What to do when your website is showing a wrong ad or is not showing an expected ad (part 3)
                     What to do when your website is showing a wrong 
ad or is not showing an expected ad? (part 3)
Watson F
Writes on ad serving, involved with Adspeed 
ad server solutions & Adspeed ad server platform
There are many things that can go wrong even if you took advantage of 
preview and testing tools from your ad server so it’s important to look 
deeper under the hood.
Validate ad tag
An ad tag is a piece of code that you, your webmaster or the IT person, 
placed on the website or app where you want to display ads. On each page 
load, it calls the ad server to request an ad. The specific settings and values 
in the ad tag determine which group of ads to select. It is important to 
review the ad placement settings to ensure correct ads are appearing at the 
intended location.
If you're managing ad tags directly on your site, carefully review the ad code 
integration to ensure that it is placed at the right spot, free of errors or 
typos. Each ad server has its own ad tag instructions and you need to follow 
those steps carefully. Check the browser’s Console log to see if there are any 
syntax or compatibility errors. View the HTML source code of your website 
to ensure that the ad tag can indeed be found on the page. Incorrect ad 
code can lead to unexpected ad behavior, including the case of missing ads.
Confirm ad placement
If the ad tag is placed at the wrong placement then you might not see the ad 
where you expect it. For example, you created an ad placement for the 
homepage and linked some ads into this zone. However, your webmaster 
pasted the ad tag on the Contact Us page instead of the homepage. In this 
case, you would not be able to find your ad on the homepage.
It is a good idea to double-check the ad tag to ensure that it is for the 
correct placement or zone. If the ad tag is for another zone then it is 
misconfigured. In this case, your expected ad will not show and some other 
ad is showing instead. For example, you expect to see ads from zone XYZ but 
the ad tag on the page is for zone ABC then that will explain why the ad 
placement is not showing what you expect.
Check ad format
Different ad formats require different ad tags. Therefore, make sure the ad 
tag you are using on the page is for the correct ad format. For example, an 
ad tag for email newsletters will not be able to display video ads and vice 
versa. If you put a JavaScript or VAST video ad tag into an email newsletter, 
nothing will display because email software does not support those tags. On 
the other hand, a VAST video placement should not have any regular image 
banner ad.
Verify ad dimension
Each ad placement is designed to support only specific dimensions. If you 
mistakenly link a new ad into a zone for a different dimension, it might not 
be selected by the ad serving solution when showing. For example, a 
leaderboard zone 728x90 with a 300x250 ad will not show the sidebar 
300x250 ad. Therefore, if you do not see an ad, check if it is linked to the 
correct zone with other ads of the same dimension. Sometimes, the 
difference is very small and can be easily overlooked. For example, a 720x90 
ad that is linked to a 728x90 zone. The dimension looks almost the same but 
it is not.
Part 1 - Check ad status and ad targeting
Part 2 - Test and preview ad
Part 3 - Verify ad tag
 
About Adspeed
AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad 
management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & 
clicks and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad 
serving technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a 
reliable platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy 
more efficiently. 
 
 
 
 
Thank you for spending your precious time in 
reading this article.