How to update play service ads without add Admod App Id

[Nam Tran]

We currently using the `com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads` library in my Android application. However, the application does not display any AdMob ads, it uses this library to retrieve the Google Advertising ID from ads delivered through the IMASDK. We recently updated to the latest version of `com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads` since the old version is being phased out. After doing so, I started receiving an error in the Google Play Console stating that the AdMob APPLICATION_ID is not present in the manifest. As I understand it, as of version 17.0.0, the Google Mobile Ads SDK (included in com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads) requires an AdMob App ID to initialize, which is likely the root cause of this error. However, creating an AdMob account is not an option, as our app is not serving AdMob ads at all and it is our a client's requirement. Is there a way to resolve the "AdMob APPLICATION_ID not present in the manifest" error without adding an AdMob App ID in the manifest file? If we use a dummy AdMob App ID, like `ca-app-pub-0000000000000000~0000000000`, what would the potential repercussions be? Could this potentially break something in my app or cause any issues? We already tried to change `com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads` to `com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-identifier`, the error is still persists.
Thank you

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

To answer your inquiry regarding the dummy AdMob App ID, there should be no issues with this as the App ID serves as a identifier for your app to measure ad metrics and since you aren't serving any ads, no metrics will be measured. You may also try our sample app ID if the one you proposed still does not comply to PlayStore's policy: ca-app-pub-3940256099942544~3347511713.
 

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2o6vWV:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team