Tips and Tricks: Mobile Ad Serving in DFA

Considering running a mobile campaign? As long as the publishers on your media plan are able to dynamically serve mobile ad tags to users who are accessing the sites on a mobile device, you can traffic your mobile placements through DFA. Mobile trafficking in DFA is very similar to standard image trafficking with a couple key differences.

If your publishers have questions about DFA Mobile tags, how they work and how to implement, please direct them to our Partner Support Site (no DFA sign-in required).

1. Mobile Placements: Create mobile placements by selecting Mobile in the Placement Properties tab.

Key Difference #1: Mobile placements don't have media dimensions. Placements include all sizes in a single placement/creative delivery.

2. Mobile Creatives: Upload your mobile image files by clicking Add Creative > Mobile. There should be multiple sized assets for each DFA mobile creative based on MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) standard sizes. DFA will detect the best creative size to match the device when the tags are served. For each creative message, all mobile image files are uploaded into a single DFA mobile creative. When that single creative set is selected, the optimal creative dimension for the individual mobile device will be displayed.

Note: While it's possible to traffic only one image file size per creative, we strongly recommend using all four MMA standard sizes per placement as a best practice. This will ensure that there are appropriate sizes for the most common mobile devices.

Key Difference #2: Multiple-sized assets for each creative.

3. Mobile Ads: Next, create a mobile ad by clicking Create Ad > Mobile Ad on the Ads tab. Only mobile creatives can be associated with mobile ads, and only mobile ads can be assigned to mobile placements.

You can assign multiple creative messages (each with different-sized assets) to rotate to the same ad slot with a random creative rotation. For mobile ads, you can target to countries and mobile platforms.

4. Mobile Tags: To download mobile ad tags in DFA, you will need to download them separately from standard in-page tags. All mobile placements will display the same 0x0 size. On the Tags tab, under Placement Type, select Mobile.

5. Mobile Reporting: Similar to the Single Advertiser query, the Mobile query in ReportCentral provides delivery results for one or more campaigns from a single advertiser. In addition, the Mobile query includes delivery information based on mobile carrier, country, mobile platform, and size profiles.

We hope you found these tips helpful but if you have further questions about DFA's mobile capabilities, please email dfa-support@google.com or contact your account manager. You can also find more details within the Mobile section of the DFA Help Center (DFA sign-in required).

Posted by Will Trang, DFA Technical Services Associate