Google Ads has announced that it will no longer respond to multicall requests within hybrid setups, beginning January 2024. This decision is part of the platform’s transition from waterfall to real-time bidding auctions for publisher apps. It is essential for publisher apps to adhere to these updated rules, as Google Ads has warned that it will cease purchases from publishers who deliberately evade multicall detection.
Non-compliance with these rules poses significant risks for publisher apps. Google Ads has outlined that beginning January 20, 2024, it may suspend purchases on publisher apps for one week to one month, based on the extent of previously detected abuse. The platform is actively investing in systems to detect publishers attempting to bypass multicall detection, emphasizing a focus on identifying multicall behavior.
One example of a technique employed to evade multicall detection is ad unit misrepresentation, which involves frequently creating, using, or changing new ad units in multicall queries to hide the presence of related multicall requests.
The decision to stop responding to multicall requests within hybrid setups comes after Google Ads stopped buying ads for multicall requests in waterfalls without a bidding ad unit as of October 31, 2023. Google continued interacting with waterfall mediation on the condition that there was only a single call within the waterfall, facilitating the transition to real-time bidding.
For better understanding, mediation is a tool that helps manage ad sources for displaying ads in apps. It enables the sending of ad requests to multiple sources, ensuring the best available options to fill those requests. There are two types of mediation in Google Ads – bidding and waterfall.
In AdMob, a hybrid setup uses both bidding and waterfall ad sources in mediation groups. An ad source refers to a platform or provider that serves ads in an app. AdMob account holders can set up or view available sources by navigating to the ad source page in their account.
The article concludes by encouraging readers to read Google’s announcement in full for more information on this update.
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