Google Interactive Media Ads SDK FAQs

Why am I not getting ads back for all formats?
The test ad tags are set up to always return ads for valid requests. This is meant to facilitate integration and make it easier to test how your player requests and renders ads. However, ads are not always available in every format for your site, account, or ad unit. If your integration is working properly for the test tag but not for your own tag, the cause may be one of the following:
  • You're serving videos of an unsupported format to your environment. For example, you're serving only HTML5 ads to iOS or Android.
  • If you're using Ad Manager, your publisher ID may not have any ads targeted to it at this time. Also, ensure that you have approved the relevant ads and creatives in Ad Manager.
  • If you're using AdSense, the targeting criteria for your site or test page may not have any active advertisements. The most common cause is the use of private, uncrawled websites.
  • If you're using Ad Exchange Network Partner Management and descriptionURL is not set or is not on the owned or operated domains management list, ads do not serve to this.
  • Check the minCPM thresholds defined in Ad Exchange Video. A fairly high CPM may result in very low fill rates. To correct this, try either removing the minCPM or removing the ad unit parameter from the ad request (i.e., slotname) to verify whether this is affecting the fill rate.
What does a good descriptionUrl look like?
To be most effective, the content of the page that descriptionUrl points to shouldn't be a collection of words or phrases but rather 1-3 paragraphs actually describing the content and your role in providing it. One method that has been successful in the past is to stitch together descriptionUrl page content dynamically from predefined blocks. For example, a few sentences about the content, a few sentences about your site's offering, and then a few predefined snippets associated with each AdSense channel (like "Entertainment" or "Sports"). As a result, each piece of content has a reasonably distinct descriptionUrl associated with it that provides both general information (such as genre descriptors) as well as specific information (content about the content directly).

This metadata HTML should be simple, for example:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Domain.com - Your tag line here!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Descriptions</h1>
    <h2>About this Content</h2>
      <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. ...</p>
    <h2>About Domain.com</h2>
      <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. ...</p>
  </body>
</html>
Why am I receiving the error "Ad response does not contain a valid ad type"?
This error generally appears because no ads have been targeted to the specific publisherId (for the given time period). This condition may vary throughout the day, or over several days as campaigns begin and end. You should check that the ad you wish to target has not expired and that the ad targeting criteria are correct. As long as ads are properly requested, received, and rendered using the test publisherId, you can be sure that these ads are properly handled using your live publisherId when the ads are available.
Do you have an Ad Manager video ad tag that I can use for testing?
Sample tags are available on the sample tags page.
Should I set the adSlotWidth and adSlotHeight to the same values as the sz in my Ad Manager ad tag?
Not necessarily. The adSlotWidth and adSlotHeight must be set to the width/height of the player or area you want your ads to fill. They are used by AdSense to determine which ads are available to fit into that space. The sz key/value pair in your Ad Manager ad tag is a targeting parameter and does not necessarily affect the creative served (more information below).
The demo ad tag looks great, but when I switch it with my ad tag, no ad appears.
Check to ensure that something is trafficked to the ad tag you are requesting. The easiest way to find out is to watch the HTTP traffic. If a 1x1 pixel grey.gif image is returned within an HTML anchor block, then you need to check your targeting in Ad Manager.
I want to request ads using the same tag more than once, but I only get ads for my first request. How do I fix this?
When you request ads more than once, you need to let the ad server know that these are legitimate requests, and not accidental duplicates. The SDK does this for you with two quick API calls:
  1. Call destroy() on your AdsManager instance. This prevents any post-rolls from playing when you make the below call to contentComplete(). You get a new AdsManager when you make your next request.
  2. Call contentComplete() on your AdsLoader instance. This resets the SDK so the new ad request doesn't look like a duplicate of the previous one.
After making the two calls above, you can call requestAds() on your AdsLoader instance to get another set of ads to play for your new video.
How do I request overlay and full slot AdSense ads using the IMA SDK?

To request AdSense ads using the SDK, you need to first obtain an AdSense ad tag. You can learn more about that on the AdSense for Video page. Once you have your tag, you need to take the following steps to make either an overlay or a full slot ad request:

Overlay ads
  1. In your AdsRequest, set your ViewModes to NORMAL.
  2. In your ad tag, add the parameter overlay=1.
Full slot ads
  1. In your AdsRequest, set your ViewModes to FULLSCREEN.
  2. In your ad tag, add the parameter overlay=0.
I'm getting an "Invalid clickthrough URL" error when I click on my ad. What could be the cause?
The most common cause for this error is an improperly escaped clickthrough URL. If you're seeing this error, check to make sure that your clickthrough URL is properly escaped in your VAST response.
Why do I see a "VAST Document Empty" error?
This error occurs when the ad tag returns an empty VAST document, indicating that the ad was not served properly. Talk to your account manager or ad server representative to see why your ad tag is not working.
Can I change the size/text of the Skip Ad box or other UI elements?
The IMA SDKs do not support changing the layout, size, or content of UI elements. For more details on UI elements, see AdsManager.uiElements.
Are native video controls supported with the HTML5 SDK?
No, the HTML5 SDK does not support native controls.
I'm seeing "Failed to execute 'play' on 'HTMLMediaElement': API can only be initiated by a user gesture" in my HTML5 implementation. How do I fix this?
On mobile devices, you must call adDisplayContainer.initialize() as the result of a user action (such as a tap). If you're seeing this error, you're most likely calling it on a non-user-initiated context. Note that it must be the direct result of a user action. For example, if you respond to a "tap" event by playing a video, and then use the video player's "play" event to call initialize(), the SDK returns this error. You must call initialize() as the result of the tap event itself.
How do I handle keyboard focus on ad clicks?
If you use keyboard controls for your player you may notice that they will no longer work following clicks on the adDisplayContainer. This is because, once an ad is clicked keyboard focus is switched to the IMA iframe. To keep keyboard focus on the content player, please utilize the CLICK event to transfer keyboard focus back to the desired container. See the following code snippet for more details: 
adsManager.addEventListener(
      google.ima.AdEvent.Type.CLICK,
      function(){
        window.focus();
        // Or another method to return focus to the desired container.
      });