Low fill rate with npa flag set to 1

[Game dev is fun]

Hi,

We recently launched a new app. And used the following code to tag every single request with a non personalized ads flag as follows:

GADRequest *request = [GADRequest request];
GADExtras *extras = [[GADExtras alloc] init];
extras.additionalParameters = @{@"npa": @"1"};
[request registerAdNetworkExtras:extras];

Unfortunately, the fill rate is very low (~15%). We removed the npa flag from the code (but have not released an app update yet) but the low fill rate persists unless the advertising identifier is reset on the device. 

Once the advertising identifier is reset, the fill rate is normal. We'd like to push an update to our app without the npa flag in the code, but are concerned that the fill rate for the existing users will still be low, 

unless the user will reset the advertising identifier on their device. Is there anything Admob can do on the back end to fix this issue? Or is the ad configuration done at the Admob App ID level?

To make it clear the following are the steps taken to reproduce the problem on an iOS device:

1) Install an app build that has npa=1 (using test flight or any other way)

2) Run the app and observe poor 15% fill rate

3) Delete the app

4) Install an app that does not have npa set to 1

5) Run the app and still observe poor 15% fill rate

6) Go to Settings -> Privacy -> Reset Advertising Identifier -> Reset Identifier

7) Launch the app and observe greatly increased fill rate and much greater interstitial and banner variety

Obviously an average user will rarely use the Reset Identifier setting.  So my question for the Admob team is, will the Admob SDK eventually switch to normal behavior after the app is updated without npa=1 in 

the code? Or these users will now be perpetually stuck in this ad deficient state until they either reset the ad id or get another device?

We'd greatly appreciate a response so that we can update our app as soon as possible.

Thank you.

[mobileadssdk-a...@google.com]

Hi,

Thank you for the details provided. 

Please note that the availability of ads for your Ad Requests is not controlled by the SDK but more on the Ad sources' side on whether they can fill the request. Given that you are able to load ads at times, then we can safely assume that your code implementation is working correctly and there is no issue with the SDK. 

In addition, please note that having an unpublished app may have an impact on your fill rate as well. However, given that the concern is more on Ad serving and the performance of your Ad Units, please use this troubleshooter or raise them over to the AdMob Help forum as these are the appropriate channels for your concern.

Regards,

Ivan Bautista

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Paul Yip]

Hi Google team,

I see the same problem.  It looks its a design issue.  User has to reset the Advertising Identifier on the phone in order to see personal AD.  At this point, once the user chose to see non-personal AD though our game, there is no way for he to change the settings to see personal AD.  He has to reset it by Settings -> Privacy -> Reset Advertising Identifier -> Reset Identifier as described by Game dev is fun.

I'd suggest the SDK team an API to reset the Advertising Identifier so that we could reset the Advertising Identifier through our game.  Many thank.

[mobileadssdk-a...@google.com]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your insights.

However, please note that you don't need to reset the advertising identifier to be able to request for personalized or non-personalized ads. You can explicitly set an AdRequest to request non personalized ads by setting npa=1. Otherwise, it will request for personalized ads by default.

Let me know if this helps or if I misunderstood your concern.

Regards,

Ivan Bautista

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[mobileadssdk...@google.com]

Hi,

We are looking into this to see if there is an issue, and in our own testing we have observed when sending 5 Ad Requests from a test project, we were able to load ads. Our findings were:

• First Ad Request: no npa=1. In Charles logs the npa parameter was not included in the Ad Request so this request will be personalized by default.
• Second and third Ad Request: add npa=1.In the Charles logs npa=1 parameter was included in the Ad Request so these requests will be non-personalized.
• Fourth and fifth Ad Request: removed npa=1 code. In the Charles logs the npa parameter was no longer included in the Ad Request.

These are expected results.

Are you able to confirm that the results are the same in your own app? 

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