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AdMob Mediation is a feature lets you serve ads to your apps from multiple sources, including the AdMob Network and third-party ad sources, in one place. AdMob Mediation helps maximize your fill rate and increase your monetization by sending ad requests to multiple networks to ensure you find the best available network to serve ads. Case study.

Prerequisites

Before you can integrate mediation for an ad format, you need to integrate that ad format into your app:

New to mediation? Read Overview of AdMob Mediation.

For bidding: Google Mobile Ads SDK 18.3.0 or higher.

Initialize the Mobile Ads SDK

The quick start guide shows you how to initialize the Mobile Ads SDK. During that initialization call, mediation adapters also get initialized. It is important to wait for initialization to complete before you load ads in order to ensure full participation from every ad network on the first ad request.

The following sample code shows how you can check each adapter's initialization status prior to making an ad request.

Java

import com.google.android.gms.ads.MobileAds;
import com.google.android.gms.ads.initialization.AdapterStatus;
import com.google.android.gms.ads.initialization.InitializationStatus;
import com.google.android.gms.ads.initialization.OnInitializationCompleteListener;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        new Thread(
                () ->
                    // Initialize the Google Mobile Ads SDK on a background thread.
                    MobileAds.initialize(
                        this,
                        initializationStatus -> {
                          Map<String, AdapterStatus> statusMap =
                              initializationStatus.getAdapterStatusMap();
                          for (String adapterClass : statusMap.keySet()) {
                            AdapterStatus status = statusMap.get(adapterClass);
                            Log.d(
                                "MyApp",
                                String.format(
                                    "Adapter name: %s, Description: %s, Latency: %d",
                                    adapterClass, status.getDescription(), status.getLatency()));
                          }
                          // Start loading ads here...
                        }))
            .start();
    }
}

Kotlin

import com.google.android.gms.ads.MobileAds
import kotlinx.coroutines.CoroutineScope
import kotlinx.coroutines.Dispatchers
import kotlinx.coroutines.launch

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
  override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

    val backgroundScope = CoroutineScope(Dispatchers.IO)
    backgroundScope.launch {
      // Initialize the Google Mobile Ads SDK on a background thread.
      MobileAds.initialize(this@MainActivity) { initializationStatus ->
        val statusMap =
          initializationStatus.adapterStatusMap
        for (adapterClass in statusMap.keys) {
          val status = statusMap[adapterClass]
          Log.d(
            "MyApp", String.format(
              "Adapter name: %s, Description: %s, Latency: %d",
              adapterClass, status!!.description, status.latency
            )
          )
        }
        // Start loading ads here...
      }
    }
  }
}

Check which ad network adapter class loaded the ad

Here is some sample code that logs the ad network class name for a banner ad:

Java

public void onAdLoaded() {
  Log.d("Banner adapter class name: " + ad.getResponseInfo().getMediationAdapterClassName());
}

Kotlin

override fun onAdLoaded() {
  Log.d("Banner adapter class name:" + ad.responseInfo.mediationAdapterClassName)
}

Refer to the ResponseInfo documentation on getMediationAdapterClassName() for details about this method.

Initialize your ad object with an Activity instance

In the constructor for a new ad object (for example, AdView), you must pass in an object of type Context. This Context is passed on to other ad networks when using mediation. Some ad networks require a more restrictive Context that is of type Activity and may not be able to serve ads without an Activity instance. Therefore, we recommend passing in an Activity instance when initializing ad objects to ensure a consistent experience with your mediated ad networks.

Make sure to disable refresh in all third-party ad source UIs for banner ad units used in AdMob Mediation. This prevents a double refresh since AdMob also triggers a refresh based on your banner ad unit's refresh rate.

Use native ads with AdMob Mediation

The following are some best practices to consider when implementing native ads in AdMob Mediation.

Native ad presentation policy
Each ad network has its own policies. When using mediation, it's important to remember that your app still needs to abide by the policies of the mediated network that provided the ad.
Use loadAd() instead of loadAds()
The loadAds() method serves only Google ads. For mediated ads, use loadAd() instead.

US states privacy laws and GDPR

If you need to comply with the U.S. states privacy laws or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), follow the steps in US state regulations settings or GDPR settings to add your mediation partners in AdMob Privacy & messaging's US states or GDPR ad partners list. Failure to do so can lead to partners failing to serve ads on your app.

Learn more about enabling restricted data processing (RDP) and obtaining GDPR consent with the Google User Messaging Platform (UMP) SDK.
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