The SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers system allows the creation of companion [or "roadblock"] flights which allow multiple creatives within a flight to be delivered simultaneously to a page. The companion behavior can only exist within a flight --- multiple flights cannot be created as companions of each other. Note that having only 1 creative in a flight which uses Companion Type does not prevent that creative from being delivered despite not having a companion creative. There is a choice of either a Strict or Loose policy when selecting the "Companion type" feature in the Edit Flight screen - Choosing "Strict" means that there must be creatives in the flight which satisfy sequential requests on the page [beginning with the first ad request] and that no frequency cap exists or if one does exist it has not yet been reached.

If there is a creative available in this flight for the first ad request from the page the engine will deliver it.

If creatives in the flight meet the criteria for the subsequent group of sequential ad calls on the page the engine will deliver the flight for those requests (assuming frequency capping is not invoked).

If creatives in the flight do not meet the criteria of the subsequent ad calls on the page the engine will cancel the Strict policy flight for the remainder of the page.

If there are multiple ad requests on the page and the Strict policy flight cannot deliver to all of them, other matching flights with a Strict companion policy cannot deliver to the remaining unfulfilled ad requests. A Loose policy flight can serve.

The ad call URLs must contain a "/viewid={some numeric value}" string for a Companion ad to deliver. A set of ad call URLs with the same viewid is considered a "page".

Note that the first ad request received by the adserver is not necessarily the top ad position on the page. Differing internet transmission paths/times may mean that the second (or subsequent) ad request on the page arrives at the adserver first. If this ad call is eligible for a Strict flight creative it can receive it but if the top ad call (received by the adserver afterwards) does not meet the criteria for this flight (or the frequency cap has been met), the Strict flight is cancelled for the remainder of the ad requests on the page.

One method to ensure the sequence of ad calls received by SAS Intelligent Advertising is to use the bserver ad call method. Note that the bserver method allows the ad requests to be sequenced in any order so that the first ad slot on the page may not be the first ad request in the bserver ad call method, which can cause issues with Companion flights.

Choosing "Loose" means that there must be creatives which satisfy some of the ad calls on the page but satisfying all ad calls on the page is not required.

A flight with a Loose policy is not required to deliver first to the page. It can deliver to any number of ad calls on a page.

Other flights can be delivered between delivery of creatives from a Loose flight on the page, for example:

Ad 1 Creative from a non-Companion flight.
Ad 2 Creative from a flight with a Loose policy.
Ad 3 Creative from a non-Companion flight.
Ad 4 Creative from a flight with a Loose policy.

The ad call URLs must contain a "/viewid={some numeric value}" string for a Companion ad to deliver. A set of ad call URLs with the same viewid value is considered a "page".

Once a Loose policy flight begins delivering to the page no other companion flights can serve to the page.

Frequency Capping vs. Companion ads

Flights containing frequency caps can result in a flight with a Companion Type policy (either Strict or Loose) being cancelled on the page after serving an ad, causing other flights to deliver to the subsequent ad calls on the page. This is because frequency capping will trump the Companion Type policy. Strict or Loose flights deliver together consistently when frequency capping is not invoked.

Tier settings and companion ads

A Companion policy will override the tier "Eliminate Duplicate Flights" and "Eliminate Duplicate Advertisers" settings.

Operating System and Release Information

Product Family	Product	System	SAS Release
			Reported	Fixed*
SAS System	SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers	N/A

* For software releases that are not yet generally available, the Fixed Release is the software release in which the problem is planned to be fixed.

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Instructions for creating Companion [Roadblock] ads.

Type:	Usage Note
Priority:

Date Modified:	2017-07-31 09:51:01
Date Created:	2014-06-25 13:18:38