Publisher Optimization APS CxM Implementation
By activating the Integral Ad Science (IAS) Optimization via Amazon Publisher Services (APS) Connections Marketplace (CxM), publishers can increase yield and eliminate impression waste with automation to meet advertiser's invalid fraud, and brand safety and suitability standards.
Implementing Publisher Optimization through APS CxM is more efficient than through IAS's on-page Publisher Optimization implementation. The only downside is since the JavaScript is stored on APS's servers, IAS can't update the code remotely. Therefore, publishers must upgrade to get IAS's updates.
Optimization Overview
IAS's optimization allows your ad server to automatically deliver campaigns to goals defined by IAS measurement data. This solution enables you to:
Sell direct campaigns to advertisers with guarantees based upon IAS data – for example, a Run of Network (RON) campaign that has 70% viewability, no brand safety risk, and no invalid traffic.
Set up private marketplaces (PMP) with similar guarantees under conditions (AdExchange on DFP or Data Marketplace by Xandr) – for example, a PMP containing semi-transparent inventory that has 80% viewability, no brand safety risk, and no invalid traffic.
Your ad server's existing facilities for forecasting and automatic optimization can be fully leveraged. As a result, you can minimize waste from over buffering while minimizing risk of under delivery. This solution can minimize the amount of time ad ops needs to monitor campaigns with viewability or brand safety goals and unlock opportunities to sell segments of high quality inventory to advertisers at a premium.
Additionally, Publisher Optimization supports Keyword exclusion list segments which are negative keyword lists.
See the Publisher Optimization Implementation Guide for more information.
CxM Overview
The Amazon Publisher Services' Connection Market Place (CxM) allows for discovery and trial of ad tech service solutions across categories like creative quality, advertising identity, and creative formats. Publishers can activate multiple services solutions without any development via their existing APS integration.
If a publisher is already using APS CxM, they can access IAS Optimization without additional development. When leveraging IAS Verification solutions, publishers can measure their inventory’s media quality from IAS Signal by ensuring it is viewable, fraud free, and brand safe and suitable.
Implementation Callouts
You need IAS Publisher Verification active or the implementation in progress.
You must be an APS publisher to access this integration. If not, you must work with APS directly and have APS enabled. Your CxM representative can guide you through this process.
Implementation Steps
Publishers that are already onboarded to APS's CxM can follow the step outlined in this document to integrated IAS Publisher Optimization.
Log into the CxM portal in APS. Find and click the IAS tile.
Once on the IAS landing page, click "Getting Started".
Enter the form and submit the required information. Once completed, your IAS representative will reach out and provide the required onboarding information, including your IAS Publisher ID.
Work with your IAS representative to confirm which services are to be enabled. IAS supports Brand Safety, Viewability, Invalid Traffic, and Context Control.
Once your ID is provided in step 3, enter or provide to your APS representative to enable the integration.
Target via your ad server using the instructions in the Ad Server Targeting section.
Ad Server Targeting
In your ad server, target the usual IAS key/values, just like for IAS's Publisher Optimization product. For example:
Brand Safety
Publisher Optimization supports seven positive targeting brand safety areas and custom segments which include Context Control.
As a best practice, you should not apply brand safety targeting to sponsorships or home page take overs.
Key | Description | Values | Notes |
adt | IAS adult brand safety risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk of the page containing adult content. |
alc | IAS Alcohol Brand Safety Risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk of the page containing content related to alcohol. |
dlm | IAS Illegal Download Brand Safety Risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk of the page containing content related to illegal downloads. |
drg | IAS Drug Brand Safety Risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk of the page containing content related to drugs and drug use. |
hat | IAS Hate Speech Brand Safety Risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk of the page containing hate speech. |
off | IAS Offensive Language Brand Safety Risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk of the page containing offensive language. |
vio | IAS Violence Brand Safety Risk | veryLow, low, medium, high | Risk the page contains violent content. |
ias-kw | Context Control Avoidance. Custom per client | IAS_<unique ID>_PG | For example, IAS_23_PG. Context Control Avoidance segments use negative targeting; the presence of the segment response object identifies when the page is in a Context Control segment. |
ias-kw | Keyword exclusion segment. Custom per client | IAS_<unique ID>_KW | For example, IAS_33_KW or IAS_133_33_KW for legacy lists. Keyword segments use negative targeting; the presence of the keyword segment response object identifies when the URL is in a segment. |
Context Control
Context Control is a solution that blocks or optimizes campaigns on web pages by scanning page contents against a set of custom criteria, to accord with a team's brand suitability thresholds. Context Control lets you avoid pages which are not suitable for the brand's custom standards. Publisher Optimization returns a custom object in the JSON response when the page is in a segment in a profile using the key ias-kw for both Context Control and legacy keyword segments.
Context Control uses the convention IAS_<unique ID>_PG and IAS_<unique ID>_KW for legacy keyword segments. Also, IAS returns IAS_UNSCORED_PG to denote pages which aren't scored for Context Control. If you activate an IAS_<unique ID>_PG, you should also activate IAS_UNSCORED_PG in your ad server. Context Control Avoidance uses negative targeting; the presence of the response object identifies when the page is not suitable for the brand's custom standards. Conversely, the absence of any Context Control Avoidance information means the page is brand suitable.
Seg Code | Targeting Methodology | Notes |
IAS_<unique ID_>_PG | Negative targeting | Not eligible for the campaign |
IAS_UNSCORED_PG | Negative targeting | IAS has not scored the page. |
IAS_<unique ID>_KW | Negative targeting | Not eligible for the campaign |
Note: The presence of the segment code in the response indicates when the page is in violation of the advertiser's custom brand suitability standards. IAS returns Context Control segments in the same response for standard IAS viewability, brand safety, and invalid traffic.
Invalid Traffic
Key | Description | Values | Notes |
fr | IAS Invalid Traffic | true, false | Whether the ad represents invalid traffic (for example, the visitor is a bot rather than a human). |
Viewability
As a best practice, you should not apply viewability targeting to sponsorships or home page take overs.
Key | Description | Values | Notes |
vw | IAS viewability prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | This meets the MRC standard. Probability that an ad slot is in view. Each value indicates that the ad is at least that likely to be in view (for example, "50" means "50% or more likely to be in view). Choose a single bucket when trafficking a line item. |
grm | GroupM Viewability Prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | This meets the GroupM standard. Publisher uses the current GroupM/Publicis standard of 100% in view for 1 second. |
pub | Publicis Viewability Prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | This meets the Publicis standard. |
vw05, vw10, vw15, vw30 | IAS Viewability Time In View Prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | Probability of time in view for display to be equal or exceed 5, 10, 15, and 30 second thresholds. |
vw_vv | IAS Video Viewability Prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | This meets the MRC video standard. Probability that an ad slot is in view. Each value indicates that the ad is at least that likely to be in view (for example, "50" means "50% or more likely to be in view). Choose a single bucket when trafficking a line item. |
grm_vv^ | GroupM Video Viewability Prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | This meets the GroupM video standard. |
pub_vv^ | Publicis Video Viewability Prediction | 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 | This meets the Publicis video standard. |
^ The GroupM and Publicis video viewability prediction targeting is currently in a beta period. Contact your IAS Solution Engineering representative if you wish to be part of the beta program.
IAS Preparation Steps
Prior to the implementation, ensure:
The IAS monitoring tag is on all your properties concerned by this implementation for more than 15 days.
You must have APS implemented on all your properties concerned by this implementation.
In your ad manager (for example, DFP) account, go to the Inventory section and define the following key/values pairs precisely.
See Publisher Optimization (Parameters and Keys) for more information.
Best Practices
General
Do not apply brand safety or viewability targeting to sponsorships or home page take overs.
Do not send random ad slot IDs to Publisher Optimization. This means that your site should not utilize these. If it does, please contact your IAS representative.
Debugging
By default Publisher Optimization does not display any errors in the browser's dev tool console. Add the query parameter iasdebug=true to the page's URL to enable the debug mode. The console shows errors that specify points of failure. Additionally, for any issues stemming from APS, please work with your APS representative to troubleshoot.