Display QA | Glossary – Advalidation Help

Ad verification

Ad verification tags are third party tags used to monitor parameters like viewability. Depending on setup they can also block an ad from displaying based on parameters like page content keywords.

Animation length

Animation length is counted as the number of seconds with movement starting from the first rendered frame. Animation can create a severe distraction for users.

Audio

Audio can catch users off guard and compel them to close the window or tab in order to stop the sound.

Click tracking

Tags must be able to accept click tracking through the use of a click macro.

Code validation

During testing the ad code is tested using custom rules defined by your account.

Connection screening

Only calls to domains approved by your account are allowed. Ads with calls to unapproved domains are not allowed.

CPU usage

Complex animations and detailed moving elements like high-resolution images affect the number of calculations the CPU must make for each frame. Ads that use less CPU use less battery, increase page performance and allow for other CPU-intensive elements like HD video to display without issues.

Creative border

A distinct border around the creative is required so that users without difficulty can distinguish between ads and other content.

Creative expansion

Expanding creatives can be distracting and make it difficult for users to focus on the content they are reading.

Dimensions

The width and height of the creative must match one of the ad units supported.

Dimensions discrepancy

A dimension discrepancy indicates a difference between the visual width and height and the HTML width and height of the creative. This can result in ads pushing other elements down. Common reasons are tracking pixels or other elements added to the creative.

Heavy ad interventions

The heavy ad intervention test looks for an actual heavy ad intervention (unloading of the ad) during testing. Chrome considers an ad heavy if it uses the main CPU thread for more than 60 seconds in total, uses the main CPU thread for more than 15 seconds in any 30 second window or uses more than 4 megabytes of total network bandwidth.

Hosted file size

File size is the size of the files that your ad server will have to host. For example HTML5 zips or image only creatives that are not served by a tag.

HTML local storage

Local storage objects can be used to store and retrieve data about users. The settings are typically not exposed via web browser controls making it difficult for users to change their settings or opt out. The use of local storage objects to store data is therefore not allowed.

HTTPS issues

HTTPS protects the privacy and security of users. All network requests made by creatives and tracking pixels must be made over HTTPS.

Initial file requests

The number of calls made to download files has a big impact on the performance of the creative and the page. This impacts the user experience and viewability.

Javascript errors

Javascript errors can be caused by for example problems with macros, missing libraries or poor testing during development. This setting will detect and fail creatives with javascript errors.

Landing page

The final URL must work properly and resolve to a single working website. Common issues include malformed click-through URLs, invalid click redirect URLs, problems with macro replacement in URLs, or non-working/non-existent landing pages.

Landing page redirects

Each redirect triggers an additional HTTP request-response cycle and can delay landing page rendering.

MRAID.js load attempt

MRAID.js is a framework for rich media mobile creatives. It relies on a local implementation of a file called MRAID.js. If this file is not present in the publisher environment MRAID based creatives may not work as intended.

Number of cookies

Excessive use of cookies can negatively impact performance and put user integrity at risk.

Remote load

For third party tags this is the entire creative (except the small initiating script or iframe snippet). For hosted creatives these are resources that are referenced by the files you host, for example javascript libraries or fonts. Remote load is either defined as a sum of all assets loaded regardless of when the load is initiated or divided into an initial load phase and a subload phase.

Rotating creative

A rotating creative warning indicates that there might be multiple creatives or multiple variations of the same creative running on the tested tag.

Time to visual start

Visual start measures the time it takes for a creative to render under repeatable circumstances. It is an aggregate test that is affected by multiple important individual performance factors such as file size, number of assets, code efficiency, serving platform performance and CPU usage.