These release notes are archives provided for your convenience only and might not reflect current product functionality. For the latest releases, see AdMob Announcements.
Q4 2025
You can now navigate to Automatically add your ad partner and opt in to the Automatically add ad sources as ad partners feature, which will automatically add ad sources you set up using mediation as ad partners for consent collection via the Google CMP. Learn more.
The US state regulations messages available in the Privacy & messaging tool have been updated to support publisher compliance with new state privacy regulations in Indiana, Kentucky, and Rhode Island. We have also launched a new toggle to allow you to target a US state regulations message to "All current and future supported US States." To use these new settings:
- Existing US state regulations messages: Edit the message in Privacy & messaging to adjust the Targeting settings in the message builder to include the newly added states. The Geography selector now includes a "select all" option for "All current and future supported US States". Selecting this option will target your message to all currently regulated US states and automatically extend targeting to new states as their regulations go live and are supported by Google CMP.
- New US state regulations messages: All available US states will be selected by default in the Targeting settings in the message builder, and the "All current and future supported US States" feature will be toggled "on" by default.
Learn more about US state regulations messages.
Similar to other US states (for example: Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Texas, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Maryland), additional new US states, namely Delaware and Oregon, have similar universal opt-out mechanism or opt-out preference signals provisions. Starting November 17, 2025, for users in Delaware and Oregon, Google will receive Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals directly and trigger Restricted Data Processing (RDP) mode for those ad requests.
On January 1, 2026, Indiana, Kentucky, and Rhode Island will have privacy law provisions coming into effect, namely Indiana Consumer Data Protection Law, Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act, and Rhode Island Data Transparency.
Google's approach in these states is similar to that of existing US states with active comprehensive laws. Activating Restricted Data Processing (RDP) mode turns off ad personalization, which may assist publishers in honoring opt-outs for targeted advertising and avoiding activities that could be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of user data.
Publishers can also choose to send RDP via GPP National v2, which supports these new states.
Please note that publishers should still work with their legal teams to understand if RDP is the appropriate solution for their compliance. Publishers who currently leverage the RDP should work with their legal teams to understand if they should expand their use of RDP in additional states.
Consent syncing for apps synchronizes user consent decisions across your apps, improving the user experience by eliminating redundant consent prompts. This feature is available if you use European regulations messages in the Google CMP. By minimizing consent fatigue, you can increase user engagement and potentially boost ad revenue. To use this feature, you'll need to have multiple apps with overlapping users and be able to pass a cross-app user ID to Google via the UMP SDK. Get started in your Privacy & Messaging settings.
To align with evolving industry standards for user transparency and consent, all publishers and CMPs are required to transition to the IAB Europe's Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) v2.3 by February 28, 2026. Google’s systems can accept and process TCF v2.3 strings today. As such we recommend that you begin this transition well ahead of the deadline to avoid disruption to ad serving. For details, visit Publisher integration with the IAB Europe TCF.
We’re expanding the Google AdSense, AdMob, and Ad Manager payout options. Building on the successful launch in the US, publishers in China and Argentina can now choose to receive their AdSense, AdMob, or Ad Manager earnings directly to their Hyperwallet account.
PayPal and cash pickup will be available for even more flexibility on how publishers get their payouts. Learn more about PayPal Hyperwallet.
Google AdMob publishers can send IDFV from your iOS apps to RTB demand (Authorized Buyers, Open Bidders, and SDK Bidders) when ads personalization is permitted. For now, IDFV for RTB demand is only available outside of the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and some US states.
Learn more about First-party identifiers and data.
Google AdMob now supports GPP National v2 strings. We will also continue to support GPP National v1 strings. Learn more about how Google supports the IAB's Global Privacy Protocol.
Q3 2025
You will now be asked to declare if your AdMob campaigns include EU political content via a new Campaign-level "EU political content" field. If you declare "Campaign contains EU political content", restrictions will automatically apply once the new EU political ads policy launches in September.
We’ve launched the ad load latency metric in the Ads Activity Report. The ad load latency metric measures the time it takes from when an ad request is initiated to the time the ad response is returned from each ad source, and helps you:
- Better manage ad sources within mediation setup
- Understand the average latency by mediation groups, thus better manage the overall mediation chain
- Troubleshoot latency issues when any occurs
Learn more about the ad load latency metric.
From July 30 2025, we'll start to remove the "Significant Skin Exposure" sensitive category from Blocking controls. This change is part of an ongoing effort to give publishers more precise brand safety controls. Once this happens you will not be able to broadly block creatives that appear to show bare skin via this sensitive category.
If you don't have any existing blocks that use this category
You don't need to take any action. On July 30 2025, we'll remove the "Significant Skin Exposure" sensitive category from your Blocking controls.
If you do have existing blocks that use this category
On July 30 2025, we'll add a "Deprecated" label to the "Significant Skin Exposure" category in your Blocking controls. Then, beginning September 30 2025, your existing blocks will no longer apply. You will still be able to block unwanted creatives with exposed skin using more precise categories. To block unwanted ads with significant skin exposure, we recommend blocking the following categories if you believe these types of ads are unsuitable for your users:
- "Reference to Sex", "Sexual Reproductive Health" and "Dating" in sensitive categories
- "Swimwear" and "Underwear" subcategories under "Apparel" in general categories
Ads that violate Google's ads network policy and Google’s platform program policies will continue to be filtered and won’t show up in your app.
We recommend that you review and update your existing general category and sensitive category blocks within your Blocking controls to ensure that your brand safety requirements continue to be met effectively.
We've introduced a new Privacy & messaging report type. This new report type shows data related to the way users interact with the messages you display in your apps. The metrics available in the report can help you understand which messages are reaching users and how those users are interacting with your messages.
To use the new Privacy & messaging report type, click Reports, then click Privacy & messaging.
Q2 2025
Similar to the Colorado Universal Opt-Out Mechanism (UOOMs) provisions, additional US States including Connecticut, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Texas, Minnesota, New Jersey and Maryland, have similar UOOMs provisions that require Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals opt the user out of ad targeting, sale, or share of data. For users in Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Texas, Minnesota, New Jersey and Maryland, Google will receive GPC signals directly and trigger RDP mode for those ad requests.
New comprehensive US state laws coming into effect include: the Tennessee Information Protection Act (July 1st), the Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act (July 1st), the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (Oct 1st), the Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act (INCDPA), the Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act, and the Rhode Island Data Transparency and Privacy Protection Act (Jan 2026).
Google's approach in these states is similar to that of existing US states with active comprehensive laws. Activating RDP mode turns off ad personalization, which may assist publishers in honoring opt-outs for targeted advertising and avoiding activities that could be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of user data.
Please note that publishers should still work with their legal teams to understand if RDP is the appropriate solution for their compliance. Publishers who currently leverage the RDP should work with their legal teams to understand if they should expand their use of RDP in additional states.
Starting September 2025, AdMob will update data retention across all reports to comply with new data retention policies. Data beyond the stated retention periods for respective reports will be deleted.
What's changing?
- Data in the User Activity and Benchmark reports will be limited to the past 90 days.
- Data in all other reports (Ads Activity, Cohort, Bid Landscape) will be limited to the past 2,555 days.
Next step
With the new data retention windows, only older data from the Ads Activity report and User Activity report are subject to deletion, as other reports do not yet have data that exceeds their respective retention periods.
- Ads Activity report: If you need to retain data older than 2,555 days, you can download it using the AdMob report CSV download or the AdMob API before it is removed.
- User Activity report: If you need to retain data older than 90 days, you can download it using the AdMob report CSV download before it is removed.
How to download data
- To export data from your Ads activity or User Activity reports, open a report, click the three dots in the top right corner, and then select "Download CSV."
- To export Ads Activity report data from the AdMob API, please review the documentation for setting up and generating reports.
On June 02, 2025, we'll add a "Deprecated" label to the Additional ad technology vendors opt-out control. Then, beginning July 07, 2025, we'll remove the control from AdMob Blocking controls.
The Additional ad technology vendors opt-out control, which enabled publishers to block additional third-party ad technology vendors used by advertisers from buying their ad slots, has become obsolete. The control no longer provides publishers with useful privacy or brand safety functionality.
No action is required from publishers. To manage ad technology vendors in regulatory regions, please continue to use your consent management platform (CMP) to collect and manage user consent as necessary.
Ad choice control ("Choosing the type of ad you want to show") is deprecated and has been removed from the European message settings in Privacy & messaging. We encourage you to use the IAB TCF framework for collecting and communicating users' consent decisions in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. If you wish to serve some users personalized ads, and other users non-personalized ads, the Google Developers documentation (iOS UMP SDK, Android UMP SDK) provides all the details on how the User Messaging Platform SDK can help your app comply with Google’s EU user consent policy.
The commonly used set of ad technology providers will be updated on or after June 2, 2025 to reflect the ad technology providers that work most closely with publishers globally, based on data we've collected from all programmatic demand sources, as well as meeting our privacy standards. After this date, the list will be periodically updated, and you will be able to find the up-to-date version of the list published at Ad technology providers. You can view the controls and the list of ad technology providers in your account on the European regulations settings page in Privacy & messaging. If you want to prevent automatic updates, select Custom ad partners. This will create a custom list pre-filled with your current selections, which you can then modify as needed.
The commonly used set of ad technology providers will be updated on or after June 2, 2025 to reflect the ad technology providers that work most closely with publishers globally, based on data we've collected from all programmatic demand sources, as well as meeting our privacy standards. After this date, the list will be periodically updated, and you will be able to find the up-to-date version of the list published at Ad technology providers. You can view the controls and the list of ad technology providers in your account on the European regulations settings page in Privacy & messaging. If you want to prevent automatic updates, select Custom ad partners. This will create a custom list pre-filled with your current selections, which you can then modify as needed.
Today, we’re announcing improvements to the Policy center to help you better understand, prioritize, and resolve your issues. We're introducing three new labels (policy issue, regulatory issue, and advertiser preference) that provide you with more clarity on the source of your issue. The new labels give you a clearer understanding of the cause and priority of your active issues, and help you identify which issues are policy, regulatory, or advertiser preference.
What's changed
We've made the following improvements to the Policy center:
- Replaced "Must fix" with three new issue labels: policy issue, regulatory issue, and advertiser preference.
- Added new filters so you can filter by policy issue, regulatory issue, and advertiser preference.
- Updated the "Issue details" page to include the new issue labels and renamed the "Screenshots" column to "View issue".
- Updated the review process so you can now let Google know if you believe your site or app has been incorrectly labelled with an issue.
Q1 2025
AdMob is supporting key user metrics in the Ads Activity report and Ads Activity card to provide more comprehensive ads performance reporting and deeper analytics.
New user metrics are compatible with a wide range of existing dimensions so you can visualize and break down ads and user metrics together by format, mediation group, ad source, and more! Learn more about metric breakdown rules and partial data scenarios here.
To view user metrics for your apps in the Ads Activity report or Ads Activity card, you need to link your apps to Firebase.
New user metrics in Ads Activity report and Ads Activity card
|
Metric |
Definition |
|---|---|
|
Active users (AU) |
The number of unique users who have opened the app. Active users is sometimes known as DAU (daily active users) when aggregated by date. |
|
Ad viewers (AV) |
The number of unique users who have viewed ads. Ad viewers is sometimes known as DAV (daily ad viewers) when aggregated by date. Note: The number of AVs must meet a minimum threshold before data can be shown. This means you may see zero AV even when the number of impressions is not zero.
|
|
Ad viewer rate |
The percent of active users who have viewed ads. It’s calculated by:
|
|
Ads ARPV |
The average revenue per viewer (ARPV) from ad revenue. It’s calculated by:
|
|
Ads ARPU |
The average revenue per user (ARPU) from ad revenue. It’s calculated by:
ARPU is sometimes known as ARPDAU (average revenue per daily active user) when aggregated by date. |
|
Imps / AU |
The average number of ads seen by an active user. It’s calculated by:
This is sometimes known as ad density or ad load. |
|
Imps / AV |
The average number of ads seen by an ad viewer. It’s calculated by:
|
We’ve introduced some changes to AdMob Mediation. With these changes, it’s easier to manage your ad sources, map ad units and reuse them in multiple mediation groups, and optimize your mediation setup.
- Simplified mediation setup and management
- Increased flexibility in ad source management
- Improved search and filtering
- Automated tasks
Simplified mediation setup and management
We’ve made it easier for you to track and manage your mediation groups. For example:
- You can track the minimum price set for your ads across ad networks by entering the Network eCPM when mapping the ad units.
- When you add an ad unit to a mediation group, AdMob automatically suggests line items based on previously created ad unit mappings.
Increased flexibility in ad source management
You now have the option to manage mediation ad source instances directly from your ad sources tab. This can make it easier to add ad unit mappings, and delete waterfall or bidding ad source instances in your mediation groups. Learn more about managing your ad unit mapping details from your ad source page.
Improved search and filtering
We’ve added search and filtering across your Waterfall and Bidding ad source tabs so you can easily find ad unit mappings.
You’ll be able to search by:
- App name or ID
- Ad unit name or ID
- Network app name or ID
- Network ad unit name or ID
Automated tasks
Automated tasks can save time and prevent errors. Now, instead of manually entering mapping or setup details for each ad source, AdMob will suggest line items based on your previous ad unit mappings.
For example, you can copy ad source credentials, ad units, mappings, segments, and mediation groups.
We’re expanding the Google AdSense, AdMob, and Ad Manager payout options. Publishers in the US can now choose to receive their AdSense, AdMob, or Ad Manager earnings directly to their Hyperwallet account.
PayPal, Venmo, and cash pickup will be available for even more flexibility on how publishers get their payouts. Learn more about PayPal Hyperwallet.
We've made some updates to the Mediation A/B testing that will enhance and accelerate how you analyze your A/B test results.
What’s new?
- Faster test results: We've updated our A/B testing framework to use more granular data when providing recommendations. As a result, we now provide recommendations in just a few days. This allows you to make faster decisions and optimize your mediation setup in much less time.
- Chart reports: We’ve added charts to your A/B tests to make it clearer and easier for you to interpret the results. These charts help you monitor the performance of both Variant A and Variant B in real-time while your A/B test is running. The Summary chart shows you an overview of the key metrics: scaled revenue, eCPM, match rate, and scaled impressions. These charts illustrate how each variant is performing against your key metrics. You click a tab for each metric to review a line chart in greater detail. Each line chart shows daily data and plotted Variant B as a percentage change compared to Variant A.
Learn more about how to analyze your A/B test and take action.
Starting April 2025, we're merging our email opt-in categories: "Customized help and performance suggestions" and "Periodic newsletters with tips and best practices".
This means that if you’re subscribed to our periodic newsletters, you may start to receive performance suggestions such as exclusive performance reports, personalized tips, and webinar invites to help you grow your account.
To give you time to adjust your preferences, we’ll wait 60 days before merging your opt-in settings. If you prefer not to receive performance suggestion emails, please update your subscription preferences within this 60-day window. Please note that you may opt out at any time.
We believe this change will provide you with a more streamlined and valuable email experience.
We’ve introduced a new setting that allows you to control the enablement of high-engagement ads in interstitial and rewarded formats. This app-level setting controls high-performing ads that boost user engagement and improve overall ad performance. High-engagement ads are automatically enabled for all your apps, allowing you to benefit from improved performance. You may choose to disable high-engagement ads in your App settings. Note that this setting does not apply to partner bidding ad units. Learn more about enabling the high-engagement ads setting.