Ad Quality Control for Ad Management

Reporting Unwanted Ads

If you encounter an unwanted ad on your website, please reach out to the Sovrn Ad Management team with the following information. These items will help our quality team get the whole picture, and allow them to place a block much quicker.

Screenshot of the ad
The URL of the page where the ad displayed
Device, OS, and Browser of the user
Location and approximate date/time of the session, as unwanted actors will often geo-target specific users or have specific dates/times of attacks
Landing page and screen capture of page they were redirected to

Sovrn Ad Management publishers can add #proper_debug_console to the end of the URL to see what partner is responsible for the unwanted ad, as well as which ad slot it is rendering from. If you can get a screenshot with the debug console deployed, this will be very helpful for the quality team.

AdLightning by Boltive

If you have an extensive block list or are frequently receiving unwanted ads, we can deploy AdLightning, Boltive's ad quality solution, which works to eliminate malicious, non-compliant and unwanted ads.

If you have Boltive deployed with us, you can install their Chrome extension that allows you to report ads directly to them and pass along the creative information, which is often needed to track down ads.

Please reach out to the Sovrn Ad Management team for more information.

Google Policy Violations

To ensure a safe and positive experience for users, Google requires that publishers and advertisers comply with all applicable laws, regulations and that they adhere to Google Ads policies. Content, ads, extensions, and destinations that violate these policies can be blocked by Google and associated networks. Depending on how egregious a violation is, Google may restrict spending on some or all of your site.

Policy Violations Dashboard

If Google detects a policy violation on your website, they expose this in the Policy Center in GAM. We post the list of violations for each website in our UI to expose the information directly to publishers.

Publishers are responsible for ensuring that each monetized page complies with Google's program policies. These can be found by navigating to Quality Control > Policy Violations.

Must Fix

Violations marked as ‘Yes’ under Must Fix require immediate publisher action.

Status Violations

Ad Serving at Risk - If item not fixed, may result in Restricted or Disabled Ad Serving.
Restricted Ad Serving - Ad serving has been restricted on that page. This means some buyers may opt out of showing their ads on that page.
Disabled Ad Serving - Ad serving has been disabled on your site entirely. You will need to check your entire site and make changes to bring into compliance.
Confirmed Click - Google's automated process triggers a confirmed click violation when they detect that a publisher's layout may induce clicks or cause accidental clicks. Google gives many examples in their documentation that publishers should avoid on their sites. Please see this article for more information on how to fix this violation.

Violation Types

For a full list of Violation Types and explanations, visit Google Publisher Policies.

How to Fix Violations

There are 2 ways you can make corrections to the pages in violation:

Fix the specified violation(s) on each page
You may disable Google demand on these specific pages by using the ?isolated? special_ops variable as described: LINK TO PROPERSPECIALOPS

Need more help?

If you still have questions, please reach out to admanagement@sovrn.com