Open Interstitial/Banner only on successfully receiving an ad (native iOS and Android apps)

[Klaas Müller]

Hello,

We are still looking for a way to open an Interstitial/Banner only if there is valid content to display. We want to be able to serve 3rd party agency creatives, which do not always have content to display. If there is no content to display, we do not want the interstitial/Banner to show at all and stay closed from within the custom DFP template. The 3rd party javascript script tag which we serve will give us feeback like “no ad available”. In this case the interstitial/overlay/Banner should stay closed. 

Example: 

We would like to do the interstitial call, receive the ad and only open the Interstitial on successfully receiving a valid creative. In our case we have a custom template with a video player inside, which can receive a 3rd party VAST File. Inside the VAST file there might be no Video to deliver, so the user should not see the interstitial at all. If there is a VAST video file available, the interstitial should open. If there would be a possibility to send an event to the SDK via the admob media api to keep the ad-slot/overlay closed before it opens, this would help very much. Otherwise the user get a black interstitial or a white banner in the app all the time. I could imagine an event we send in the template like admob.events.doNotShowAd(); This would then automatically destroy the adView from the screen or calls the "Failed to receive ad with error: Request Error: No ad to show."

Best,
Klaas

[Andrew Brogdon (Mobile Ads SDK Team)]

Your question caused an interesting conversation in our office, and we're still discussing whether a technique exists in the current SDK to do what you're describing.  I will probably have a definite answer for you tomorrow.  In the meantime, consider checking with your Account Manager about this idea, if you have not already.

-Andrew

[Klaas Müller]

This is very strange, because I checked with my account manager several times and my guess was that he forwarded that request to you guys. If I would have gotten an answer, I would not be here in the forum :)

I am really looking forward for you feedback. What I found out, is that the interstitial only pops up when html dom is ready. So a very bad workaround is to execute javascript to infinity in the head to avoid the dom from being ready. But I don't know what this will do to battery live of the device, impression counting on the backend and so on.

Klaas

[Andrew Brogdon (Mobile Ads SDK Team)]

After further discussion, we have been unable to find a solution on how to do this with the current SDK.  The only potential avenues we found were too hackish to be used in real life situations, similar to the javascript solution you've discarded for the same reason.

I will add this to the list of requested features I've been compiling from your posts, however.

-Andrew