The digital advertising industry faces a growing concern with ad fraud, making it imperative to find effective solutions. In response to this challenge, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) introduced ads.txt in 2017. This initiative has been widely embraced by publishers globally.
Ads.txt serves a critical purpose by enabling demand-side platforms and advertisers to authenticate authorized sellers and resellers of their ad inventories. This authentication is instrumental in protecting against fraudulent practices like domain spoofing.
The main problem arises when creating an ads.txt file that adheres to a specific format. Deviating from this format can invalidate the file, resulting in potential revenue loss.
In this blog post, our focus is to emphasize the significance of ads.txt and shed light on common errors often made by publishers during its implementation. We will also provide practical solutions to rectify these errors, safeguarding your revenue in the process.
“The Significance of Ads.txt in Today’s Advertising Landscape
The significance of ads.txt is becoming increasingly apparent as publishers worldwide widely adopt it. This simple yet powerful solution has emerged as a critical tool in the ongoing battle against ad fraud. Its adoption offers a multitude of advantages for publishers, advertisers, and demand-side partners alike.
For publishers, ads.txt plays a vital role in upholding the integrity of their ad inventory by allowing only authorized sellers and resellers to transact their ad spaces.
How Ads.txt Errors Lead to Revenue Loss for Publishers
Ads.txt errors are more prevalent than one might assume, even among prominent publishers. These mistakes within ads.txt files can have a considerable impact on the protocol’s effectiveness, potentially resulting in financial losses and jeopardizing programmatic advertising efforts. To safeguard their revenue and maintain a transparent and secure advertising ecosystem, publishers must ensure the precision and proper implementation of their ads.txt files. Leading DSPs like Xandr and Google DV360 actively promote ads.txt adoption while adhering strictly to the protocol themselves.
These DSPs solely engage with sellers and SSPs listed in publishers’ ads.txt files. As a consequence, a simple typo or syntax error in these files could cause the DSPs to overlook and disregard authorized sellers, leading to missed revenue opportunities. While inaccurately listing a lesser-known demand partner might not have a significant impact on revenue, making a similar mistake with a major demand partner like Google could result in substantial financial losses for publishers.
Advertisers and demand-side partners, on the other hand, benefit from enhanced transparency. They can now verify the authenticity of the ad inventory they intend to purchase, leading to a safer and more trustworthy advertising ecosystem.
Recognizing the importance of ads.txt and implementing it correctly empowers publishers to safeguard their revenue streams and protect the reputation of their brands.”
Fixing Common Ads.txt Errors: A Comprehensive Guide
In this article we will address some of the most important ads.txt errors that publishers always face it.
1. Ads.txt file is not found
Problem: The most common error occurs when the ads.txt file cannot be located. This might be due to an incorrect creation of the ads.txt file or failing to add it to your domain.
Solution:
Create Ads.txt File: Properly set up an ads.txt file and publish it on your domain. For detailed guidance, refer to our comprehensive article on creating an Ads.txt file.
Impression Threshold: Ensure that your Ad Exchange inventory has met or exceeded the 100 impression threshold within the last seven days for your domain to be visible in the ads.txt file.
Be Patient with Changes: Keep in mind that changes may be delayed if you have recently added a new developer website. It can take up to seven days for modifications to reflect from the date of addition.
2. The Google Publisher ID is either not present or has an incorrect format.
Problem: Your Google Publisher ID serves as a unique identifier for your Ad Exchange account. It consists of 16 digits and begins with the prefix ‘pub.’
This ID allows advertisers and DSPs to recognize your account and informs them about the enabled inventory types. To ensure the legitimacy of sellers and resellers, your Publisher ID must be included in the ads.txt file.
Yet, it could either be absent or formatted incorrectly, leading to DSPs being unsure about the information in the ads.txt file.
Solution:
Update Ads.txt File: Correct any inaccurately formatted or missing Publisher ID by updating your ads.txt file. Make sure the Publisher ID is accurately written.
Locate Publisher ID: Log into your Google Ad Manager account to find the Publisher ID for your primary Ad Exchange and any other linked accounts.
Access Settings: Navigate to Settings > Admin > Global Settings > Ad Exchange account settings to access the Publisher ID information.
By following these solutions, you can mitigate common ads.txt errors and ensure a smooth and effective advertising ecosystem for your domain.
3. Issue: Despite having uploaded your ads.txt file, AdSense is still prompting you to create one.
Problem : On occasion, even after uploading your ads.txt file, you may still receive a notification in your AdSense account prompting you to create an ads.txt file.
Solution:
Allow Time for Verification: Give AdSense sufficient time to automatically crawl and verify your ads.txt file. This process may take a few days to complete and update the status of your ads.txt file.
Monitor Ad Requests: If no ad requests have been sent from your website, it can take at least a month for the update to occur. During this period, keep a close eye on your ad requests.
4. The ads.txt file has not been uploaded to the main/root domain of your website.
Problem :The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) explicitly requires ads.txt files to be uploaded to the root domain of your website. However, the ads.txt management tool in Ad Manager does not support displaying a list of crawled sub domains. It is vital to address this situation if you have uploaded your ads.txt file to a sub domain.
Identify the Root Domain: Make sure you are aware of the root domain of your website, which should be one level below the public suffix list.
Upload Ads.txt to Root Domains: Ensure that you upload a separate ads.txt file to each of your multiple root domains.
Check Ads.txt Management: Access your Ad Manager account and click on Admin > Ads.txt Management to verify if the ads.txt file is successfully uploaded to each root domain.
Contact CMS Provider: If your CMS is not allowing you to upload the file to your root domain, promptly contact your CMS provider and request their support in hosting your ads.txt file.
5. Issue: The ads.txt file contains syntax errors.
Syntax errors are a prevalent problem with ads.txt files. The IAB mandates that each ads.txt file must be correctly formatted and written following a predefined style. Making an error in this process can invalidate your file or lead to DSPs and advertisers not recognizing your authorized sellers.
Solution:
Understand Formatting: Familiarize yourself with the correct formatting for an ads.txt file, which consists of 3-4 fields per line, with the first three being mandatory and the fourth optional. For Seperate the field use comma.
Carefully inspect your ads.txt file to verify that each line adheres to the correct format, which should resemble this:
<SSP/Exchange Domain>, <SellerAccountID>, <PaymentsType>, <TAGID>
Resolve Problems: Carefully examine your ads.txt file to correct any syntax errors and ensure accurate representation of all authorized sellers.
For additional assistance, refer to this link to learn about each field and its purpose.
6. Issue: The ads.txt file has not been validated.
After making any modifications or ensuring the proper functioning of an ads.txt file, validation becomes crucial. An unvalidated ads.txt file will not function properly, and it may prevent ad exchanges, SSPs, DSPs, or advertisers from crawling these files, rendering them ineffective.
Solution:
To access Ads.txt Management, navigate to your Google Ad Manager account and click on “Admin” followed by “Ads.txt Management.” The web ads.txt files will be automatically displayed for you.
View or Fix: In the “Action” column, click on either “View” or “Fix” in the appropriate row to edit the file settings. The opened file will be the most recent version crawled by Google.
Verify for Updates: If there have been any alterations to the ads.txt file since Google last crawled your website’s domain, the displayed file could be outdated and should be updated.
Review Syntax: Examine each line in the dialogue window of the updated file for syntax accuracy. Errors and warnings will be displayed for each line. Hover over them to read the descriptions and understand the type of error or warning.
Resolve Errors: Follow Google’s support article to resolve the errors and warnings.
Upload Updated File: Once the errors are resolved, copy and paste the updated text into your ads.txt file and upload it to your website’s root domain.
Check Crawling: Wait for 48 hours and verify if the updated ads.txt file is being crawled. For further information on ensuring the crawling of your ads.txt file, consult Google’s support article.