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    Use ads.txt control center

    Table of Contents

    Overview Access Domain/Bundle list Troubleshoot by status

    Overview

    Ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) and app-ads.txt for apps are IAB specifications aiming at eliminating counterfeit and unauthorized inventory in programmatic advertising. With the ads.txt/app-ads.txt file, publishers declare publicly, which sellers are authorized to sell their inventory. An improperly configured ads.txt or app-ads.txt file can result in ad revenue losses because the demand side will consider the offered ad opportunities as not trustworthy and will bid less or even stop bidding on the concerned sites/apps.

    This article describes how you can leverage Equativ’s Ads.txt control center to fix common issues with ads.txt/app-ads.txt files. For more information, see Implement ads.txt specification and the IAB ads.txt specification.

    Access

    To access the Ads.txt control center go to Inventory > Ads.txt Control Center in EMP. 

    Domain/Bundle list

    The Ads.txt control center lists each Domain/Bundle that requires attention, with the following information:

    • Top domain: the root domain of the given domain/bundle.
    • Status: see chapter “Statuses and Troubleshooting”. Use the filter "Status" to focus on domains/bundles with a specific status.
    • Auctions: the number of auctions originating form the domain/bundle. Sorting this column in descending order allows you to display domains/bundles with the most traffic at the top.

    In case of Google OB integrations, publishers must add a specific Google OB related entry to their ads.txt file, for example: smartadserver.com, 1234-OB, RESELLER, 023456789.  Such Google OB related entries having the ...-OB suffix are not taken into account by the Ads.txt control center. For more information, see section "Direct publishers/resellers of websites/apps using Google OB integration" in Implement ads.txt specification.

    Troubleshoot by status

    The table below explains each status with recommended steps to troubleshoot issues:  

    Status Description Troubleshooting (if applicable)
    Ads.txt not found The ads.txt file is not available or has not been found. Upload the ads.txt file to your site’s root directory. For more information, see section “Ads.txt / app-ads.txt file” in Implement ads.txt specification.
    Equativ entry not found Equativ is not mentioned in the ads.txt file. Add an Equativ entry to the ads.txt file., For more information, see section “Ads.txt / app-ads.txt file” in Implement ads.txt specification. Note that the field Domain name of the advertising system in the Equativ entry remains smartadserver.com, even though the company has been renamed to “Equativ.”
    Bad media type Unexpected file content; the ads.txt file content must be plain text (text/plain is expected). Ensure the ads.txt file content is plain text only.
    Bad content One or more ads.txt entries don’t follow the IAB specification. Ensure your ads.txt entries follow the IAB specification.
    Developer URL missing The developer URL was missing from the metadata of at least one app store. Provide the developer website URL (developer_url) within the app store listing metadata in all app stores distributing the app. To learn more, see the section “App-ads.txt detailed description” in Implement ads.txt specification.
    Domain or bundle not yet crawled The advertiser domain or bundle has not yet been crawled by Equativ.
    1. Wait for Equativ to crawl the file. Recent changes to your ads.txt file will be taken into account the next time Equativ crawls your ads.txt file. If the crawler finds the file, it will continue to check the domain every 24 hours for updates. If the file is not found, the crawler will check the domain once every hour until it finds the file.
    2. Check if the "Domain or bundle not yet crawled" status could be due to the absence of a subdomain pointer in the root domain's ads.txt file which enables the redirection of Equativ's crawler. For example, if you host an ads.txt file at http://divisionone.example.com/ads.txt, then you must declare subdomain=divisionone.example.com in the ads.txt file hosted at http://example.com/ads.txt. For more information about subdomains and subdomain pointers, see sections "3.5.1 Supported variables", "4.5 Subdomain referral" and "5.5 Subdomain directives" in the ads.txt specification.

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