How to setup an ad-unit in DoubleClick for Publishers SB

One thing I would advise to you before you start creating any ad-unit, first do your planning. Creating ad-units are the easy part.

1. Planning your site inventory

Why do you need to do this, well, if you are planning to sell advertisement space on your website, you will need to know or at least tell your advertisers what inventory you have available to sell.

What is inventory? Inventory simply put, is any open space on a page you are prepared to make available for advertising. It doesn’t stop there, if your site consists of multiple sections or categories one will need to structure your ad-units in such a way to mirror your website structure.

In the end it will make it easier for you to sell ad space.

The best way to go about planning your site inventory, use Microsoft Excel. Start adding all your website sections and the size ads for each section you want to display.

Once you have a structure you can start with your ad-unit creation in DFP.

2. Creating an Ad-Unit

You can create ad-units in 2 different ways. Manually in DFP UI, or you can make use of the import feature. I will show you both ways, but if you have done your planning up-front, it would be easier for you to make use of you sheet you have already setup.

2.1 Creating an ad-unit in DFP UI

1. Click the Inventory tab.
2. Click New ad unit.
3. Enter a Code, which is used to identify the ad unit in the associated ad tag. (I will explain to you in another article what an ad tag is).
4. Enter a Name for the ad unit. You can change the name at any time. (Please take a look at the tips section below for some guidance on giving ad-unit names)
5. Set the Sizes for the ad unit.
6. Select Fixed size and then enter the size of the creatives the ad unit can host. You can enter multiple sizes if you want to use the same ad unit for multiple ad slots or across different platforms with different sizes, such as mobile and desktop.
7. Define a target window, which identifies the browser window where an ad’s landing page will open. This value is set as the target attribute of the ad link.
8. Click Add a labeling rule under Ad unit frequency caps to choose the number of impressions to be shown to each user per time period for the creatives that share the label.
9. Set a refresh rate to determine how often a new ad impression is generated on a mobile app. If you select Refresh rate in seconds, DFP will auto-populate a value of 60, which you can change to 30 – 120 seconds.
10. Click Save.

2.2 Creating an ad-unit/s with csv import feature

1. Click the Inventory tab.
2. Click Bulk upload new ad units.
3. Click Download sample CSV file to download a file that you can use to define your ad units. Don’t change the column order or the column headings.
4. Open the CSV file and make changes based on the examples and the descriptions in the tables below. When you’re done, save the CSV file.
5. Click Choose File to find your CSV file.
6. Click Upload and validate.
7. Verify that the ad unit settings are correct.
8. Click Confirm upload to upload the new ad units.
9. The values for each column must follow the same formatting rules as those fields when you create an ad unit directly in DFP.

To read more about creating ad-units in DFP, please take a look at this article on DFP support.

Tips when creating ad-units

• Often publishers choose to use codes that identify the ad unit’s location. For example, you might use the format SiteName_Section_SubSection_Location_PagePosition, and a specific ad unit code might be ABCPublisher_News_International_RightSidebarTop.
• Only letters, numbers, underscores, hyphens, periods, asterisks, forward slashes, backslashes, exclamations, left angle brackets, right angle brackets, colons and parentheses are allowed.
• Ad unit codes can be up to 100 characters in length.
• Ad unit codes are not case-sensitive.
• Associate the ad unit with one or more placements by clicking Add next to the appropriate placements.
• If you’d like to maximize the revenue of unsold and non-guaranteed inventory with AdSense, select the Maximize revenue of unsold and remnant inventory with AdSense checkbox. (If all ad units in your network are enabled for AdSense by default, the AdSense inventory settings field will display Enabled.)
• Ad units enabled for AdSense will only compete with AdSense if certain criteria are met; AdSense competition doesn’t work for ad units that are placed in mobile apps.