Duplicate creatives, brand targeting, and house ads are now available in SpringServe.

Core Improvements

Duplicate Creatives

When running your pod inventory, you can now elect whether or not to allow duplicate creatives in the pod response.

To determine the uniqueness of a creative, SpringServe compares media file url returned in the VAST response of a demand tag. SpringServe will throw out responses from demand tags that return the same media file url as another demand tag in the pod response. To enable this setting, go to the Pod Settings tab of a supply tag and select Blocked in the Duplicate Creatives pillbox.

SpringServe will register a VAST error code of 1637 for demand tags blocked due to a duplicate creative.

If you are interested in beta testing blocking duplicate creatives, please let your account manager know.

New Features

Brand Targeting

For brand targeting, SpringServe parses the user agent string and applies targeting based on the parsed result. When the query string parameter ua includes the user agent in the ad request, SpringServe targets based on that declared user agent. If that string is not provided, SpringServe parses the detected user agent.

Setting Targeting

SpringServe now supports device brand targeting for your CTV inventory. When you check Connected TV in Device Targeting, you will see a pillbox to allow all or set custom brand targeting. When you select custom, two additional checkbox groups will appear: Brand Names and Streaming Devices.

Reporting

In the reporting UI you can add Device Brand to dimensions and filters. Note that while targeting is limited to CTV only, brand data is available for all devices regardless of environment.

House Ads

You can now create house ad demand tags in SpringServe. These demand tags have a new class of House Ad and can fill impressions after your demand stack has failed to fill.

Setting Up House Ad Demand

When creating new demand tags, you have the additional option of House Ad as a demand class. House ads function in a similar manner to Creative Asset demand tags; when you select House Ad in the class pillbox, you will be able to update the video settings.

House Ads in the Waterfall

House ad demand appears in the Add Demand modal along with the other demand classes. Click the house icon in the quick filters to display only house ads or select House Ads from the demand class filter dropdown.

When you add house ads to the demand stack of a supply tag, they appear in the House Ads tier, which is the last tier of the waterfall. House Ads cannot be moved to a higher tier and no demand of different classes can be added to the House Ads tier. Once you add house ads to your waterfall, assign a ratio to each of the demand tags. When deciding which house ad to include in the final waterfall, SpringServe first applies targeting and then uses the ratio to calculate weights between qualified demand tags. The weight shown in the table is calculated based on the assumption that all house ads meet targeting.

In the example above, House Ad A has no geo targeting, House Ad B targets the US, and House Ad C targets Canada. If the request comes from the US, we expect to see House Ad A 80% of the time and House Ad B 20% of the time. If the request comes from Canada, we expect to see an even split between House Ad A and House Ad C.

Note that in a pod, multiple house ads can fill impressions. If demand in tiers 1L through 5 does not fill all slots in the ad pod, house ads will fill any remaining slots according to their set targeting and ratios.

Reporting

Filter for House Ads as demand class or marketplace type to break out impressions from House Ads.

Please let your account manager know if you are interested in the new house ads feature in SpringServe.

Reporting Improvements

SpringServe aggregates Duplicate Impressions when a player or SSAI vendor fires the same impression pixel more than once. Duplicate Impressions are now excluded from the Impressions metric in reporting. Likewise, Duplicate Impressions are excluded in calculation of associated fill rate and revenue metrics.

Supply Clients can now access pod metrics in the reporting UI and in scheduled reports.

Alerts

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:

springserve.com, [Your Account ID], DIRECT, a24eb641fc82e93d
districtm.io, 101856, DIRECT, 3fd707be9c4527c3
undertone.com, 3817, DIRECT
synacor.com, 82101, DIRECT, e108f11b2cdf7d5b
openx.com, 540634634, DIRECT, 6a698e2ec38604c6
beachfront.com, 4969, RESELLER, e2541279e8e2ca4d
advertising.com, 26282, RESELLER
pubmatic.com, 157310, RESELLER, 5d62403b186f2ace
rhythmone.com, 2968119028, RESELLER, a670c89d4a324e47
spotxchange.com, 239904, RESELLER, 7842df1d2fe2db34
spotx.tv, 239904, RESELLER, 7842df1d2fe2db34
contextweb.com, 561910, RESELLER, 89ff185a4c4e857c
openx.com, 540226160, RESELLER, 6a698e2ec38604c6
appnexus.com, 1908, RESELLER, f5ab79cb980f11d1
google.com, pub-9685734445476814, RESELLER, f08c47fec0942fa0
appnexus.com, 2234, RESELLER
advertising.com, 19623, RESELLER
EMXDGT.com, 1251, RESELLER, 1e1d41537f7cad7f
appnexus.com, 1356, RESELLER, f5ab79cb980f11d1

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.

Bug Fixes

Various bug fixes and performance improvements