Mediate with Android SDK instructions

Note

Android Studio and Gradle

These instructions assume you are using Android Studio and Gradle. Most of the required AndroidManifest.xml entries (except the Location permissions) and ProGuard changes are automatically added to your app. If you are using other build systems, the steps may vary.

Mediation lets you sell ad impressions through multiple networks to generate more revenue. This is initiated by your main (mediating) SDK which calls out to one or more mediated SDKs in a "waterfall"-like process. If your main SDK can't show an ad for some reason, it can iterate over the list of mediated SDKs and contact them in the order you specify. This will continue until the impression is filled or you've run out of mediated SDKs.

Reasons to mediate to another SDK include the following:

• To provide better monetization under specific circumstances
• To provide access to information such as a unique user ID or the device's operating system, location, or ID
• Some networks only accept requests from their own SDKs, forcing you to use their SDK to access their demand

Supported networks and media types

This section lists the networks that we support with mediation adaptors, as well as the media types that each adaptor supports. For each adaptor, we show whether the adaptor supports banners, interstitials, native, or all three.

Adaptor	Version	Banner	Interstitial	Native	Docs
Google AdMob and DFP	22.3.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Google Mobile Ads - Android Mediation
SmartAdServer	7.23.0	Yes	Yes	No	SmartAdServer SDK Documentation

Maven settings

To mediate these networks, you'll need a supported release of our SDK, and a mediation adaptor that allows our SDK to communicate with the network's SDK. The easiest way to get the SDK and adaptors is to use Maven from your build.gradle as shown in the example below. The first block includes the dependencies for the SDK itself. The second block lists adaptors to mediate other SDKs. Note that these are top-level blocks, not part of the buildscript block. You can include or exclude any of the adaptors in the second block. Including an adaptor causes it to automatically include the appropriate 3rd party SDK (which is downloaded from our CDN at Gradle sync time).

Finally, note that the [9,10) notation means that when your app is compiled, the latest version of the SDK in the 9.x series will be included. When we release a new version of the SDK, all that you'll have to do to get the new version is recompile your app.

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
    implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    implementation 'com.appnexus.opensdk:appnexus-sdk:[9,10)'
    implementation 'com.appnexus.opensdk.mediatedviews:appnexus-googleplay-mediation:[9,10)'
    implementation 'com.appnexus.opensdk.mediatedviews:appnexus-smartadserver-mediation:[9,10)'
}

Warning

Do not modify the mediation adaptors' build.gradle files. This may break the build.

Network-specific setup

This section has information about how to set up other networks' SDKs for mediation, including code samples (when special setup is required) and links to that SDK's documentation.

• AdMob
• SmartAdServer

AdMob

Note

For Mobile SDK 7.22 or above, mediating with Google Ad Mob version will require an explicit dependency on androidx.work:work-runtime:2.7.0 to fix a bug causing app crashes on Android S. To fix this bug, add the following dependencies for the Google Mobile Ads SDK to your module’s app-level Gradle file:

dependencies {
  implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:20.4.0'
  // For apps targeting Android 12, add WorkManager dependency.
  constraints {
    implementation('androidx.work:work-runtime:2.7.0') {
      because '''androidx.work:work-runtime:2.1.0 pulled from
      play-services-ads has a bug using PendingIntent without
      FLAG_IMMUTABLE or FLAG_MUTABLE and will fail in Apps
      targeting S+.'''
    }
  }
}

Warning

Lifecycle Callbacks Required

When mediating AdMob/DFP banners, you must add lifecycle callbacks to your code as described in the section below.

Implementation Note - Forwarding Lifecycle Callbacks

As we need to forward the lifecycle callbacks to the AdMob/DFP banner as required by them. For more information about activity lifecycles, see Managing the Activity Lifecycle in the Android docs.

The SDK allows you to forward lifecycle callbacks for the subclasses of AdView: BannerAdView and InterstitialAdView.

Forwarding lifecycle callbacks is highly recommended for better performance. For anyone mediating AdMob/DFP banners, it is a requirement that they be called, as we need to forward the lifecycle callbacks to the AdMob/DFP banner as required by them. See the code sample below for information about which methods to call, and when.

For more information about activity lifecycles, see Managing the Activity Lifecycle in the Android docs.

/**
 * To be called by the developer when the fragment/activity's onDestroy() function is called.
 */
abstract public void activityOnDestroy();
/**
 * To be called by the developer when the fragment/activity's onPause() function is called.
 */
abstract public void activityOnPause();
/**
 * To be called by the developer when the fragment/activity's onResume() function is called.
 */
abstract public void activityOnResume();

Native mediation

Note

Starting with v5.1 of the SDK, the AdMob Native Mediation adapter code was modified support the Google UnifiedNativeAd.

The following are no longer relevant and have been removed:

AdMobNativeSettings.setEnableAppInstallAd();
AdMobNativeSettings.setEnableContentAd();

For native mediation, add initialization code as described here:

If you intend to use MediaView for displaying Images/Video, you need to enable MediaView before making an ad request. If you don't explicitly enable it, we download the images for you and MediaView will not fill the images automatically.

AdMobNativeSettings.setEnableMediaView(true);

If the NativeAdResponse is from AdMob, create a View of type UnifiedNativeAdView.

private NativeAdRequestListener nativeAdRequestListener = new NativeAdRequestListener() {
 
    @Override
    public void onAdLoaded(NativeAdResponse response) {
        if (response.getNetworkIdentifier() == NativeAdResponse.Network.ADMOB) {
                // Instantiate UnifiedNativeAdView 
                // Set MediaView - Sets a media view for media content.
                // The media content gets loaded on the MediaView, if attached to the layout hierarchy and is registered using the setMediaView(...)
        }
    }
 
    @Override
    public void onAdFailed(ResultCode errorcode) {
  
    }
}

Setting the custom keyword

For passing the content URL to the Google SDK, the contenturl needs to be passed as a custom keyword with the requester ad object (BannerAdView, InterstitialAdView, NativeAdRequest). The key to be used is content_url. Here is an example:

// Add key content_url with a value (www.appnexus.com).
adView.addCustomKeywords("content_url", "www.appnexus.com");

For more information about the Google SDK, see the Google Mobile Ads SDK.

SmartAdServer

No special setup is required.

For more information about the the SmartAdServer SDK, see their SDK documentation.

If you intend to support Huawei devices that do not feature Google services anymore (needed for Advertising Id retrieval), you also need to declare the Huawei support libraries repository. To support Huawei devices with SAS adapter, the publishers are required to add following in the root level build.gradle of your project:

// Optional: Huawei services dependencies repository  
maven { url '[https://developer.huawei.com/repo/](https://developer.huawei.com/repo/)' }

Warning

Interstitials

If you are using SmartAdServer interstitial, be aware that SASInterstitialView does not have loadAd() and showAd() methods corresponding to our mobile SDK's InterstitialAdView. SASInterstitialView has only the loadAd() method which does both loading and showing of ads just in one call.

To be consistent with our mobile SDK's InterstitialAdView loadAd() and InterstitialAdView.showAd() method call sequence we do not display the SASInterstitialView until InterstitialAdView.showAd() is called.

In other words, it's expected that your app should immediately call showAd() in InterstitialAdView.onAdLoaded(). If not, the SASInterstitialView won't be displayed.

Placement setup for interstitial mediation

Use the following placement settings for interstitial mediation.

Interstitial mediation

If you want to do interstitial mediation, make sure your placement is set up in with:

• Size: 1x1
• Media Type: Interstitial

Interstitial mediation plus RTB and/or managed demand

If you want to do interstitial mediation and accept RTB and or managed demand through the same placement, you must make sure your placement is set up in with:

• Size: 1x1
• Media Type: Interstitial
• Media Type: Banner

For more instructions on creating placements, see Create a Placement in the Monetize documentation.

For non-mediated demand, you must pass the actual sizes of the creatives in your ad calls using the promo_sizes placement tag parameter.

For instructions on passing custom interstitial sizes, see "Using Custom Interstitial Sizes" in the Show Interstitials on Android documentation.

Custom mobile networks

The Xandr UI has built-in support for a number of popular mobile ad networks. If you want to mediate a network it doesn't support, you'll need to:

• Write a custom mediation adaptor that lets our SDK receive events from the SDK you want to mediate.
• Set up a Custom Mobile Network using the instructions in Add a Network.

Related topics

• Android SDK Integration Instructions
• Android Custom Adaptors