transfer files / Video template pods