Newsroom
Feb 11

More Love from SpringServe

Server side header bidding, label client users, improved ad pod management, browser reporting, and more.

New Features

Server Side Header Bidding

Server Side Header Bidding is now available for beta testing. With the release of this feature, SpringServe allows you to create Header Bidding demand tags that can be called by a VAST Only supply tag. Enabled accounts will see Supported Integrations in the Bid Parameters section of the Settings tab of a Header Bidding demand tag.

SpotX platform with icons indicating client and server side integrations

SpringServe will determine which integration to use based on the supply. In the waterfall tab of a supply tag, an indicator appears next to HB demand tags that will not be called due to integration incompatibility.

tooltip showing demand tag is incompatible

In the screenshot above, the supply tag is VAST only but a9 only supports client-side header bidding. Therefore, the demand tag will not receive any requests in this waterfall.

We will be rolling out Server Side Header bidding to all clients in the coming weeks along with support for additional platforms.

Label Client Users

SpringServe now allows client users to be created for specified labels. Previously, client users could only report on tags belonging to a specified partner. This type of user is especially useful if you are using supply routers in SpringServe.

Routers sit between supply partners and supply tags in SpringServe object hierarchy, so each tag in a router must belong to the same partner. If you want to grant a user access to reporting for specific tags in your routers, apply a label and create a label client user.

For example, you have labeled the supply tags for inventory split with Platform A with Platform A.

Router with 2 supply tags

When you create a supply label, select Label in the Object Access pillbox. Select from your existing labels in the Supply Labels search box.

Supply Client with Label access to Platform A

When that user logs into SpringServe, they will see summary data for only tags that are labeled with Platform A. In the reporting page, a label client user will have access to tag reporting, but not router or partner reporting.

Core Improvements

Pod Updates

Users can now manage addition and removal of a pod from a supply tag in both the UI and the API.

Removing Pods from Tags in the UI

To remove a pod from a supply tag in the UI, simply select None in the Pod Settings tab of the supply tag.

Note that you cannot remove a pod from a supply tag that is part of a pod schedule. In the UI, you will see that None is disabled and a tooltip appears when the tag belongs to a pod schedule.

Tooltip tells the user that pod cannot be removed because the tag belongs to a schedule.

Pod Management in the API

In the API, users can specify a supply tag’s pod as custom or dynamic with the boolean parameter custom_ad_slot_duration.

"pod":{
      "max_duration": 200,
      "custom_ad_slot_duration": true,
      "unfilled_slot_opt_out_enabled": false,
      "max_unfilled_slots":0,
      "ad_slots": [{"position": 3, "min_duration":40, "max_duration":60}, {"position": 2}, {"position": 1}]
}

To remove a pod, set the pod to empty:

"pod": {}

Users will receive a validation error when trying to remove the pod if the supply tag belongs to a pod schedule. Please see our documentation for additional details.

Reporting

Note that Pod Setting is based on the current setting and does not reflect historical changes. For example, when reporting on supply tags that were previously associated to a pod, you will see that the pod settings are currently None but historical events such as Pod Avail Time are not zeroed out because the pod was removed.

Key Value Targeting

SpringServe now allows for more flexible key-value targeting. Rather than restricting to exact match for inclusion / exclusion, you can now target partial match by selecting contains or does not contain from the dropdown.

channel name contains value sports

In the example above, any channel_name that includes sports will pass key-value targeting.

Reporting Improvements

Browser Reporting

In addition to targeting by browser, you can now report by browser. On the reporting page, select Browser Group as a dimension or a filter. SpringServe includes the following browser groups in reporting:

  • Android
  • Chrome
  • Chrome Mobile
  • Chromium
  • Edge
  • Facebook on Android
  • Facebook on iOS
  • Firefox
  • IE
  • Mobile Safari
  • Roku App
  • Safari
  • Samsung Browser
  • WebView

SpringServe will aggregate requests from browsers not on this list under Other. For requests where the browser is not detectable, the browser group is unknown.

Alerts

SameSite Changes

Due to Google Chrome’s recent changes with regards to the way cookies are handled within the browser, all SpringServe supply tags must be secure (e.g. https://vid.springserve.com/vast/etc). Any non-secure traffic will be redirected to https. Additionally, SpringServe cookies are now secure and pass the attribute “SameSite: None”.

SpringServe in Hulu

We have updated our bitrate processing and have been approved as a third party vendor, so users can now traffic SpringServe tags in the Hulu system.

Ads.txt and App-ads.txt

If you are connected to bidders via Programmatic Connect, update the ads.txt (desktop and mobile web) and app-ads.txt (in-app and ctv) files for you and your partners to include the following lines:

Make sure to replace [YOUR ACCOUNT ID] with the number in the lower right hand corner of the screen. For example, CrushTownUSA’s Account ID is 17.

For any and all questions and requests, please reach out to you account manager, who can connect these partners and ensure your domains and apps are whitelisted.