Rewarded Ad on production only showing Test Ads

[Orottawa Lab]

Hi experts!

I have implemented Google's admob Rewarded Ad on my unity game. I'm using the application ID and the Rewarded ad ID provided by Admob exclusively for my application and my rewarded ad. So, I'm not using the test IDs from the documentation.

The app is on production now; already published and accesible on Google Play Store. The rewarded video ad shown is always a Test ad. The requests counter on admob panel is not incremented when an ad is requested. I have read that admob takes some time calculating how many requests you have to start showing real ads. Is this true? How long does it take?

It worries me that it's always showing a test ad even when using real IDs.

For more information: Payment details have been filled correctly and the admob account has been approved. 

Thank you for your time. Best regards.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi there,

 

Thank you for reaching out to us.

 

You may have enabled your mobile device as a test device while developing your app, and may have accidentally left the associated code included within your final build. Could you kindly confirm if this is the case for your app? If not, could you then kindly provide the details below (via Reply privately to author) so that I can further investigate the issue?

• App ID
• Ad unit ID/s affected

 

Regards,

Ziv Yves Sanchez

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Orottawa Lab]

Hi Ziv,

I have not enabled a test device via AddTestDevice() method. I have tested the Rewarded Ad on 3 different mobile devices, and the result is the same: it always shows the test ad. 

I have provided you privately with the affected App ID and Ad ID. 

Thank you! 

Best regards.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi there,

I work with Ziv and will try to assist you. Thank you for sharing privately the app Id and ad unit Id and for the link to your app in PlayStore.

I tested your app Id and ad unit Id in our sample apps (look for java/admob/rewardedvideoexample) and received an error code 3 in the logcat and no ads loaded. I then downloadsed and installed your app on my device and logged ad requests with debug info, and I saw our test ads, and in the logcat I found your app Id but not your ad unit Id. I saw in ad requests though that the sample app Id of ca-app-pub-3940256099942544~3347511713 came up with the sample ad unit Id of rewarded ads - 5224354917. I then created a new Unity Android rewarded video ad app based on our documentation and put in your app Id under Assets -> Google Mobile Ads -> Settings, then initialized the SDK with our test app Id like this -

MobileAds.Initialize("ca-app-pub-3940256099942544~3347511713");, 

 then entered a new RewardedAd("ca-app-pub-3940256099942544/5224354917"); which is our test Rewarded Ad unit Id. When I ran my test project I saw test ads and also saw in the logcat your app Id, our test app Id and the test Rewarded ad unit Id.

My guess is that your app has the setup that my test unity app has (under assets your app Id and in initialize or test app Id and in ad setup our test ad unit Id). This would explain why you are receiving test ads and not seeing impressions for your ad unit Id. Could you confirm that the active code in your published app does not have our test app and test ad unit Id's? If you confirm that there's no test Id's in your app and you have your ad unit Id set up correctly and your app Id is also set up correctly, then can you make a bare bones Unity project based on our guide here - https://developers.google.com/admob/unity/quick-start with your bundle Id put in correctly and your app Id and your ad unit put in the setup described in our guide here - https://developers.google.com/admob/unity/rewarded-ads in an empty game object, using onAdLoaded callback to show the ad? If you see test ads on your sample, could you zip the entire Unity project (excluding the Library and Temp folders) in order to reduce its size, then send it to me via a shareable link from your Google Drive (or on any other file-sharing site that you prefer)? Don't forget to send the shareable link via Reply privately to author. Also please share with us your Unity version and AdMob SDK version.

With the latest SDK there's no need to initialize the SDK with an app as shown here - https://developers.google.com/admob/unity/quick-start#initialize_mobileads.

Regarding error code 3 on your confirmed app Id and ad unit Id, as described here - https://support.google.com/admob/thread/3494603?hl=en this means that you don't have ads serving to your ad unit Id due to lack of ad inventory. Ad inventory is out of scope of this forum because we only support implementing the Mobile Ads SDK into apps. The forum that addresses ad inventory is the AdMob Forum. With that  being said, since you mentioned that your account is relatively new, I can offer advice that I've heard that seems to be especially helpful for those who are just starting out with AdMob.

• account setup - to setup tax info, name and address and phone number in your AdMob Account with verification if applicable

• to take action when a message shows at the top of your account when you sign in even if there's no hint it will affect ad serving

• to publish your app on Google PlayStore and set up an app-ads.txt on your apps website - https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9363762?hl=en

• to fill out as soon as possible whenever you reach a revenue threshold all the payment details you can fill out in your AdMob Account at that revenue threshold - https://support.google.com/admob/answer/2772208, video describing thresholds

• ​​​​​​​to have in mind what would tempt more advertisers to rent space on your app

I have heard that account setup is crucial for ad serving for new AdMob users, and it's understandable that advertisers would want a safe return on investment just as much as app publishers do.

Kind regards,
Aryeh Baker
Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

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[Orottawa Lab]

Hi Aryeh,

First of all, thank you for the detailed analysis and response :)

Your guess was completely correct. We were using the real app id (under assets) and the test add id in the initialize. It has been a rookie mistake. I'm going to explain the cause, hoping it will be useful to people in my same situation.

Turns out the AdUnitID was defined in a public string variable in the ad controller script, thus making it accesible in the Unity Inspector. We had set the real value correctly on the script, but the inspector had the test value and it was overwritting the real one. Lesson learned: do not declare as public unnecessary stuff.

The app is now serving real ads, not receiving error 3 messages either.

Thanks again to the team. Best Regards.