The Debug Ad Request tab in the UX enables a user to troubleshoot flight delivery issues that might be the result of targeting or flight policies such as frequency capping.

Two debugging options are available:

• Normal Ad Selection
• All Ad Selection

To use the tool, follow these steps:

1. Enter the targeting parameters in the Path Info field.
2. Select the debugging option (the default is Normal Ad Selection).
3. Click the Run button. Note: You can customize the Cookie and User Agent values if needed. If you do not enter a mid= cookie value, then click the Run button twice, because the first execution of the request is to get a mid= cookie.

For debugging purposes, enter any alphanumeric string as a valid mid= cookie value. Here is an example: 0001245678A
4. Input the targeting string into Debug Ad Request in the client’s UX. Note any geotargeting tags that need to be present. Check this by editing the flight, clicking View Targeting, and looking for any geo_ tags and values in the targeting. For information about using geotargeting data in Debug Ad Request, see SAS Note 53321: "Spoofing Geotargeting Data in Ad Calls."

The targeting in an ad call is a series of key=value pairs delimited by a forward slash (“/”). Here is an example:

http://crtl.aimatch.com/uxdemo/hserver/site=demo/area=sports/size=728x90/random=1234567890/viewid=0987654321?

The targeting is the set of key=value pairs in the pathinfo after the ad server domain and ad server method* but not including the random=some-value value. So the targeting string in this example is /site=demo/area=sports/size=728x90. The viewid=some-value might be required.

Targeting can be placed in the query string of the URL as well:

http://crtl.aimatch.com/uxdemo/hserver/random=1234567890/viewid=0987654321?site=demo&area=sports&size=728x90

Note that the delimiter in the query string in this example is an ampersand (“&”) rather than a forward slash (“/”), although the forward slash can be used as a delimiter.

Available ad server methods options are iserver, hserver, jserver, or bserver. The bserver method allows multiple ad requests with both global targeting for all requests and per-request targeting. For the details of each method, see SAS Note 53291: "Creating Ad Requests for the SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers Ad Server."

The viewid value is required in Debug Ad Request to match flights with a Companion Policy enabled. For information about selecting Companion Policy in a flight, see SAS Note 53304: "Using Companion [Roadblock] ads." Multiple requests using the same viewid value are required to discover issues related to Tier options such as Eliminate Duplicate Flights or Eliminate Duplicate Advertisers.



In order to troubleshoot geotargeting issues, you need to explicitly declare the geotargeting value(s) in the Path Info field. Here are the tag names for geotargeting:




Targeting item	Corresponding ad call tag
City	geo_city
Metro code	geo_metro
Country	geo_country
Region [state or province]	geo_region
IP address	geo_ip
ZIP code text	geo_zip_code_text
Conn speed	geo_conn_speed

For more details about troubleshooting geotargeting issues using the Debug Ad Request feature, see SAS Note 53321: "Spoofing Geotargeting Data in Ad Calls."

When you use the default Normal Ad Selection option, session information is returned. The reasons that a flight/creative is selected or not selected are also returned. The actual selection is shown at the bottom of the evaluation, preceded by >>>>:



Selecting the All Ad Selection option returns evaluation information and all flights/creatives that match the targeting. All matching flights are prefaced with the string >>>>:





Debug Ad Request Messages and Their Meaning

Tier filter doesn't match - This indicates that the target applied to the tier does not match the targeting on the ad call. Compare the ad call targeting to the tier target to see where the mismatch is. Edit the tier, get the target name, and then edit the target. Once the mismatch is found, notify the client that either the ad call or the tier target needs to be changed in order for it to serve.

The current time is outside the flight's daily serving window - This indicates that the flight is set to run only during a specified portion of the day. Edit the flight and check the Daily Window option.

Flight's product tag restrictions don't match - Edit the flight and select View Targeting. Compare the targeting values listed against the ad call to see where the mismatch is. Once the mismatch is found, notify the client that either the ad call or the product tags need to be changed in order for it to serve.

Flight's product targets don't match - Edit the flight and select View Targeting. Compare the targeting values listed against the ad call to see where the mismatch is. Once the mismatch is found, notify the client that either the ad call or the product target needs to be changed in order for it to serve.

Flight's tag restrictions don't match - Edit the flight and check the Tags section. Compare the specified tags in the flight against the ad call to see where the mismatch is. Once the mismatch is found, notify the client that either the ad call or the flight tags needs to be changed in order for it to serve.

Flight's targets don't match - Edit the flight, and select View Targeting. Compare the targeting values listed against the ad call to see where the mismatch is. Once the mismatch is found, notify the client that either the ad call or the flight target needs to be changed in order for it to serve.

Flight is a companion flight, but "no companion" is specifically requested - If the ad call contains “/nocompanion,” this prevents flights that have Companion type enabled. Provide this information to the client.

Flight violates its campaign exposure policy - A frequency cap is set on the campaign level that is preventing the ad from displaying. Try clearing your cookies and then see whether the ad can deliver. Recommend the client do the same, or recommend adjusting frequency cap settings.

Flight violates its exposure policy - A frequency cap is set on the flight level that is preventing the ad from displaying. Try clearing your cookies and then see whether the ad can deliver. Recommend the client do the same, or recommend adjusting frequency cap settings.

Flight cannot serve sequential creatives to an anonymous visitor - The flight contains sequential creatives (creatives meant to be seen in a specific sequence), and this requires browser cookie functionality. Ensure that cookies are being accepted by your browser. Recommend the client also check cookie functionality in their browser.

Strict companion flight could not serve and is now cancelled on this page - Flights that have Companion type set to Strict require certain conditions to be met in order to serve. See SAS Note 53304: “Using Companion [Roadblock] ads.” Escalate the ticket if required.

Flight has expired - The flight has reached its end date and/or goal. Notify client that flight has ended.

Flight has not yet started - The flight start date/time has not been reached yet. Provide this information to the client.

Flight has met today's daily revenue cap - Flights with a daily revenue cap serve impressions until the calculated revenue cap is reached. Edit the flight and check the Goal and CPM fields. See SAS Note 53257: "Daily Revenue Cap."

Flight is not serving for an unknown reason - Escalate the issue.

Flight is ahead of schedule - This indicates that the flight is ahead of schedule, meaning that it has served too many impressions too quickly and if continued at that rate would meet the impression goal before the end date and time. Provide this information to the client, and recommend checking the Flight Status report. Flights are eligible to serve again once priority drops below 1.0.

Flight is exceeding its serve rate for this interval - The serve rate helps smooth out delivery of impressions so that there are not spikes in delivery rate. Wait a few minutes and try again.

Flight is a companion flight, but the visitor is anonymous - Flights with Companion type enabled require browser cookie functionality. Ensure that cookies are being accepted by your browser. Recommend the client also check cookie functionality in their browser. See the SAS Note 53304: “Using Companion [Roadblock] ads.”

Flight is a companion flight, but no pageview id is present - Flights with Companion type enabled require a /viewid=some-value to be present on the ad call. Check the ad call to ensure it is present. Recommend incorporating this into ad call. See SAS Note 53291: “Creating Ad Requests for the SAS Intelligent Advertising for Publishers Ad Server.”

Flight is a strict companion flight, but this is not the first ad on the page - Flights that have Companion type set to Strict require certain conditions to be met in order to serve. See the SAS Note 53304: “Using Companion [Roadblock] ads.” Escalate ticket.

Flight is a loose companion flight, but companion flight is already engaged on this page - This indicates that another companion flight has served to other ad calls with this viewid. Different companion flights cannot be served to the same page at the same time. Provide this information to the client.

Flight is for advertiser and has category, but that category has already been shown on this page by advertiser - Categories are assigned on the advertiser and flight level. Once a flight with a given category has served to a page, no other ad calls on that page can serve flights that are assigned the same category. Provide this information to the client.

Flight is for advertiser, which has already been shown on this page - Edit the tier this flight is in, and check to see whether Eliminate Duplicate Advertisers is enabled. If it is, notify client this is causing the issue.

Flight has already been shown on this page - Edit the tier this flight is in, and check to see whether Eliminate Duplicate Flights is enabled. If it is, notify client this is causing the issue.

Flight has served too recently - The Recent Ad Queue (RAQ) prevents flights from serving too recently in order to encourage rotation. Edit the tier the flight is in and see whether Serve Soft Match At Tier End is enabled. If it is not, recommend to client that this can correct issue. For more information about the RAQ, see these SAS Notes:

SAS Note 53314: "Using the 'Serve Soft Match at Tier End' option shown in the Edit Tier window"

SAS Note 53613: "Tier Prioritization Methods"

SAS Note 53325: "Ad Selection Logic"

Creative size doesn't match - The size specified for the creative does not match the size specified in the ad call. Edit the creative and compare the size to the one in the ad call. Notify client that this is causing the issue.

Creative filter doesn't match - Edit the flight, and select View Targeting. Compare the targeting values listed against the ad call to see where the mismatch is. Once the mismatch is found, notify the client that either the ad call or the creative target needs to be changed in order for it to serve.

Creative violates its exposure policy - A frequency cap is set on the creative level that is preventing the ad from displaying. Try clearing your cookies and then see whether the ad can deliver. Recommend the client do the same, or recommend adjusting frequency cap settings.

Flight is a loose companion flight, but companion flight X is already engaged on this page - Multiple flights with a Companion Policy are attempting to be delivered to the ad call, and aiMatch does not allow more than one companion-based flight to deliver to a page.

Visitor is restricted to session-only exposure policies, and flight's exposure policy X is not session-only - The engine is failing to retrieve the visitor’s history from Cassandra so only flights with a session-based frequency capping policy or no frequency capping can serve to the ad request. This is accompanied by a visitor session message in the trace that states Persists history = FALSE. This typically requires a restart of the engine.

This is a passback, but the FCID is either invalid or not recently served to the visitor - The Flight Creative ID (FCID) value passed in on the ad call is invalid or the passback ad call was not received by aiMatch within five seconds of the original ad call.





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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Using the Debug Ad Request feature in the UX.

Type:	Usage Note
Priority:

Date Modified:	2017-04-06 12:24:21
Date Created:	2014-06-25 15:21:51