Integrating Chartboost with Mediation

This guide is intended for publishers who want to use the Google Mobile Ads SDK to load and display ads from Chartboost via mediation. It covers how to add Chartboost to an ad unit's mediation configuration, how to set up Automatic data collection, and how to integrate the Chartboost SDK and adapter into an Android app.

Supported ad formats and features

The Ad Manager mediation adapter for Chartboost has the following capabilities:

Formats
Banners
Interstitials
Rewarded Video
Native Ads - Custom Rendering
Features
Smart Banners
Automatic data collection

Requirements

• Android SDK 4.0 (API level 14) or later
• Google Play services 8.3 or later

Step 1: Set up Chartboost

Sign up for a Chartboost account and log in once your account is verified. Click the + APP button on the left sidebar. Fill out the form and click save to add your app to Chartboost.

Create a new campaign to enable ads for your app. To create a new campaign navigate to Campaigns > Publishing from the left-side menu and click Add a Campaign (or + Add Campaign at the top right corner of your dashboard if you already have other campaigns) and choose Network Publishing when prompted.

Enter a Name for your publishing campaign, select the Ad Type, select Google Play as the Platform and then add your app to the Apps Publishing this Campaign. Click Save to finish adding the campaign.

Select Rewarded Video under APP SETTINGS and add the values for Rewarded Currency Name and Reward per View. Also, uncheck the Pre-Roll and Post-Roll checkboxes under Advanced Settings in order to avoid showing conflicting reward values.

Note: The reward value specified here is forwarded by the adapter unless reward values are overridden in the Ad Manager UI. See the Using Rewarded Video Ads section for more details.

You will now obtain all the parameters that will be used in setting up the ad unit ID in the next section. In your Chartboost dashboard for your app, navigate to APP SETTINGS > Basic Settings to locate your App ID and App Signature.

Ad Manager requires the Chartboost User ID and User Signature for setting up your Ad Manager ad unit ID. You can find these parameters on your Chartboost dashboard by navigating to Tools > API Explorer. Your User ID and User Signature are located under the Authentication section.

Step 2: Configure mediation settings for your Google Ad Manager ad unit

Sign in to your Ad Manager account. Navigate to Delivery > Yield Groups and click the Create Yield Group button.

Enter a Yield Group Name, select your Ad Format, and set the Environment to Mobile App. Under the Targeting section, select the ad unit ID to which you want to add mediation.

Next, click the + Add Another Yield Partner button.

If you already have a Yield Partner for Chartboost Ads, you can simply select it. Otherwise, select Create a new Yield Partner.

Select Chartboost as the Yield partner and enter a unique Name. Check the checkbox for Enable automatic data collection of estimated CPM to optimize Mediation to enable ANO, and enter the User ID and User Signature obtained in the previous section. Click Save when done.

Once the Yield partner is chosen, select Mobile SDK mediation as the Integration type and Android as the Operating system. Enter the App ID and the App Signature obtained in the previous section. Also, enter an Ad Location (e.g. "Game Over Screen") that uniquely identifies this placement in your app. Enter a Default CPM value.

Chartboost Ad Locations (Named Locations) are simple names representing a place in your app where you want to show an ad. Ad Manager sends requests to the location specified in the settings. Once requests are sent, Chartboost will add the location to its dashboard for reporting purposes.

Note: Ad Manager is able to estimate CPMs for the top three Ad Locations in your Chartboost app. All other locations will be represented with a blended CPM.

In the Chartboost dashboard, your Ad Locations can be revealed in the Basic Settings page by clicking on Advanced Settings. Please see the Chartboost's Named Locations guide for more details.

Click Save and Activate at the bottom of the page when done.

Note: Automatic data collection takes a few days to gather data to before it can accurately calculate a Dynamic CPM value for a mediation network. Once the eCPM can be calculated, it will be automatically updated on your behalf

Using rewarded video ads

In the settings for your rewarded video ad unit, provide values for the reward amount and reward type. Then, to ensure you provide the same reward to the user no matter which ad network is served, check the Override reward settings from third-party ad networks when using mediation box.

If you don't apply this setting, the Chartboost adapter passes back the reward specified in the Chartboost UI.

Step 3: Import the Chartboost SDK and adapter

Android Studio integration (recommended)

Download the latest version of the Chartboost SDK. Find the chartboost.jar file under lib/ folder and add it to your project's libs folder (create a libs folder and add the jar file if you don't have one).

Add the implementation dependency with the latest version of the Chartboost adapter in the build.gradle file:

...
dependencies {
    implementation 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:xx.x.x'
    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:17.0.0'
    implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    implementation 'com.google.ads.mediation:chartboost:7.2.0.1'
}
...

Manual integration

Download the latest version of the Chartboost SDK. Add the chartboost.jar file to your project.

Download the latest Chartboost adapter from Bintray, located under the Files tab, and add it to your project.

Step 4: Additional code required

Modify AndroidManifest

Activities

Include the following Activity in your AndroidManifest.xml under the application tag:

<activity android:name="com.chartboost.sdk.CBImpressionActivity"
          android:excludeFromRecents="true"
          android:hardwareAccelerated="true"
          android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen"
          android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize" />

Other elements

Add the following attribute to each activity in the AndroidManifest.xml file that will be showing Chartboost ads and supports different orientations:

android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize"

Lifecycle events

Per Chartboost's recommendation, Add the following code to all of your activity's lifecycle events that will be showing Chartboost ads.

Java

@Override
public void onStart() {
    super.onStart();
    Chartboost.onStart(this);
}

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    Chartboost.onResume(this);
}

@Override
public void onPause() {
    super.onPause();
    Chartboost.onPause(this);
}

@Override
public void onStop() {
    super.onStop();
    Chartboost.onStop(this);
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
    super.onDestroy();
    Chartboost.onDestroy(this);
}

@Override
public void onBackPressed() {
    // If an interstitial is on screen, close it.
    if (Chartboost.onBackPressed()) {
        return;
    } else {
        super.onBackPressed();
    }
}

Kotlin

@Override
fun onStart() {
     super.onStart()
     Chartboost.onStart(this)
}

@Override
fun onResume() {
     super.onResume()
     Chartboost.onResume(this)
}

@Override
fun onPause() {
    super.onPause()
    Chartboost.onPause(this)
}

@Override
fun onStop() {
    super.onStop()
    Chartboost.onStop()
}

@Override
fun onDestroy() {
    super.onDestroy()
    Chartboost.onDestroy()
}

@Override
fun onBackPressed() {
    // If an interstitial is on screen, close it.
    if (Chartboost.onBackPressed())
        return
    else
        super.onBackPressed()
}

Step 5: Test your implementation

Test ads can be enabled for your app from Chartboost's dashboard under the APP SETTINGS > Basic Settings as shown below.

Once test mode is enabled, you can request ads using the ad unit ID created earlier and receive a Chartboost test ad.

That's it! You now have a working mediation integration with Chartboost.

Optional steps

EU consent and GDPR

Under the Google EU User Consent Policy, you must ensure that certain disclosures are given to, and consents obtained from, users in the European Economic Area (EEA) regarding the use of device identifiers and personal data. This policy reflects the requirements of the EU ePrivacy Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). When seeking consent, you must identify each ad network in your mediation chain that may collect, receive, or use personal data and provide information about each network's use. Google currently is unable to pass the user's consent choice to such networks automatically.

The section below shows you how to enable or disable personalized ads for Chartboost.

In SDK version 7.3.0, Chartboost added the setPIDataUseConsent method. The following sample code sets data use consent to NO_BEHAVIORAL . If you choose to call this method, it is recommended that you do so prior to requesting ads via the Google Mobile Ads SDK.

import com.chartboost.sdk.Chartboost;
// ...

Chartboost.setPIDataUseConsent(context, Chartboost.CBPIDataUseConsent.NO_BEHAVIORAL);

See Chartboost's GDPR article for more details.

Permissions

For optimal performance, Chartboost recommends adding the following optional permissions to your app's AndroidManifest.xml file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />

Using interstitial and rewarded video ads

Network-specific parameters

The Chartboost adapter supports an additional request parameter for interstitial and rewarded video ads which can be passed to the adapter using the ChartboostExtrasBundleBuilder class. The ChartboostExtrasBundleBuilder includes the following method:

• setFramework(CBFramework, versionString) - Sets the framework info the app uses which allows Chartboost SDK to customize your requests for a specific framework.

Here's a code example of how to set these ad request parameters:

JAVA

Bundle bundle = new ChartboostAdapter.ChartboostExtrasBundleBuilder()
          .setFramework(CBFramework.CBFrameworkOther, "1.2.3")
          .build();
PublisherAdRequest adRequest = new PublisherAdRequest.Builder()
          .addNetworkExtrasBundle(ChartboostAdapter.class, bundle)
          .build();
adLoader.loadAd(adRequest);

KOTLIN

val bundle = ChartboostAdapter.ChartboostExtrasBundleBuilder()
         .setFramework(CBFramework.CBFrameworkOther, "1.2.3")
         .build()
val adRequest = PublisherAdRequest.Builder()
         .addNetworkExtrasBundle(ChartboostAdapter::class.java, bundle)
         .build()
adLoader.loadAd(adRequest)

Additional resources

• Start a Publishing Campaign provides additional details on how to set up Chartboost publishing campaigns.