Server-side unwrapping for VAST redirects

You can set server-side unwrapping for VAST redirects. Allowing unwrapping on the server-side may help increase your revenue by reducing unresolved VAST redirects that prevent ads from serving.

When setting up a VAST redirect, you can select targeting options for categories such as Inventory and Mobile application. You can also select data sharing settings for IP address, user agent, and device ID.

Enable server-side unwrapping

To get started, you must first enable server-side unwrapping for your network.

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Admin, and then Advanced features. Learn more about turning on advanced features.
3. Next to "Server-side unwrapping," turn on the switch .

Create a video redirect setting

Note that server-side unwrapping isn't enabled for ad requests subject to privacy restrictions, such as non-personalized ads (NPA), and child-directed requests (COPPA).

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Inventory, and then Inventory rules.
3. Click Video settings, and then Unwrapping, and then New unwrapping setting.
4. Enter a descriptive name for your redirect.
5. To add targeting, click Edit  on a category and make your selections.

Next, in the "Data sharing" section, you can select the data to send when unwrapping redirects:

6. Under "User IP address," choose an option:
   • Full user IP address: This option can help with fraud detection from downstream ad servers. The full IP address is only sent on CTV and is intended for frequency capping and spam detection. If the targeted inventory is not CTV, a truncated IP address is sent.
   • Truncated user IP address: This option provides more privacy and is also intended for non-CTV inventory. The truncated version redacts the last octet of the user IP address.
   • No user IP address: This option provides the most privacy, but could result in downstream servers interpreting the inventory as spam.
7. Under "User agent," choose an option:
   • Generalized user agent: This option sends a generalized user agent from the originating client-side device, omitting certain elements of the user agent.
   • No user agent: This option won't send the user agent from the originating client-side device when unwrapping your VAST redirect. Not sending the user agent may impact match rates and spam filtration.
8. To allow any listed Ad Manager macros to populate on eligible redirect requests, next to "Device IDs," check the box.
   Note that this data will only be sent from requests that originate from mobile apps or CTV devices.

Next, in the "Timeout for VAST redirect calls" section, specify the "Timeout" value.

9. Specify the "Timeout" value between 100 and 4000 milliseconds. If left empty, the default timeout is 1000 milliseconds. To determine what timeout to set, consult your SSAI provider and other upstream systems to understand their latency restrictions.
   Tip: For best performance, we recommend leaving at least a 2 second buffer after server-side unwrapping callouts for Google Ad Manager to run the remainder of ad selection.
10. Click Save.

Review or update your VAST redirects

You can review and update the details of your existing redirects. 

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Inventory, and then Inventory rules.
3. Click Video settings, and then Unwrapping.
4. (Optional) To find a redirect, filter the table:
   • By default, the table shows your active redirects. To view inactive redirects, click to edit the "Status" filter to show "Inactive" settings.  
   • To filter by redirect name, click Add new filter, then Name, and then enter your search term and click Apply. 
5. On the table under "Name," locate your redirect and review the columns.
   Tip: To quickly check targeting details for a redirect, hover over the targeting cell. 
6. To change the status of one or more redirects, next to each redirect you want to update, check the box and select Activate or Deactivate.
7. To edit the settings of a redirect, under "Name," click the redirect, and then make your changes and click Save.

Collect signals

You have the option of collecting signals, either via:

1. Adding the IMA SDK to your app, or
2. Manually adding signals as key-values to the ad tag, as specified here.

Server-side unwrapping settings

Under the server-side unwrapping settings, you can select two controls:

• Use the price from the VAST response
• Optimize for programmatic demand

Use the price from the VAST response

Once you've enabled server-side unwrapping, you can configure your VAST creatives to use the price provided in the VAST response when VAST redirects are unwrapped in the ad server. Only CPM price models are supported.

For non-guaranteed line items only, the price in the VAST response will be used instead of the line item CPM in ad selection and revenue reporting (eCPM and Revenue metrics). Guaranteed line items will continue to compete using dynamic allocation rather than price.

To enable this, select Use price from VAST response in the "Server-side unwrapping settings" section of your VAST creative.

Optimize for programmatic demand

The Optimize for programmatic demand control identifies creatives that use programmatic redirects. Programmatic redirects occur when the VAST response redirects to an SSP or ad server via a separate ad tag.

By identifying programmatic redirects, you enable the following optimizations to maximize available programmatic bids while managing QPS load on third-party platforms:

• All programmatic tags compete to fill your ad break
• Support for podded requests and responses. For VAST responses with multiple ads, each ad competes to fill your ad break. Individual metadata for each bid - price, a domain, category - are used in ad selection.

Third-party ad server interaction

Server-side unwrapping interacts with third-party ad servers when following the redirect creatives.

Ad request behavior

When Ad Manager unwraps redirects server-side, it requests the eligible demand before ad selection, then selects ads based on the responses it gets. This means ad servers should expect more requests, and Ad Manager may discard losing candidates.

Discarded ad and 408 VAST error

When Ad Manager discards an ad, it sends a 408 VAST error. This error lets the third-party ad server know not to receive the ad request into account. Requests include:

• Dynamic Ad Insertion: Ad Manager sends truncated IP addresses and generalized user agents.
• Other requests: Ad Manager honors the user unwrapping settings.

When available, publishers can get details on dropped ads by running reports on their third-party ad server requests using the VAST 408 error.

Metadata parsed from VAST responses

Ad Manager parses the redirect VAST response. It extracts the following VAST 3 and 4 tag information:

• Price: Read the outermost node from the <Pricing> node. If there are multiple prices in a chain of wrappers, we use the first available price in the chain. The price is used for ad candidates to compete in a unified first-price auction in Google Ad Manager. 
• Advertiser domain: Read in the final inline response from the <Advertiser> node. The advertiser domain is used to enforce frequency caps across all ad sources: VAST redirects, guaranteed reservations, and Ad Exchange.
• Category: Read in the final inline response from the <Category>node. The category is used to enforce pod-level competitive exclusions across all ad sources: VAST redirects, guaranteed reservations, and Ad Exchange.
• Duration: Read in the final inline response from the <Duration> node. This value is used to interpret the duration of the ad creative. Learn more about Duration and Ad selection.

Duration and Ad selection

When the duration of the inline ad is different from the configured duration of the redirect creative, Ad Manager will use the inline ad duration for filling the ad pod. If the inline ad is shorter than expected, then more ads can potentially fit into the pod (and vice versa).

Frequently asked questions

Here are some answers to questions you may have about server-side unwrapping:

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