Integrating Facebook Audience Network with Mediation

This guide is intended for publishers who want to use the Google Mobile Ads SDK to load and display ads from the Facebook Audience Network via mediation. It covers how to add Facebook ads to an ad unit's mediation configuration, how to set up Ad Network Optimization (ANO), and how to integrate the Facebook Audience Network SDK and adapter into an iOS app.

Supported ad formats and features

The AdMob mediation adapter for the Facebook Audience Network has the following capabilities:

Formats
Banners
Interstitials
Rewarded video
Native Advanced
Features
Smart banners
Ad Network Optimization (ANO)
Native Video

Note: In SDK version 4.99.0, Facebook added the "Native Banner Ad" ad format. The current Facebook adapter doesn't support this new ad format. See Facebook's Native Banner Ad documentation for more details.

Requirements

• Xcode 9.0 or higher
• iOS Deployment target of 8.0 or higher
• Minimum required Google Mobile Ads SDK 7.12.0 or higher

Note: The latest Facebook Audience Network SDK usually requires the latest version of Xcode.

Step 1: Set up Facebook Audience Network

First, sign up and log in to your Facebook developer account. Navigate to the My Apps page by clicking the My Apps button in the top-right corner. Add your app to the Facebook console by clicking the Add a New App button.

Fill out the form and click Create App ID to add your app to Facebook.

Note the App ID of the app you created. This value is used in the next step. You can always find your App ID from the My Apps page.

Next, in the Facebook dashboard for your app, add Facebook Audience Network to your app by clicking Add a Product > Audience Network > Set Up.

If you haven't yet set up a Business Manager account, you'll be prompted to create one. If you've set one up already, skip ahead to Generate a System User Access Token.

Create a new Business Manager account

Click Create a new Business Manager account and fill out the required fields with your business details.

Once you've filled out the required information, you'll be prompted to create a property for your app. Enter the desired name of the property for your app and click Go to Monetization Manager.

Next, select iOS as the platform to monetize.

You will be prompted to create an ad placement for your application. Select a format and click Next.

The next page presents an overview of the placement you created. Take note of the Placement ID which will be used when setting up your AdMob Ad Unit ID.

In addition to the App ID and Placement ID, you'll also need the Facebook System User Access Token to set up your AdMob Ad Unit ID for mediation.

Generate a system user access token

In order to set up Ad Network Optimization for Facebook Audience Network, you'll need to generate a system user access token and associate it with your property.

To generate a system user access token, sign in to Facebook Business Manager, click the Business Settings icon and navigate to System Users on the left navigation bar. If you don't already have a system user, click Add to create one.

Fill out the System User Name field, select Regular System User as the System User Role, and click Create System User.

To import your apps to Facebook Business, click Accounts > Apps > Add.

To get the App ID, go to the Facebook developers app page and find your app from the list. The App ID should be displayed under the app name.

After filling out the App ID field, click Add App to continue.

Navigate to Data Sources > Properties.

If you haven't created a property for your app, click Add to create a new property. Enter your property name in the resulting form and click Next.

Select your app from the list to associate it to the property and click Next.

Add the System User created earlier as a Property Manager and click Save Changes.

Navigate back to System Users, select the user you created and click Generate New Token.

Select your app from the list, add read_insights and read_audience_network_insights as the Available Scopes for the token to be generated, and click Generate Token.

Finally, take note of your System User Access Token.

Step 2: Configure mediation settings for your AdMob ad unit

You need to add Facebook to the mediation configuration for your ad unit. First sign in to your AdMob account.

Navigate to the Mediation tab. If you have an existing mediation group you'd like to modify, click the name of that mediation group to edit it, and skip ahead to Add Facebook Audience Network as an ad source.

To create a new mediation group, select Create Mediation Group.

Enter your ad format and platform, then click Continue.

Give your mediation group a name, and select locations to target. Next, set the mediation group status to Enabled. Then click Add Ad Units, which will open up the ad unit selection overlay.

Associate this mediation group with your existing AdMob ad unit. Then click Done.

You should now see the ad units card populated with the ad units you selected.

Add Facebook Audience Network as an ad source

In the Ad Sources card, select Add Ad Network.

Select Facebook Audience Network. Enable the Optimize switch. Enter the System User Access Token and App ID obtained in the previous section. App Access Token is deprecated and can be left blank. Review and check the Authorization checkbox to set up Ad Network Optimization (ANO) for Facebook Audience Network. Then enter an eCPM value for Facebook Audience Network and click Continue.

Enter the Placement ID obtained in the previous section. Then click Done.

Finally, click Save.

Ad network optimization takes a few days to gather data to accurately calculate eCPM for a mediation network. In the meantime, the ANO status will be PENDING, so you must manually set an eCPM value for the network. Once the eCPM can be calculated, ANO will automatically start updating the eCPM on your behalf.

If the AdMob Dashboard is showing a PENDING or ERROR status for more than 72 hours, verify that you have added the System User and an application to each of your Properties.

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 Apply to all networks in Mediation groups box.

If you don't apply this setting, the Facebook adapter defaults to a reward of type "" (empty string) with a value of 1. The Facebook SDK does not provide specific reward values for its rewarded video ads.

For more information on setting reward values for AdMob ad units, see Create an ad unit.

Step 3: Import the Facebook Audience Network SDK and adapter

Using CocoaPods (recommended)

• Add the following line to your project's Podfile:

  pod 'GoogleMobileAdsMediationFacebook'
  

• From the command line run:

  pod install --repo-update

Manual integration

• Download the latest version of the Facebook Audience Network SDK for iOS and link FBAudienceNetwork.framework in your project.
• Download the latest version of the Facebook adapter and link FacebookAdapter.framework in your project.

Step 4: Additional code required

No additional code required for Facebook integration.

Step 5: Test your implementation

Facebook ads can be tested by adding the tester's Facebook account as a Tester under the Roles tab on the left-hand side in your Facebook app's dashboard (Administrator or Developer role will also be able to test the ads). The tester will need to sign in to the Facebook app on a test device to begin testing. See the Testing Audience Network Implementation guide for more details.

That's it! You now have a working mediation integration with Facebook's Audience Network.

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.

Please review Facebook's guidance for information about GDPR and Facebook advertising.

Using native ads

Some Facebook native ad assets do not map one to one to Google native ad assets. Such assets are passed back to you in the extraAssets property of GADNativeAd. Here's a code example showing how to extract these assets:

Swift

let subTitle: String = nativeAppInstallAd.extraAssets[GADFBSubtitle]
let socialContext: String = nativeAppInstallAd.extraAssets[GADFBSocialContext]

Objective-C

NSString *subTitle = nativeAppInstallAd.extraAssets[GADFBSubtitle];
NSString *socialContext = nativeAppInstallAd.extraAssets[GADFBSocialContext];

Network-specific parameters

The Facebook adapter supports additional request parameters which can be passed to the adapter using the GADFBNetworkExtras class. This class includes the following properties:

adChoicesExpandable

Indicates whether the AdChoices icon should be expandable. Default is YES.

adChoicesBackgroundShown

Indicates whether the AdChoices icon background mask should be shown or a transparent mask should be used instead. Default is YES.

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

Swift

let adRequest = GADRequest()
let fbExtras = GADFBNetworkExtras()
fbExtras.adChoicesExpandable = false
fbExtras.adChoicesBackgroundShown = true
adRequest.registerAdNetworkExtras(fbExtras)

Objective-C

GADRequest *adRequest = [GADRequest request];
GADFBNetworkExtras *fbExtras = [[GADFBNetworkExtras alloc] init];
fbExtras.adChoicesExpandable = NO;
fbExtras.adChoicesBackgroundShown = YES;
[adRequest registerAdNetworkExtras:fbExtras];

Ad rendering

The Facebook adapter returns its native ads as NativeAppInstallAd objects. It populates the following Native ads advanced field descriptions for a GADNativeAppInstallAd.

Field	Populated by Facebook adapter
Headline
Image
Body
App icon
Call to action
Star rating
Store
Price

The Facebook adapter always includes a GADMediaView with native ads. For non-video ads, the media view displays the main image of the native ad.

Impression and click tracking

Google Mobile Ads SDK uses the Facebook Audience Network SDK's callbacks for impression and click tracking, so the reports on both dashboards should match up with few or no discrepancies.