Weathering the Storm with SpringServe

SpotX integrations, guard rails, heavy ads reporting, additional targeting options and macros, new API file bulk update methods, and much more.

Feature Additions

SpotX Total Connect +

SpringServe is excited to partner with SpotX to offer two new products under the Total Connect + umbrella: TC+ Bid and SpotX Connect.

TC+ Bid

With TC+ Bid, SpringServe acts as a bidder and can return bids in new formats including OpenRTB 2.5, JSON key values, and inline. In the latter two, SpringServe caches the ads behind key values and either displays them via JSON or redirects them to another ad server, respectively Please talk to your account manager if you would like to set up a TC+ Bid configuration.

SpotX Connect

SpringServe now offers a more robust yet elegant integration with your SpotX demand through SpotX Connect. SpotX Connect is a unique type of demand that behaves in a similar way to SpotX TC+ header bidding. With SpotX Connect, you can assign multiple SpotX channel IDs to your supply and SpringServe can place multiple bids in the waterfall. Once you connect your SpringServe and SpotX accounts, you can also see a more detailed picture of the SpotX demand serving on your SpringServe supply and additional SpotX Channel metadata.

Linking SpringServe to SpotX

Within SpringServe, you can link your SpotX publisher account by entering a set of credentials. You will be redirected to the SpotX publisher platform and prompted to log in to your SpotX account and grant SpringServe access to your SpotX account. Once linked, SpringServe will maintain a secure connection and sync SpotX channel and campaign metadata.

SpotX Connect Demand Settings

On the SpotX Connect tab of the demand page, you can see quickstats for existing SpotX Connect demand and create new SpotX Connect. Assign a channel ID and floor to SpotX Connect like you would a SpotX TC+ header bidding demand tag.

Respect SpotX Tier

Demand within SpotX is assigned a tier of 1 through 10; with SpotX Connect you have the ability to respect these tiers or place all or some responses in a single tier in your SpringServe demand stack. SpringServe defaults to respect all SpotX tiers. Selecting Custom reveals checkboxes for tiers 1 through 10.

SpringServe will place bids from unchecked SpotX tiers in the tier containing the SpotX Connect Marketplace tag. Likewise, when None is selected in the Respect SpotX Tier pillbox, all responses from the channel ID will be placed in the Marketplace tier.

SpotX Connect on Supply

Enable a supply tag for SpotX Connect on the settings tab in the demand options. pillbox toggle to enable XConnect Once enabled, you can add SpotX Connect to the supply by selecting XConnect from the +Demand menu button. In the modal you will see any assigned SpotX Connect at the top of the table and can assign SpotX Connect by checking the boxes in the first column and clicking Apply. SpotX connect modal for adding demand to supply

SpringServe will place responses from non-respected SpotX tiers according to the position of the SpotX Connect Marketplace tag. When enabled for SpotX Connect, this tag appears by default in tier 5. Once traffic starts flowing to assigned SpotX Connect channels, SpotX Connect tags will appear in the waterfall. Clicking the expansion icon will open a modal where you can see tabs with different summary data.

SpotX Connect Quickstats

Quickstats for SpotX Connect can be viewed from the supply and demand side. From the supply side, view these in the SpotX Connect Tier modals. From the demand side, view them from the tabs of a SpotX Connect and the supply tag modals that appear when you click the expansion icon in the Supply Tags tab.

XDemand shows a breakdown of all SpotX Campaigns that bid on the request.

Different types of SpotX demand are denoted by badges:

Star: Programmatic Guaranteed
Handshake: PMP
Shopping Cart: Public Marketplace
Tag: 3rd Party Tag
Code: Header Bidding
Play: Creative Asset

XChannels shows a breakdown of all SpotX Channel IDs.

channel tab displays all channels buying from the supply tag

Summary shows quickstats panels with Bid metrics and graphs for all activity for SpotX Connect on the supply tag. You can also apply filters for channels and SpotX campaigns.

summary tables and graphs for SpotXconnect

Bid Density displays a distribution of valid bids and bids below the floor.

Let your account manager know if you would like to start using SpotX Connect.

Account Default Additions

Guard Rails

In your default account settings you can now create Guard Rails for SpringServe demand.

set status for new and dupe demand tags, apply 10k daily impression budget to new demand tags

This feature allows you to set a default status for new and duplicated demand tags. Default budgets can also be set for new demand tags and campaigns. Duplicate tags and campaigns can optionally use the guard rail budgets as an override to any original budgets.

Default Pod Settings

If your default supply environment is CTV, you can also select the default pod setting for new supply tags.

ctv supply environment default with custom pod setting

When you select Custom as your default pod setting, you can set the default ad pod duration to be applied to new supply tags.

Variable Macros

Variable Macros can also be set on the default settings tab of the account settings page.

Here, you can set the value of a pre-defined macro for use in your demand. This feature provides a centralized location to make changes to values SpringServe passes to demand, eliminating the need to update multiple demand tags.

If you are interesting in Variable Macros, please let your account manager know.

Heavy Ads

According to Google, an ad is considered heavy if it has not been initiated by the user and meets any of the following three criteria:

uses the main thread for more than 60 seconds total
uses the main thread for more than 15 seconds in any 30 second window
requires more than 4 MB of network bandwidth to load resources

If any of these three things happen, then Google Chrome removes this ad from the page. To help users better troubleshoot this issue on VPAID-enabled supply tags, SpringServe now tracks when the browser unloads an iframe off the page due to it being a heavy ad. The Heavy Ad metric is upticked when this unload happens. Reporting for heavy ads is available for your supply in the metrics and calculations sections of the reporting page.

Targeting Options

Demand Partner Country Targeting

You can now apply country targeting to your demand partners.

Share of Voice Targeting

On the targeting tab of a demand tag, you can now set Share of Voice targeting by selecting Custom and setting a percentage goal.

The bullhorn targeting icon lights up for demand with this targeting enabled.

Key-value Arrays

We now allow key value arrays to be passed through and targeted against. For example, if you send bids=a,b,c in the supply tag url, you can target a single ‘bid’ within that array in the UI. This feature is currently limited to the keys amzslots and roku_ad_keys.

Supply Tag Dayparting

If you use routers for you supply management, you may want to split requests using dayparting on supply tags. This targeting can now be set on both managed and DC supply tags.

Respect Pod Order

If you expect to receive a pod from your demand tag, you can opt to respect the pod order when creating the pod response for your supply. Enabled this setting in the Advanced section of a demand tag. When enabled, the whole demand tag pod will be placed in its original order in our pod response. When disabled, optimization may break up the pod reorder ads in the SpringServe pod response.

Core Improvements

OMSDK

If you have OMSDK in your app, you can flag managed supply tags in the IVT Options section.

Flagged tags will pre-select OMSDK macros in the tag export and SpringServe will pass through the Publisher Name and Publisher Version in the omidpn and omidpv params, respectively.

You can also enable this setting on the default account settings for all new supply tags.

Note that there is no syncing between supply tags and routers, so if they have OMSDK on their supply tags, they should include the macros in any parent router export.

Header Bidding

We continue to expand our Header Bidding support in SpringServe with the NoBid, Chocolate and 33 Across adapters.

New Macros & Macro Overrides

New content macros allow you to pass additional details about to your demand:

You can also now pass placement skippability, production quality, and IFA type. Select these macros in the Player section. See our wiki for further details.

The following macros also appear in the Macro Overrides dropdown: category, rating, channel name, and IFA Type.

Dynamic Timeouts

You can now add the “timeout=” parameter to your supply tags to set the supply tag timeout dynamically in the ad call. This will override any timeouts set in the UI.

Note that this feature is only applicable to VAST Only supply tags.

Privacy Updates

If you have business in the EU, you may want to hash GDPR personal identifying information. Talk to your account manager to enable this featureYou can now select DNT as a reason to obfuscate IP address.When obfuscating IP addresses SpringServe passes the last 4 digits of the IP address as zeroes.

Ad Quality

We continue to make improvements to Ad Quality management in SpringServe. You can now set advertiser domain on managed demand tags in addition to creative asset and header bidding demand.Additionally, VAST error code reporting is now available by advertiser domains.If you are interested in expanded ad quality support, please contact your account manager.

UI/UX Improvements

Slot Positioning

With Slot Positioning, you have finer control over where your demand can serve in a pod by creating a demand stack per slot. Management of these demand stack is now easier with the ability to move demand between slots using bulk actions.

If you are interested in using slot positioning to manage pod supply, please contact your account manager.

Reporting Keys

We now display changelogs for reporting keys on supply tags and routers. This change makes it easier for you to keep track of when you added or removed a reporting key from your supply and takes the guesswork out of key report analysis.

API

If you use the API for targeting list management in SpringServe, you can now use file uploads to create new targeting lists and manage entries on existing lists. New API methods include the following:

file_bulk_create: append entries in a csv file to a targeting list
file_bulk_replace: replace the entirety of a targeting list with the contents of a csv file
file_bulk_delete: remove all entries in a csv file from a targeting list

Additionally, you can replace the contents of a list using the bulk_replace method. This method removes the requirement of deleting all entries in a list and then repopulating it.New API methods are available for all types of targeting lists: domain, app name, app bundle, IP, segments, and advertiser domain. You can also use these methods with the Python SDK. Please see our wiki for more details.

Reporting

Additional Metrics

Slot Metrics

For pod supply you can report on time and slot metrics. On the reporting page, select Pod Slots Avail and Pod Slot Opps from the Numbers metrics. Slot Opportunities denote the number of slots returned in the pod. Calculations also include the following metrics:

Slot Opp % = Slot Opportunities / Slots Available
Slot Opp Fill % = Impressions / Slot Opportunties
Slot Fill % = Impressions / Slots Available

We also display these metrics on your pod supply tags, making at-a-glance analysis easier.

RPMR

Revenue per thousand requests, or RPMR, gives you an additional perspective on your financial performance in SpringServe. Select this metric from the financials section on the reporting page.

State Reporting

We have made improvements to state reporting with the addition Australian states and the inclusion of pre-impression event logging in LLD.

If you are interested in State reporting or LLD, please talk to your account manager.

Scheduled Reports

Management of scheduled reports is now easier, with the ability to set reports to inactive. You can make status updates manually on the settings tab of a report, individually by clicking the status icon on the index table, or by using bulk actions. Active reports appear by default on the index table, but you can also filter for any or inactive status.Changelogs now display updates to recipients, allowing you to more easily track down when someone has been added or removed from the scheduled report.

Alerts

Reporting API

Reports run in the API now have a limit of 500k rows returned. If you need to run larger reports, please talk to your account manager about alternate solutions such as LLD, Snowflake DB views, or access to an S3 bucket.

Bug Fixes

Various bug fixes and performance improvements.