Enabling test ads

This guide explains how to receive test ads for your ads integration. It's recommended that you use test ads during development so you can test clickthrough behavior without affecting your reservation campaigns' stats or charging advertisers.

Prerequisite

Complete Get Started.

Demo ad units

The quickest way to enable testing is to use Google-provided demo ad units. These ad units are not associated with your Ad Manager account, so there's no risk of your account generating invalid traffic when using these ad units.

Here are demo ad units that point to specific test creatives for each format:

Ad format	Demo ad unit ID
App Open	`/21775744923/example/app-open`
Adaptive Banner	`/21775744923/example/adaptive-banner`
Fixed Size Banner	`/21775744923/example/fixed-size-banner`
Interstitial	`/21775744923/example/interstitial`
Rewarded Ads	`/21775744923/example/rewarded`
Rewarded Interstitial	`/21775744923/example/rewarded-interstitial`
Native	`/21775744923/example/native`
Native Video	`/21775744923/example/native-video`

Key Point: These demo ad units are configured to serve direct-sold ads in Ad Manager, and direct-sold ads do not return AdChoices.

Enable test devices (Test mode)

If you want to do more rigorous testing with production-looking ads, you can now configure your device as a test device and use your own ad unit IDs that you've created in the Ad Manager UI.

Follow the steps below to add your device as a test device.

Add your test device programmatically

If you want to test ads in your app as you're developing, follow the steps below to programmatically register your test device.

Load your ads-integrated app and make an ad request.

Check the console for a message that looks like this:

<Google> To get test ads on this device, set:
GADMobileAds.sharedInstance.requestConfiguration.testDeviceIdentifiers =
@[ @"2077ef9a63d2b398840261c8221a0c9b" ];

Copy your test device ID to your clipboard.

Modify your code to set the test device ID through testDeviceIdentifiers:

Swift

GADMobileAds.sharedInstance().requestConfiguration.testDeviceIdentifiers =
    [ "2077ef9a63d2b398840261c8221a0c9b" ] // Sample device ID

Objective-C

GADMobileAds.sharedInstance.requestConfiguration.testDeviceIdentifiers =
    @[ @"2077ef9a63d2b398840261c8221a0c9b"  ]; // Sample device ID

Re-run your app. If the ad is a Google ad, you'll see a Test mode label centered at the top of the ad (banner, interstitial, or rewarded ad):

To see the Test mode label, you need to be using an SDK version of 7.59.0 or higher. In versions 7.26.0 to 7.58.0 the label will say Test Ad.

For native advanced ads, the headline asset is prepended with the string Test mode.

Ads with this Test mode label are safe to click. Requests, impressions, and clicks on ads in test mode will not show up in your account's reports.

Mediated ads do NOT render a **Test mode** label. See the section below for details.

Testing with mediation

Google's demo ad units only show Google ads. To test your mediation configuration, you must use the enable test devices approach.

Mediated ads do not render a Test mode label. You are responsible for ensuring that test mode is enabled for each of your mediation networks so that these networks don't flag your account for invalid activity. See each network's respective mediation guide for more information.

If you aren't sure whether a mediation ad network adapter provides a test mode, it is safest to avoid clicking on ads from that network during development. You can use the adNetworkClassName property on any of the ad formats to figure out which ad network served the current ad.