Test your implementation

Test thoroughly to ensure a smooth launch for your site and campaign

Testing your ad setup thoroughly helps make sure everything works smoothly when your ads go live. This article explains three important steps for testing your Ad Manager setup. These tips can help you check your settings and give your users the best experience. However, you might not need to do every single recommendation for every setup. Always think about your specific website and what you want your users to experience when you create your test plan.

On this page:

• Before you begin
• Phase 1: Set up a testing environment
• Phase 2: Test Ad Manager tagging
• Phase 3: Test trafficking setup and creatives

Learn about testing a mobile app setup.

Before you begin

Keep these tips in mind:

• Test everything early: Try to run a full test from start to finish as soon as you can. This helps make sure your systems can handle complicated targeting, that Ad Manager's settings are correct, and that your ads are displaying properly. The more complex your campaign is, the more important early testing becomes.
• Test how people use your site: Think about all the different ways users access your site, like on various devices (phones, tablets, computers) and with different browsers (Chrome, Firefox). Make sure your tests cover all these situations.
• Include other tools you use: Don't forget to test any systems you use alongside Ad Manager. This includes things like order management systems, or reporting, yield management, and business intelligence tools from other companies. Ask those companies if they have specific testing advice.

Set up a testing environment

Create test objects in your network

You should create special test items like advertisers, ad units, orders, line items, and creatives. This helps keep them separate from your real campaigns. Here are some tips for working with test items:

• For all items: Use a clear naming pattern, like TEST or ZTEST, to easily find and group your test items at the bottom of lists.
• Advertisers: You can create test advertisers as needed. You can't delete advertisers, but you can set their status to Inactive and add zzzzz to the beginning of their name. This pushes them to the bottom of your advertiser list.
• Orders and line items: You can create a custom field for orders to mark them as test orders. When you look at lists of orders and line items, use this custom field to filter for only test items or only real items. You can also add "Test" to the beginning of their names and then archive them so they don't show up by default.
• Ad units: Talk to your web developers to see if they can direct test ad units. You can deactivate or archive test ad units after you're done testing. To avoid accidentally using a test ad unit, create a new one clearly marked as "test."

Use a development site

You should use a development site that looks just like your live site. This allows you to test in a real-world environment without changing anything on your actual live site.

Generate test data

You can create test impressions to see how your ads are showing up. Do this by refreshing your test pages every few seconds. If you refresh too quickly, Ad Manager's spam filter might activate. So, you might need to adjust how often you refresh, whether you're doing it manually or with an automated tool.

Test Ad Manager tagging

Create a test page for ad tags. This helps make sure they work correctly without interference from other parts of your site.

Working with ad units, key-values, and sizes

Always make sure your tags use the right ad units, key-values, and sizes. You can check this by creating tags on a sample page.

Suggested ad units: Check your suggested ad units. These appear if the ad server gets at least 10 requests for an ad unit that isn't set up within seven days. If you see ad units you don't expect, there might be an issue with how your Content Management System (CMS) sends out tags.

Test various page layouts

Test all the different layouts on your websites, especially those made for mobile phones and tablets. This makes sure your ad tags are working correctly on all your pages.

• Chrome DevTools: Use Chrome DevTools to watch the timeline. Make sure Ad Manager tags and requests don't slow things down or cause other problems. See how Ad Manager tags appear on your pages and work with your site.
• Google publisher console: Use the Google publisher console to test how your tags are performing and to fix any issues.

Test trafficking setup and creatives

Track Ad Manager features you use

Make sure your test plan includes the expected results for all the Ad Manager features you use, like frequency caps and ad exclusion labels.

Test creative delivery

You can use targeting in line items to make your ads show up for certain tags. Make sure the ads (creatives) for these line items appear on your pages. You can also preview a creative on your site directly from Ad Manager. It's always a good idea to test your creatives in your testing environment.

• Third-party creatives: Make sure that ads from other companies show up correctly and that impressions (views) and clicks are counted. Test every type of third-party creative you plan to use, as each one uses its own technology.
• Expanding and rich media creatives: Long before your campaigns start, test at least one ad of each type you plan to serve. If you're using asynchronous GPT, make sure the ad code works with "friendly iframes." If you've used JavaScript tags for these ad types before, ask your third-party vendors if you need to update the ad code.
• Creative templates: Test any ad templates you've created to make sure they display correctly and count impressions and clicks.
• Out-of-page creatives: Remember to modify your tags for these ads and test them to make sure they work correctly.