SPX FAQ

General Questions

What does Dynamic Demand mean?

Dynamic Demand is the Smaato technology enabling per-impression competition among any buying model.

How much does it cost to use the Smaato Publisher Platform?

Smaato acts as a full-service provider for mobile advertising aggregation services. Revenue generated through Smaato’s services is subject to a revenue share. Want to know your revenue share? See our Terms and Conditions for more information.

What browsers are supported and recommended for SPX?

Smaato recommends the latest versions of the web browser Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari.

I’m using an old Internet Explorer and can’t sign up to SPX. What’s wrong?

SPX does not support Internet Explorer 11.0 or older. Please choose one of the recommended browsers or upgrade your browser.

How can I reach out for SPX support?

Please contact us at our dedicated SPX support account: [email protected].

My Inventory

What Download URL should I include if my app is in the development stage?

You can insert a dummy URL (e.g. http://www.test.com/placeholder) for the time being, but don’t forget to insert the proper URL as soon as your App is live on the store!

What sites or apps qualify for Smaato?

The Smaato Publisher Platform SPX is open to everyone, ranging from large publishers with multiple mobile sites or applications to small start-ups, blogs, and app developers. Smaato accepts all mobile sites and apps that do not host pornographic or illegal/pirated content, as defined in our Terms and Conditions.

Why should I specify the page placement of my Adspace?

Some advertisers are looking for specific page positions for their ads. Providing more information about the Adspace location can impact the fill rate and eCPM for an impression in real-time bidding (RTB).

Which page placement should I choose if I’m not sure (i.e. my Adspace is in the footer and below the fold)?

The page placement information is passed to DSPs that are interested in it, so this is a non-technical setting. If you have two criteria that apply, choose the one that you deem more prevalent, and go with absolute over relative position (i.e., if your Adspace is in the footer, just use footer, no matter if the footer is below the fold or not).

Does the Adspace dimension overwrite or substitute the dimension parameter inside the ad request?

The dimension parameter in the SPX Adspace configuration is for your organizing purposes and does not override the ad request’s dimension parameter set in the SDK or Ad Tag. Please provide the dimension parameter in the ad request dynamically.

Is an Adspace limited to one dimension, or can I choose multiple dimensions?

Inside the Adspace configuration, the dimension parameter is limited to one dimension.

Can I use different IAB Categories for my app and related Adspaces?

Sure! We’ll submit both to our demand partners.

What will happen if I set up an Android app and Adspace instance, but set the associated line item to iOS? Will this result in no fill on that line item?

As with the dimension parameter setting, the App Typesetting is for your organizing purposes. It won’t override ad request configurations from the SDK or Ad Tag, so if you associate instances and line items with different types, fill won’t be affected. Your setup will be cluttered, but that’s about it.

Where can I find my Publisher ID?

The Publisher ID is located in the administration area under “My Account” or in the summary area under “Inventory.”

Where can I find my Adspace ID?

The Adspace ID is located under “Inventory” – open the app of the Adspace, and the ID will be visible in the overview as well as in the integration options pop up.

Where can I find my Client ID and Client Secret?

Go to the top right and click on OAuth API Credentials. You can also find more info on authentication here: Authentication Credentials.

How can I test my integration?

You can test your integration by issuing the “0” metric as the value for both PublisherID and AdspaceID which will then call a test campaign. If you need further instructions (e.g., VAST Video integration), please visit our Integration documentation (Android SDK, iOS SDK, Ad Tag.)

Smaato Exchange

What is a line item?

A line item is the primary unit of execution for an order, representing the purchase of specific inventory characterized with a price, priority, and targeting.

Which priority is the highest and which is the lowest?

Priority 1 is the highest, Priority 16 is the lowest.

What is a DSP?

A demand-side platform (DSP) is a type of RTB ad network in which agencies run ad campaigns that bid in an auction for a certain impression.

What is an ad network?

A network that sells advertising space for sites and apps.

What’s the difference between real-time bidding and ad network mediation?

Among various other differences between RTB and AN Mediation, the most notable difference is that RTB demand is transacted programmatically on an impression-by-impression basis (thus providing the ability to leverage available data in real time), while ad network mediation is a non-programmatic (i.e. pre-configured) direct demand stream. Learn more in our guide to real-time bidding.

What’s Smaato’s business model?

We operate on a CPM model.

How does the minimum CPM affect my eCPM?

The minimum CPM is your lowest acceptable price per 1,000 impressions of your inventory. The eCPM for each line item will have to be above the minimum CPM. Raising the minimum CPM may improve your eCPM, but may also decrease your overall fill rate.

Why is my eCPM lower than the line item minimum CPM?

The minimum CPM is the guaranteed floor price for Smaato RTB and the recommended historical ad network mediation CPM. In order to obtain a strict floor, disable Smaato Ad Network Demand for this line item.

Why should I disable Smaato Ad Network Demand?

If you’d like to run a Smaato RTB-only auction and omit ad network mediation, you can disable Smaato Ad Network Demand per Line Item.

What impact do my Smaato exchange settings have on ad network mediation?

The Smaato exchange settings won’t affect Smaato Ad Network Mediation. They will only impact the RTB demand sources.

Do the Smaato exchange settings apply to all my SMX line items?

Yes, the general settings apply to all Line Items. Line Item related settings apply only to this Line Item.

Which of the values that are configurable on the SPX are actually passed into RTB?

The following configurable SPX parameters are sent into RTB: Blocked Advertiser Domains, Blocked Advertiser Categories, Floor Price, App & Adspace Category, Page Placement.

Direct

What is an order?

An order in SPX is mostly synonymous to an insertion order. It represents an advertising agreement between two parties. To set up a campaign in SPX, an order needs to be connected to a line item (that acts as a connector to your inventory).

Orders can be paused, which globally pauses all connected line items and creatives.

What is an advertiser?

An advertiser is assigned to an order and is the entity that reaches an agreement with you, the publisher, to advertise a campaign on your inventory, and to pay an agreed price or rate.

What’s the difference between direct and house line items?

Direct orders can either be run via direct or house ad line items; the key differences are priority (direct line items are by default set to 6, house ad line items to 16) and price (direct line items usually have a price point, while house ads are run at no cost). Direct campaigns are sold for a set CPM and number of impressions to agreed pricing, usually at a high priority. House ad campaigns are self-promotional campaigns to advertise other apps at no cost and are usually set to a low priority to serve as backfill.

What kind of creatives can I run?

SPX offers three different types of creatives: image, text, and HTML (Rich Media)

Creatives can be paused and resumed individually.

What are SPX macros and how do I use them?

SPX macros dynamically pull attributes and add them into your remote creative URLs, as well as click-through URLs, when SPX serves an ad. See Macros

To use SPX Macros, insert the desired macro into your remote image URLs, click URLs, tracking URLs or HTML (Rich Media) – wherever you’d like that data to show up.

Is there a click tracking macro for HTML creatives?

To support click tracking for HTML creatives, SPX provides the two different click tracking macros:

Macro Description
%%CLICK_URL_UNESC%% Click URL (Unescaped)
%%CLICK_URL_ESC%% Click URL (Escaped)

There is no universal rule to either using the escaped or unescaped version of the macro; in general, please follow these guidelines:

  • if the macro comes at the beginning of the URL sequence (most common with simple creatives, like text & image), use the unescaped macro
  • if the macro comes at the end of the URL sequence (most common with more elaborate creatives, like rich media) , the escaped macro should be used (escaping the URL is necessary when the tracking URL is passed as a parameter to a third-party server because unescaped reserved characters can interfere with that third-party server’s parameter parsing)

What configurations enable even pacing?

Pacing is designed to distribute the actual number of impressions for a Line Item Evenly or As fast as possible. Delivery speed is planned based on pacing, budget and flight dates, e.g. spacing out 1000 impressions over 10 days would evenly deliver 100 impressions (max.) per day. Evenly pacing is available for daily capped impressions, or for a limited amount of total impressions with a defined end date.

My line item is still pending and not live!

If your line item is not live yet, please check the following:

  • No inventory targeted – Check your line item’s inventory targeting.
  • No creative added – You will need at least 1 creative set up!
  • Start date later than today – If the start date is set to the future, the Line Item won’t be live yet.

My line item is live but not delivering/running!

If your line item is live but not actually delivering anything, please check the following:

  • Available creative – Make sure that there’s no configuration conflict in the way between your available creative sizes and the requested ad size.
  • Capping – Your limit may already be reached, check your line item’s frequency and volume capping settings.
  • Targeting – Make sure there’s no targeting conflict in your line item.

Networks

What is Smaato Ad Network Demand? And how is this different from networks?

The Smaato Exchange consists of RTB buyers and traditional ad network demand.

Smaato Ad Network Demand refers to the ad network mediation-connected demand sources within the Smaato Exchange. Networks are publisher owned accounts and not part of the Smaato Exchange.

Why should I enable the reporting for my ad network?

By providing your account details, you allow Smaato to access your network’s reporting numbers and better optimize your traffic to get the highest possible eCPM. At the same time, you’ll only need to check one single reporting dashboard to view all your networks’ performances.

How does Smaato calculate the CPM for network auto-optimization?

If the account details are provided for your network account, Smaato collects the network’s data of the last three days and calculates the eCPM to rate your Line Items. Importing the latest numbers happens every one or two hours.

Can I enable network reporting, but disable auto-optimization if I want to set the CPM rate myself?

You sure can! Just enable the reporting, and enter your preferred network CPM.

Which system counts the views and clicks that are displayed in the dashboard?

In the SPX GUI, we currently display network counted impressions & clicks. Therefore, you need to activate revenue reporting and CPM auto optimization to see network views and clicks in the SPX dashboard.

Can I use my existing network account for my SPX setup?

Yes, but your network account should be dedicated to your Smaato setup. If you’ve got third parties accessing your Network account, data management will get messy, and you might lose revenue.

I set up a network line item and activated ‘Revenue Reporting & CPM Auto Optimization’ – but my network does not provide any data, so there is no auto-optimization network CPM available yet! What can I do?

During this transition phase, you should enter a manual CPM rate in the network line item that you want to prioritize until revenue data is provided by the network.

Network Line Items are by default set to a lower Priority level than SMX Line Items. Is this in any way mandatory?

Not at all! For starters, we suggest prioritizing Network Line Items lower than SMX Line Items for optimized performance, but you’re free to configure Priorities to fit your specific goals and needs.

Ad Operation

How long do changes to a line item take to go live?

Around 10 minutes.

My line item is in status Pending, when will it be live?

Reasons for the status pending can be:

  • The start date is in the future
  • No inventory is specified for delivery
  • No creatives have been added to the direct line item
  • All creatives added to the direct line item are paused

How long does it take for impression data to be available in the Smaato Publisher Platform SPX?

Time delays between impression and reporting are approximately four hours, subject to the frequency of updates from the demand partners.

Is it possible to delete inventory (adspace/app/line item)?

For various reasons (safety and legal, among others), this isn’t possible.

  • If you don’t want to use a line item anymore, pause it (status toggle button).
  • If you have a lot of line items and are annoyed by old line items cluttering up your view, we recommend adding (e.g., a Z to the line item names) to make them slide to the bottom of the list.

What is the average latency of an ad request on the platform?

We don’t have reliable and referenced data available yet.

Which image ad dimensions are supported?

Smaato supports internationally accepted ad formats defined by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) or IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and a large number of full-screen sizes.

I’m getting a smaller ad banner dimension than I requested.

In the unlikely event that you receive an ad banner that is smaller than the size you requested, please ensure that you have set the ‘dimension strict’ parameter on your ad request. Please refer to our integration documents for more details on this parameter.

What kind of response do I receive from the SOMA optimization platform after submitting an ad request?

The SOMA system response for a mobile website is usually an HTML response. Depending on the requested ad format, the HTML response contains the link, text, or image tag and a tracking pixel.

For apps, the SOMA response format can be XML or HTML – including the text, image, video, ad tag, click URL, and a tracking pixel.

For rich media, you’ll receive a code snippet including the JavaScript source code or a URL, the basic image and a tracking pixel. In case of video format, you always receive an XML response containing the video URL, the link and a tracking pixel.

What kind of encoding is used by the SOMA optimization platform for a response to an ad request?

UTF-8.

What is a tracking pixel/beacon?

A beacon is a transparent 1×1 image that helps to count the view of an ad and validate traffic performance.

In what time zone are the reports displayed?

The reports are shown in GMT / UTC.

What’s the difference between an ad request and an ad impression?

The ad request is the call of a site or app for an ad. The ad impression describes a successful request – loading an ad on the site or app.

What is eCPM?

The Effective Cost per Thousand impressions (eCPM) is calculated by dividing the total earnings by the total number of impressions. For example, if you earned $200.00 from 40,000 impressions, the eCPM calculation would be ($200.00 / 40,000) x 1000 resulting in an eCPM of $5.00.

Why is eCPM important to me?

eCPM is a useful reporting metric for comparing revenue generated across marketing channels and advertising networks. Learn more about this in our guide to CPM.

Why do my reporting numbers change?

It can take about a month until all demand partners have finalized their reports. We are in a continual updating and balancing process to provide you with the latest revenue numbers.

What are the possible reasons for a low fill rate?

There are numerous possible explanations, and applicability depends on your setup. However, the most common ones would be:

  • Minimum CPM set too high (start with low min CPM values instead of setting them high to begin with, or set up two price points instead of one)
  • Blocking too strict (make sure that you’ve only excluded what you really don’t want!)
  • Uncommon ad formats (fill rates are highest for common ad formats such as MMA standard banners and interstitials)
  • Lack of traffic enrichment (not passing geo-location, device ID and further possible user info doesn’t only result in a low fill rate, but also in low valuation and thus low eCPM!)

In which currency are my earnings displayed?

All monetary values are displayed in USD (U.S. Dollars).

Payment

All payments are now handled thru Tipalti. Head to the “Payment Information” section in your SPX account to set up payment details.

If you haven’t updated your payment details yet, your payments will be on hold until you’ve updated. You cannot get paid by Smaato moving forward if you don’t submit your payment and tax details to Tipalti.

What payment methods are available?

Currently, we offer PayPal, Wire Transfer and eCheck/Local Bank Transfer.

How can I change my payment method?

Select your preferred payment method in Tipalti in the administration area under Payment Information.

What is necessary to be completed before being able to receive payment?

  1. Complete your business information in your SPX Account.
  2. Fill out the Payment Information within your Smaato Account.
  3. Reach the minimum payout (100$).

Where can I download the W8/W9 forms?

You can find the tax forms within Tipalti now.

What is my minimum payout?

$100 USD. If your revenue is less than $100 per month, Smaato will roll over the amount payable to you to the subsequent payout cycle, until at least $100 are reached.

In which currency will I receive my payment?

U.S. Dollars.

Is there an additional fee for the transfer?

Please also be aware that the payments are sent in U.S. Dollars, and your bank may charge a fee for converting this to your local currency. Contact your bank for more detailed information.

What does net revenue mean?

Net revenue is the amount actually received by Smaato from third-party advertisers or ad networks for delivered ads calculated per impression, click or other actions less the Smaato revenue share.

What is my revenue share?

The net revenue share for the actual month is based on the ad impressions of the previous month. Upon joining Smaato, your net revenue share is set to the default rate of 70/30. Please refer to our Terms and Conditions or contact your account manager for more details.

What is my payout?

Your payout, or payment, is the amount of gross revenue your account achieved during a month less the Smaato share, and less any taxes Smaato may be legally required to withhold.

When do I get the money?

Smaato follows a 60-day payment schedule. Smaato will pay you your net revenue share within sixty days after the end of the calendar month in which revenue was accrued.

To be eligible for payout, you’ll need to complete all the necessary steps to receive payment (see here).

For example, if you earned $60 in January, the payment will be sent to you in early/mid April.

It can take about a month until all our partner ad networks have finalized their reports. After this time, Smaato will provide you with a payment report under My Account/Credit Notes. During the following month, Smaato collects the revenue from our partner ad networks and pays your net revenue share.

How often will I receive payments?

Smaato pays you every month after the payment schedule. If your earnings are below the minimum payout, we will carry the earnings over to the following month.

Can I see my payment history?

Select your preferred payment history in the administration area under Payment History.

My bank is located in a different country than my business – how can I enter differing countries for bank and business addresses?

To enter different countries for both, please reach out to [email protected].

Troubleshooting Errors

I’ve integrated the code snippet into my site, but I’m not getting any test ad.

Please check the following:

  • Make sure you copied and pasted the entire code snippet.
  • Check the configuration options within the code. Consult all comments and set the options as desired.
  • Verify that your Publisher ID and Adspace ID are correct.
  • Verify that at least one Line Item for the given traffic is active.

My integration works, but I’m not getting any ads.

Please check the following:

  • Do you have an active line item including your requesting adspace?
  • Does your line item targeting match the incoming ad request?
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Last Modified: August 31, 2023 at 11:50 am