Ad Manager Setup

In this article, you will learn how to set up Dynamic Price within the Nimbus SDK and in Google Ad Manager.

Getting Started

Nimbus requires API access to your Google Ad Manager instance to setup Dynamic Price and verify the integration. Please contact your account manager to complete this step before proceeding.

Create Nimbus Ad Network

In the Companies section of the Admin menu, create a new Ad Network named Nimbus, select Other company from the ad network drop-down and save your changes.

Add Key-Values

Navigate to the Inventory section and add the following key-value definitions

Name	Display Name	Value Type	Report on values
na_id	Nimbus Auction ID	Dynamic	Do not include values
na_bid	Nimbus Bid	Dynamic	Include values
na_bid_video	Nimbus Video Bid	Dynamic	Include values
na_size	Nimbus Ad Size	Dynamic	Do not include values

Creative Setup

Dynamic Price requires a creative in each size your application supports to allow for proper rendering on the device. The Nimbus creative leverages the App Events callback in the Google Mobile Ads SDK to load the cached ad stored on the device when Nimbus is selected to serve.

Dynamic Price supports the following IAB standard sizes.

• 320x50 (Mobile Leaderboard)

• 728x90 (Leaderboard)

• 300x250 (Medium Rectangle)

• 300x600 (Half Page Ad)

• 320x480 (Mobile Portrait Full Screen)

• 480x320 (Mobile Landscape Full Screen)

Adding creatives for other sizes may cause the clipping of an ad when rendered.

Display and Video Ads

On the Creative page in the Delivery section, follow the steps to add a new Standard Display Creative for each supported size.

1. Click New Creative

2. On the following screen, select Nimbus (Ad Network) from the Advertiser list, then select Third Party from the list of creative types.

3. Fill out the details for the creative (the following uses the 320x50 size as an example)

   • Name: Nimbus Dynamic Price 320x50

   • Target Ad Unit Size: 320x50 (Mobile Leaderboard)

   • Code Type: Standard

4. Paste in the Nimbus creative code then click Save and preview

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.gstatic.com/afma/api/v1/google_mobile_app_ads.js" ></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    admob.events.dispatchAppEvent("na_render", '{"na_id": "%%PATTERN:na_id%%", "ga_click": "%%CLICK_URL_UNESC%%"}');
</script>

Rewarded Video

Rewarded video requires a separate creative to load the cached ad from the device.

1. Navigate to VAST Creatives and click New Creative

2. On the following screen, select Nimbus (Ad Network) from the Advertiser list, then select Redirect from the list of creative types.

3. Enter Nimbus Dynamic Price Rewarded Video in the Name field

4. Select 320x480v (Video / VAST) for the Target Ad Unit Size. You may need to type in the size for it to appear in drop down list.

5. Enter https://ad-assets.adsbynimbus.com/nimbus_rewarded_creative.xml as the VAST tag URL, the click Save and preview

Targeting

Dynamic Price relies on the presence of bid information in the request to Google to serve a Nimbus ad which allows it to operate using Run of Network targeting without interfering with the other properties in your Ad Manager account.

Placements

Nimbus recommends the creation of Placements to allow for new ad units to be added without having to modify the line item targeting. Creating more than one placement before the line item setup will allow for flexible targeting options.

Creating a Placement

1. Navigate to the Ad Units page located within the Inventory section

2. Select the Placements tab and create a new Placement

3. Name the placement Nimbus Dynamic Price; if creating more than one placement add a suffix to help with identifying the targeting

4. An optional description can be added or it can be left blank

5. Select the ad units that Nimbus will be included in. If the placement is for future targeting purposes the ad units can be selected at a later time.

6. Save and exit

Ad Units

Ad Units that Nimbus will be targeting should be set to Fixed Size mode and should include one or more of the sizes from the creative setup. A single ad unit can target all sizes.

Line Item Setup

The Nimbus team will manage the creation of line items using the API access to your account. To complete the setup, provide the targeting details for your account and the price granularities for the line items discussed below.

Price Granularities

The line item price granularities are used to map the range of bids to a line item representing the value. A typical setup would use the following granularities for the line items across two orders:

Price Range	Granularity	Line Items
$0.00 - $5.00	$0.01	500
$5.00 - $10.00	$0.10	50
$10.00 - $50.00	$0.50	20

Ad Manager has a system limit of 61,000 total active line items and creatives with targeting. Each Order has a maximum of 450 lines.

The granularities used for the line item setup are deployed with the mobile app and should be communicated with your Nimbus Account Manager for the line item setup and your developers for implementation in code.

Test Line Items

To enable support for Nimbus test ads, follow these steps to create line items that targets na_bid=0 and na_bid_video=0.

Nimbus will never return a bid price of 0 with production ads and the Nimbus SDK will always append the key-value pair na_bid=0 or na_bid_video=0 when test mode is enabled. The test line item should remain active at all times to allow developers to test any changes to the implementation.

Create Test Order

1. In the Delivery section, select Orders and click New Order to create the test order

2. Enter in the Name: Nimbus Dynamic Price Test Order

3. Select Advertiser: Nimbus

4. Click Add line item to save the order and continue

Display and Video Test Line for Banner and Interstitials

1. On the Ad Type screen proceed with Select Display ad

2. Enter Nimbus Dynamic Price Test as the Name

3. Select Price Priority for the Line item type. Verify the selected priority is 12

4. In the Expected Creatives drop down, select all the Creative sizes from the previous step

5. Scroll to the Delivery settings section and enter the following information

   1. Start Time: Immediately

   2. End Time: Unlimited

   3. Goal Type: None

   4. Rate: $100 USD - This will prioritize the test line over other ads to ensure it serves

6. In the Add targeting section select the Inventory to target. This can be the Nimbus Placements, specific ad units, or can be left blank to serve Run of Network.

7. Add the Custom Targeting keys

   1. Select the key na_bid is any of and enter a value of 0

   2. Click the Or button to add a new condition

   3. Select the key na_bid_video is any of and enter a value of 0

8. Save the Line and proceed to the Creatives screen for the newly created line

9. For each of the expected creatives, choose existing creative and select the corresponding Nimbus creative until all expected creatives have been mapped.

Rewarded Video Test Line

Rewarded video lines must target specific rewarded video ad units to ensure proper delivery of all video inventory.

1. On the Ad Type screen proceed with Select Video or audio ad

2. Enter Nimbus Dynamic Price Rewarded Video Test as the Name

3. Select Price Priority for the Line item type. Verify the selected priority is 12

4. In the Expected Creatives drop down, select 320x480v

5. Scroll to the Delivery settings section and enter the following information

   1. Start Time: Immediately

   2. End Time: Unlimited

   3. Goal Type: None

   4. Rate: $100 USD - This will prioritize the test line over other ads to ensure it serves

6. In the Add targeting section select the Inventory to target. This can be a Nimbus Placements or a specific rewarded video ad units.

7. Add the Custom Targeting key na_bid_video is any of and enter a value of 0

8. Save the Line and proceed to the Creatives screen for the newly created line

9. Select the Nimbus 320x480v VAST creative to complete the setup.

Adaptive Banners

Dynamic Price uses the default behavior of matching the size of the incoming request to a creative with the same size. For requests that support multiple sizes such as an inline adaptive banner, additional targeting leveraging the na_size key-value pair must be added to ensure Ad Manager responds with the correct creative size.

Creative Targeting Setup

For each expected creative size, excluding 300x250, repeat the following steps to add the na_size targeting for each Nimbus line item.

1. After selecting the line item to edit, click the arrow next to the creative size that needs additional targeting.

2. Select the Add Targeting drop-down below Creative Targeting and select Add new targeting

3. Name the new targeting Nimbus Creative and append the size at the end i.e. Nimbus Creative 320x50

4. Edit the Custom Targeting and select na_size is any of and enter the size of the creative in the format widthxheight, i.e. na_size is any of 320x50

5. Save the targeting and proceed to the creatives screen of the line item; a warning will appear that the line item is missing a creative with the new targeting

6. Select the creative matching the size from the targeting to edit the properties and scroll to the Targeting section at the bottom of the creative screen.

7. Select the newly created targeting and save the creative, the missing creative warning should now be resolved.

The 300x250 size creative is excluded from creative targeting for inline adaptive banners to allow video ads to size to a letterbox format when rendered.

Troubleshooting

The serving of ads in a production environment is entirely dependent on the correct setup of the line items in GAM. The symptoms of an incorrect setup are not distinguishable from the symptoms of Nimbus losing the auction to Google or another bidder. If Nimbus line items are not delivering, the first place to look is the integration itself. Some troubleshooting steps include:

• The Nimbus test line is enabled and targeted to the correct ad unit

• Test mode is enabled in the Nimbus SDK and disabled for other SDKs that could force a different ad to serve.

• Requests in app are targeted to the correct Google Ad Unit and App Id (i.e. using a Debug vs Production setup with different IDs)

• No higher priority line items such as those from a sponsored campaign are targeted to the ad unit.

Launching

When you’re ready to launch, there’s only a few things to double-check to ensure success

1. Turn off test mode: Set test mode to false in the Nimbus SDK.

2. Confirm release timing with your Account Manager

3. Launch!

After going live, the production line items should begin successfully delivering ads and will update the status from ready to delivering, indicating that the line items are working as intended.