Sending Google Ad Manager signals through third-party ad servers

If you use a third-party ad server with Google Ad Manager server-side ad insertion (SSAI), IMA supports monetizing additional inventory through Google Ad Manager by sending an encrypted nonce through the third-party ad server to Ad Manager. This guide shows how to send these signals using the IMA SDK.

Key Term: For this guide, a "third-party ad server" is any non-Google Ad Manager ad server.

This guide uses an example ad tag: https://youradserver.com. You need to update the ad tag to work with your actual ad servers.

Prerequisites

• IMA HTML5 SDK v3.523.0 or higher.

• Complete the Get started guide.

1. Configure your app to send a nonce to Google's DAI servers

Set enableNonce to true to have the IMA DAI SDK send an encrypted nonce to DAI servers.

const streamRequest = new LiveStreamRequest();
streamRequest.enableNonce = true;

2. Update ad tag with a macro to populate the nonce

Add the macro [GOOGLE_INSTREAM_VIDEO_NONCE] to your ad server's tag in the Ad Manager UI. When the DAI server populates the ad breaks with your third-party ad server URLs, Ad Manager will dynamically populate the macro with the encrypted nonce. The result should look similar to the following sample ad tag, which uses a key that must be configured on the third-party server:

https://youradserver.com?ad_manager_nonce=[GOOGLE_INSTREAM_VIDEO_NONCE]

This ad tag uses ad_manager_nonce as an example key, but you'll need to confirm with your third-party ad server on how it accepts the nonce value.

To update your ad server's tag in Ad Manager, go to Video > Livestreams and select an active livestream or create a new one.

Now, add the macro to the ad tag configured within the selected stream. Set the tag in Ad Break Settings > Master Ad Tag.

3. Configure the third-party ad server's request for Ad Manager

Configure your third-party ad server to include the nonce in the server's request to Ad Manager. Here's an example of an ad tag configured inside of the third-party ad server:

https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?givn=%%custom_key_for_google_nonce%%&iu=/21775744923/external/single_ad_samples&sz=640x480

Ad Manager looks for givn= to identify the nonce value. The third-party ad server will need to support some macro of its own, such as %%custom_key_for_google_nonce%%, and replace it with the nonce query parameter you provided in the previous step. More information on how to accomplish this should be available in the third-party ad server's documentation.

Note: This guide uses two macros.

1. The ad requests to your third-party ad servers should contain the [GOOGLE_INSTREAM_VIDEO_NONCE] macro. This ad tag is stored in the Ad Manager UI. IMA SDK searches (with case sensitive, exact match) and replaces this macro with the encrypted nonce.
2. The second macro, %%custom_key_for_google_nonce%%, is used by your third-party ad server to fill in the encrypted nonce for the request to Google Ad Manager. This macro is an example, and can be configured to any string your third-party ad server accepts.

That's it! You should now have the nonce parameter propagated from the IMA DAI SDK through the DAI server, to the third-party ad server, and back to Ad Manager. This enables better monetization through Google Ad Manager.