Product Bulletin¶
Welcome to the Yahoo Ad Tech API Product Bulletin. This update includes a quick snapshot of recent and upcoming releases and is focused on features supported by the API. A summary of supported functionality is also included.
Product Bulletins are updated on a monthly cadence for Yahoo API partners, account managers and developers.
December, 2022¶
Reminder: Yahoo Pixel API Specification¶
New Yahoo Pixel API Specification is available in the Identity documentation hub for Yahoo Native and Yahoo DSP. The Yahoo Dot pixel is currently used for audience retargeting and conversion tracking via onsite pixel tracking. By default, pixels use cookies as the main identifier to communicate with Yahoo. The Yahoo Dot pixel does support enhanced identifiers such as hashed e-mail addresses and click IDs today.
With changes to consumer privacy regulations and advertisers moving to more centralized tracking and data organization technologies, as well as browser restrictions on the use of cookies, different methods and strategies for implementing and communicating audience information to Yahoo are needed.
The Yahoo Pixel API specification is intended to address these issues and provide a solution for advertisers. Instead of tracking onsite pixel events, clients’ servers will now be able to call the Yahoo API endpoint in order to send enhanced user identifiers along with event information. See the guide to navigate topics including how it works, Endpoint Details, Sample Event, Pixel ID creation, OAUTH 2.0 authentication, rate limitation, and error responses.
Important
The Yahoo Pixel API supports identifiers that do not rely on cookies, leverage secure privacy protocols, and enable advertisers to have full control over the data sent to the platform.
Reminder: Enhanced Reach and Performance Feature¶
As a reminder, we’ve enhanced our Reach and Performance feature to support 1P and 3P audiences. (Previously, Reach and Performance applied only to campaigns that targeted Yahoo Audiences; the feature now supports all audience types.) This powerful feature takes advantage of a proprietary machine learning algorithm developed by Yahoo Ad Tech that enables advertisers to expand their reach beyond targeted audience segments that advertisers have specified, for new and existing Native ad campaigns, known as Yahoo Preferred Network lines within the DSP. That means, you can now increase reach to better performing audiences. You’ll be able to identify more audiences that produce a greater number of conversions at the same or lower cost, thus increasing reach and performance.
Additionally, advertisers who are not using Reach and Performance will now see a recommendation in the DSP UI to enable the feature, as a reminder that they can benefit from better reach and performance. Particularly, when the daily budget is not being exhausted in full. See Reach and Performance documentation in the Native Guide for details about how it works, Targeting & Bidding, FAQs and more resources.
Important
This feature enhancement provides a scalable solution to advertisers who target smaller and more niche audiences, enabling campaigns that may struggle to scale because they target relatively smaller segments.
Reminder: New Product Recommendation API for DPA Integration¶
New API product recommendation describes the 3rd-Party (3P) and Yahoo DSP API integration process and workflow for Dynamic Product Ads (DPA). The DSP API acts a proxy and forwards the request to the Native (YPN) API for this use case. The goal of this effort is to provide advertisers with a list of product recommendations for a specific user. See Product Recommendation API for DPA Integration for details about Static Setup, Runtime Calls, Illustrated Runtime Sequence, User Recommendation, Fields, Endpoint, and Operations.
Reminder: Yahoo Native to Yahoo DSP API Migration Guide¶
Yahoo Native and Yahoo DSP will be merging into a single, unified demand platform. The goal is to provide Yahoo advertisers with a unified interface that simplifies buying and optimization across all media types – for example, Video, and Yahoo Preferred Network (formerly Native Marketplace) – and across all media buy types, like RTB, Reserved, as well as across all supply sources – O&O + 3rd party. That means, Yahoo advertisers, developers and partners will be able to buy both Yahoo O&O Native and DSP more efficiently – and with improved conversion and performance results.
Navigate to the Yahoo Native to Yahoo DSP API Migration Guide for information about the high-level changes that you need to consider and understand when migrating from Yahoo Native to Yahoo DSP. The guide describes in parallel the RESTful API endpoints and methods, headers and body, Curl and JSON responses for your campaigns when you transition your code base from Native to DSP. Explore the guide for an overview, and resources including migration strategies, how to get started, caveats & considerations, sample code and partner support.
Reminder: New Postman Toolkit Guide for DSP API¶
The Postman Toolkit guide, introduced in September 2022, describes the steps you need to follow to install and configure the Postman toolkit for optimizing, testing and error-checking your Yahoo DSP API calls. The Postman HTTP client lets you make requests (GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE calls) to the DSP RESTful APIs. Postman is a widely-used tool for building and handling HTTP requests to REST-based services. It can be useful in your development efforts for optimizing, testing and error-checking your API calls when working with the programmatic Yahoo DSP API. Follow the steps outlined in the Postman Toolkit guide to get started. You can also navigate to the Postman Toolkit within the Yahoo Native to Yahoo DSP API Migration Guide.
Reminder: Test Advertiser Setup for Third-Party Integrators in the DSP¶
For third-party integrators, we’ve added a new process for Test Advertiser setup in the DSP. If you’re a third-party integrator coding to our API and wish to be a Test Advertiser in DSP, reach out to your support team or solutions engineering. The team will grant you access to a Test Seat in order to validate your integration. Please see the Third-Party Integrators section in the migration guide for more details and to navigate other migration topics.
As a reminder, Yahoo Native and Yahoo DSP will be merging into a single, unified demand platform. The goal is to provide Yahoo advertisers with a unified interface that simplifies buying and optimization across all media types – for example, Video, and Yahoo Preferred Network (formerly Native Marketplace) – and across all media buy types, like RTB, Reserved, as well as across all supply sources – O&O + 3rd party. That means, Yahoo advertisers, developers and partners will be able to buy both Yahoo O&O Native and DSP more efficiently – and with improved conversion and performance results.
Navigate to the Yahoo Native to Yahoo DSP API Migration Guide for information about the high-level changes that you need to consider and understand when migrating from Yahoo Native to Yahoo DSP. The guide describes in parallel the RESTful API endpoints and methods, headers and body, Curl and JSON responses for your campaigns when you transition your code base from Native to DSP. Explore the guide for an overview, and resources including migration strategies, how to get started, caveats & considerations, sample code and partner support.
Reminder: New Documentation in Identity Hub: Data Pass Macro for Flashtalking¶
Yahoo Ad Tech provides partners and developers with a custom parameter and macro in its tagging system that enables enhanced attribution in Flashtalking. Specifically, the parameter and macro
vmcid=${CC}
is deployed on click-through. That means, a click ID can be populated persistently on a landing page URL. To accomplish this in Flashtalking, you can use Data Pass Macros.For details about how to enable this option for various ad formats, see Yahoo Click ID Macro Pass in Flashtalking in the Identity Hub.
Reminder: New Enhanced Attribution Documentation for the DSP API¶
We’ve added a new guide to Enhanced Attribution for the DSP API. Yahoo Enhanced Attribution works by leveraging a click ID to count post-click conversions, using a privacy-friendly mechanism that doesn’t require or depend on a third-party cookie. These conversions are counted according to the attribution settings you’ve specified in your rule setup and meet all those rule conditions. See Enhanced Attribution for an overview, enablement steps, and more topics to navigate.
Reminder: Rate Limits for API Endpoints¶
For all object APIs (i.e., campaign, ad group, ad, targeting attribute, and so on), the API quota is 100,000 calls per hour. Read operations (such as GETs) have a lower cost factor than write operations (POST/PUT/DELETE). See Objects for details. Also, see Resources for info about error responses and the return of the HTTP 429 error code, which specifies Too Many Requests.
Reminder: New Workflow for Post App Install Integration¶
Yahoo Ad Tech has added a new workflow for post-install integration for Native Platform API partners and developers. The integration enables post-install events for conversions that are attributed by a 3rd Party Data Provider to a previously self-attributed app install claim or an in-app claim. See User Acquisition Post-Install Specification 1.0 documentation for requirements, typical workflow, endpoint, request URL parameters, and related resources.
Reminder: New Strategies for Optimizing Custom Audiences¶
Yahoo Ad Tech’s new guide, Strategies for Optimizing Custom Audiences, provides you with in-depth technical information on strategies for working with Custom Audiences. The document includes overviews of the audience types – Audiences by Dot Tags (Pixels), Audiences from Email Lists, and Audiences by Device ID – and provides pros and cons for each type, along with best practices.
Updated Authentication Documentation¶
We’ve updated our Getting Started documentation to further clarify the authentication steps. The steps include using a dedicated Yahoo domain specific username; creating the app and subsequent developer keys; and following the explicit grant flow to get an authorization URL and authorize access. To review the latest information and detailed steps, see the Before You Begin section of our Authentication page. The documentation also includes detailed OAuth 2.0 setup and usage information, best practices and FAQs.
Important: Restrictions for Square and HQ Images in Single Image Ads¶
When creating your ad, you will need to include an imageUrl and imageUrlHQ in the API, and an Ad HQ Image URL in BULK. Note that the imageUrl must have a 1:1 aspect ratio. A square image (imageLargeUrl) is mandatory. If you upload an 800x800 image, for example, the asset will be resized down to 627x627 pixels. And if you upload an 800x850 image, the asset will be resized and cropped down to 627x627 pixels. If the image is off from the 1:1 aspect ratio by more than 10%, the asset will be rejected and ad creation will fail. For example, an 800x1000 image is more than 10% off from 1:1 square, so it will be rejected.
This applies to API, UI and BULK uploads. Ensure that you follow these requirements when creating single image and carousel ads. Use a 1:1 aspect ratio and an exact size of 627x627 for a square asset for carousel ads.
Note that this is a requirement now for Image ad formats. Video, Mail, and Carousel ads are unchanged, as they’re already required to meet these restrictions.
The image requirements for various assets is shown in the table below:
Asset |
Required? |
Aspect ratio enforced? |
---|---|---|
Rectangle image - 1200x627px |
Yes |
Yes - 1.9.1 |
Square image - 627x627px |
Yes |
Yes - 1:1 |
Thumbnail - 180x180px |
Optional |
No - 1:1 |
Note
Existing ads that are missing square assets will experience reduced supply as they are dropped from rendering on ad units that need the square asset.
For detailed documentation and examples, see the updated images sections in Image Ads, Ad Object API, Ad Bulk Object, and Ad Assets BULK Fields Objects.
Dynamic Product Ads Guide¶
Yahoo Ad Tech’s portal dedicated to Dynamic Product Ads is available in our documentation suite. This portal empowers partners and advertisers with an expanded set of resources in one location, to help streamline DPA planning and setup. This guide is a repository intended for DPA partners, developers and account managers. It serves as the source of truth for the combined documentation suites for all technical content dedicated to DPA for the Native API and Native UI. Use our guide as a toolkit to navigate topics and essential reference material, and to explore implementation details, how-to’s, case studies, FAQs and best practices.
Native Ads Reminders and Resources¶
Important
For Advertisers Making GET Requests, only one adGroupId
or advertiserId
parameter is allowed to be passed in as a query parameter for all filtered list GET calls. See the latest documentation in the Ad Object section, What’s New, and Latest Updates.
We’ve updated our specification for the Server-to-Server In-App events integration with the Native Ad Platform API. Our spec is intended for 3rd Party Mobile Measurement Providers (3PMMP) who wish to integrate with Native Ad Platform via S2S. It is aimed at Data Providers, like Kochava, AppsFlyer, Adjust, Apsalar, CyberZ/FOX and others. The recent changes include updating all endpoints to replace
http://
withhttps://
. To review all in-app event fields, endpoints, request and response examples, and other requirements, see the updated Server-to-Server In-app Events Specification.Site Group X Device targeting is now supported in the latest versions of the API, as well as both Bulk v2+ and API v2+. Site Group X Device targeting allows native advertisers to modify their bids on a per-site group, per-device basis on selected site groups, and is applicable to native channels-only, as well as VisitWeb, Shopping or PromoteBrand objectives-only. Site Group X Device targeting can be set at either the campaign or ad group level. See our Targeting documentation for details and an example.
Important
Some sites have been migrated to site groups. Advertisers should make a GET call to the site group API endpoint to get a list of all new site groups. See the Data Dictionary to get the latest list of valid site group names.
Site Blocking at the campaign level is useful for ensuring the safety of your brand as well as improving the performance of your Native campaigns. Subdomain Blocking allows you to block the subdomains beneath a domain, up to 3 levels.
We’ve updated the API documentation for Bulk operations, with the latest information on how to upload and download bulk files in your advertiser accounts. A sample tab-separated CSV file spreadsheet is provided, along with information on Bulk schemas and objects. Check out the latest documentation for Bulk Operations.
We continue to enhance our best-in-class Native Ad Platform documentation suite, designed to help you simplify the process of integrating with us.
Important
We now have strict validation for our redirect URLs. This means that if a registered redirect URL is, for example, http://example.com, but the actual redirect URL is http://example.com/test, the redirect will fail. For more details, see Latest Updates.
Glossary of Key Native Ad Platform Terms, Definitions & Concepts¶
A Yahoo Ad Tech Glossary of Key Native Terms, Definitions and Concepts used within our ad platform is available. If you’re looking for definitions of key terms or an abbreviated listing of Native Ad Platform terms for advertisers who are getting started and creating their first campaigns and ad groups, you’ll find them in this alphabetical listing.
Reminder: Updated Postman to v3 Endpoint¶
Updated the Postman collection to the v3 endpoint for all API calls. Using Postman, you can test and verify the calls you make in the Native & Search API. See Postman API Toolkit.
Required Fields by Ad Type Matrix¶
A matrix is available which details the required fields when serving different ad types. For more information, see the Matrix view of required fields.