Ad Ops Blog
How-tos, reference guides, and opinionated notes for ad-ops teams. Every post is rooted in real trafficking problems we see in CreativeValidator scans.
How to validate DCM tags before trafficking
Campaign Manager 360 tags break in predictable ways. Here's a step-by-step QA pass that catches 90% of issues before they reach a publisher — missing click macros, cachebuster placement, mixed-content SSL, and the INS-vs-legacy-iframe gotchas.
VAST 4.2 tag testing — a complete walkthrough
What's new in VAST 4.2, how MediaFile declarations changed, why your companion ads might not render, and how to verify wrapper chains without falling into infinite redirects. With real tag examples.
The 2026 HTML5 ad IAB compliance checklist
Every threshold that matters: initial load weight, total weight, load time, network requests, script count, clickTag wiring, and the non-obvious ones — document.write penalties, console errors, and mixed-content edge cases.
GAM macro reference: every macro, vendor by vendor
Which macros go in which vendor's tag, where they go inside the tag, and why inserting them correctly matters. Covers DCM, Flashtalking, Sizmek, Innovid, Xandr, Taboola, Criteo, Amazon DSP, and more — with verified GAM syntax for each.
TCF v2.2 and GDPR consent validation for ad tags
How to tell if your tag is handling consent correctly — the TCF 2.2 consent string format, the CMP JS API, GDPR macros by vendor, US Privacy / GPP for the state-level regulations, and what actually breaks when consent is missing.