Advertising Standards
Advertisements (banner, video, or HTML5) or click-through URLs/domains that violate these policies will be removed from the platform without notice.
Prohibited Ad Content:
- Pornography, Nudity, Obscenity, or other "Adult" Content
- Hate Speech or Defamatory Language
- Sale of drugs, illegal pharmaceuticals, or paraphernalia
- Sale of, or instructions for creating, guns, bombs, ammunition, or weapons
- Ads that display or imply any type of warning or error
- Ads that attempt to induce clicks without clearly communicating the business purpose or value
- Ad content that doesn't relate to the click-through URL content in a clear and obvious way
- Ads that violate any law or legal protection for intellectual property
Prohibited Landing Page Behavior:
- Displaying fake errors to induce user action, or messaging that implies knowledge of a users computer or operating system
- Sale of drugs, illegal pharmaceuticals, or paraphernalia
- Charging for government forms and services
- Enabling or Permitting Piracy
- Misappropriation of Copyright, Trademark, Trade Secret, or Patent
- Executes or Downloads Files without User Interaction
- Content that intends to, or does, induce user action through misleading appearance or behavior, including, but not limited to creatives that mimic video players, functional buttons, errors or warnings about viruses, missing codecs, and corrupt disks
Rejected Content
The following list includes the most common reasons ads are rejected along with troubleshooting steps:
| Feedback Reason | Potential Issue | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| The creative doesn't display properly. | > The creative blanks due to caching issues or batch stalls. > The creative was submitted with an incorrect tag size. > The creative has geo-targeting, impression capping, or similar blocking technology enabled. > The creative uses DoubleVerify or Integral Ad Science wrapping without proper macros. > There's excess text and/or images that display outside of the iFrame. | > Make sure your creative matches the dimensions/tag size that you have selected for it > Remove geo targeting, impression capping, or similar blocking technology from the creative before submitting it for audit > Text or images that are outside of the iFrame may be visible to the third-party impression tracking pixel. |
| The creative improperly rotates brands. | The creative displays a variety of different brands. | Narrow the number of brands represented on the creative to one. |
| The creative doesn't click through properly. | > The creative doesn't click through to a landing page. > The creative clicks through to a 404 error, invalid page, or a non-branded, non-functioning page. > The creative clicks through in the same window or doesn't prompt a new tab/window to open. | Test your creative's clickthrough by placing the creative ID where indicated in the following example: http://ib.adnxs.com/cr?id=CREATIVEID. |
| The creative doesn't contain sufficient branding. | > The creative doesn't meet branding standards since it doesn't have a clear logo, brand name, or landing page URL. > The creative branding doesn't match the landing page branding. > The creative branding is obfuscated (too small or too faint) to constitute branding. > The branding represented on the creative and landing page has been bannned from our platform. | > Add a clear logo, brand name, or landing page URL to the creative and landing page. > Ensure that the same branding is represented on both the creative and landing page. > Replace branding that has been banned from our system with branding that we've deemed acceptable. |
| The creative doesn't have a landing page assigned to it. | Creative uses a landing page at the campaign or line item level, but no URL has been supplied. | Provide a landing page URL at the campaign or line item level. For more information, see Associate Creatives to Campaigns and Associate Creatives with a Line Item. |
| The creative/landing page prompts a download or redirects to an external application. | > The creative prompts a download or redirects to an external application automatically or on click. > The landing page prompts a download or redirects to an external application automatically or after countdown. | > Remove any URLs from the creative that will prompt a download or redirect to an external application. The product advertised on the creative should only be opened within an application. |
| The creative doesn't meet minimum standards. | > The creative is offensive, illegal, bothersome, or otherwise unacceptable for a general audience. > The offer on the creative doesn't match the offer on the landing page. > The creative doesn't have an identifiable offer at all. > The creative or landing page doesn't contain any content. | > Remove any offensive, illegal, or bothersome content that is deemed unacceptable for a general audience from the creative. For more information about content that we prohibit, see Prohibited Content. > Ensure that the creative contains an identifiable offer that is identical to the one on the landing page. > Ensure that the creative contains content. |
| The creative causes automatic refreshing to occur. | > The creative automatically refreshes. > The creative causes the entire webpage to refresh. | Disable automatic refreshing on the creative. |
CBA Standards All creatives must meet the Coalition for Better Ads (CBA) standards in order to serve on desktop and mobile inventory. For more information, see https://www.betterads.org/standards/.