---
title: "Matching rules and network defaults: fields and settings"
description: "Every field of the matching-rule form and condition row, and all fifteen Inventory & campaigns settings cards — what each sets, whether it shapes new objects only or is read live, and the REST call that exposes the defaults."
type: "reference"
audience: [admin]
keywords: [rule form fields, condition operator, include exclude, site default status, site revenue share preferences, site pricing preferences, advertiser default status, piggybacks default status, rules panel default status, daisy chaining lookup depth, default VPAID framework, default VAST tracking events, placement domain as default channel, rules management, banner approval obligatory fields, banner approval moderation fields, accounting period management, macros accessibility, network settings.do]
ui_path: "Admin → Ad serving → Inventory & campaigns settings"
---

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/llms.txt. Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. Append .md to any documentation page URL to get its markdown version.

# Matching rules and network defaults: fields and settings

Reference for [Matching rules and network defaults](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/rules-and-defaults.md).

## The rule form

| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| **Name** | Required, capped at 128 characters — checked by the form and again by the server. Shown in the grid and in every account user's rule picker, so name it for what it selects, not for the ticket that asked for it. |
| **Type** | *Campaign Rule* or *Inventory Rule*. Defaults to *Campaign Rule*. Each option describes itself in the open dropdown (there is no help paragraph under the closed picker). Changing it clears the chosen categories. |
| **Active** | Off for a new rule. Inactive rules stay in the grid and keep every attachment, but they are dropped from the ad cache and so stop being enforced. The account-side picker also hides them until the user ticks its *Show inactive* box. |
| **Apply automatically to** | Three checkboxes matching the type — *All sites / All zones / All placements* for a Campaign rule, *All advertisers / All campaigns / All banners* for an Inventory rule. See [Make a rule apply automatically](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/rules-and-defaults.md#make-a-rule-apply-automatically). |
| **Conditions** | Zero or more condition rows, ANDed together and separated by an **And** divider. Nothing requires you to add one — and a rule saved with **no** conditions matches *everything* on the other side, so attaching it widens rather than narrows. |

| Type | Tests | Attach it to | So it controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Campaign Rule** | advertising categories + labels (demand) | sites, zones, placements | which demand may serve on that inventory |
| **Inventory Rule** | inventory categories + labels (supply) | advertisers, campaigns, banners | where that demand may serve |

### A condition

| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| **include / exclude** | *include* keeps the entities that satisfy the condition; *exclude* keeps the ones that fail it. It inverts this condition's test — it is not the same operation as the include/exclude on the account-side rule group. |
| **Operator** | *AND* requires **every** selected category **and** every selected label to be present. *OR* requires **any one** selection, across categories and labels together. |
| **Category** | Advertising categories for a Campaign rule, inventory categories for an Inventory rule. Type to filter; pick as many as you like. |
| **Label** | Labels, for either type. Empty on a network that has no labels defined. |

The categories and labels a rule reads are not necessarily the ones on the entity you attached it
to. Inventory categories come from the **site**, labels from the **placement**; advertising
categories come from the **advertiser**, labels from the **banner plus its campaign**. The full
matrix is in
[Attach matching rules to an entity](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/targeting/entity-matching-rules.md#what-a-rule-looks-at).

### The rules grid

**ID**, **Name**, **Type**, **Details** (the condition count, e.g. *1 match(es)*), **Status**
(*Active* or *not active*) and **Default for** (badges for the levels the rule auto-applies to).
No search box; the toolbar is **Add**, **Edit**, **Delete**, **Activate**, **Deactivate**.
**Edit** lights up only when exactly one row is ticked; the other three accept a multi-row
selection. Double-clicking a row opens it.

Re-saving a rule rebuilds all of its conditions from scratch: the stored condition rows are
discarded and replaced with new ones, so anything keyed on a condition's identity — an audit trail,
an external reference — will not survive an edit. The rule's own id is stable.

## Inventory & campaigns settings

Almost every card is an independent form with its own **Save** button — no page-level save, and
saving one card leaves the others untouched. **Site revenue share preferences** and **Site pricing
preferences** have an on/off switch in the heading (turning it off asks for confirmation and
deletes the bindings or per-country rates) and a table whose rows you **Add** and **Delete** one by
one, with no card-level Save. **Default VAST tracking events** is two blocks, each with its own
Save. A **Done** toast confirms a save; **Site default status** says *Default site status changed.*

### Defaults that shape new objects only

Changing any of these leaves existing objects exactly as they are.

| Card | What it sets | Applied when |
|---|---|---|
| **Site default status** | The network **approval** status a new site is given — *Approved*, *Pending* or *Rejected*. Not an active/inactive switch: ad serving does not read the approval status, so a *Pending* site's placements serve while it waits for review. | A new site is created. Bypassed to *Approved* when the creator holds the sites-approval permission (a network administrator switched into a publisher creates with the publisher's permissions). The setting only bites for publishers creating their own sites. |
| **Site revenue share preferences** | A template of advertiser/campaign → revenue-share-% bindings, copied onto each new site. Turning the card off deletes every binding. | A new site is created. Ad serving reads each site's own copy, never this template. See [Pricing](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/delivery/pricing.md). |
| **Site pricing preferences** | A template of the global rate plus per-country CPM/CPC rates, copied onto each new site. Turning the card off loses the per-country rates. | A new site is created. |
| **Advertiser default status** | Whether new advertisers, campaigns **and** banners are created active or inactive. | Each of those three is created. |
| **Piggybacks default status** | Whether a new piggyback row starts active (field label *Default Status of Piggyback for Inventory/Advertiser*). Governs the status of rows you add in the piggyback grids on sites, placements and campaigns — see [Piggybacks](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/conversions/piggybacks.md). | A new piggyback row is opened. |
| **Rules panel default status** | Six On/Off selects — *Site card*, *Zone card*, *Placement card*, *Advertiser card*, *Campaign card*, *Banner card*. Each decides whether a new object of that kind is created with its Matching rules card switched on **and** the *Apply automatically to* rules attached. | That kind of object is created. Ships **Off** for all six. |
| **Daisy chaining lookup depth** | The hop count copied into a placement's daisy-chaining config when that config has none yet. Ad serving reads the per-placement value, not this one. Range-checked in the browser only (1–100); a value sent by other means is stored unvalidated. See [Daisy chaining and passback](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/delivery/daisy-chaining-passback.md). | A placement's daisy chaining is first configured. |
| **Default VPAID framework** | The framework pre-selected on the **create** form for a new video banner. It never rewrites an existing banner. The picker is populated by the VPAID-frameworks admin endpoint, guarded by its own permission: an administrator who holds *Inventory & campaigns settings* but not *VPAID framework management* sees an empty dropdown rather than an error. See [Video banners](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/advertising/banner-video.md). | The banner create form is opened. |
| **Default VAST tracking events** | Which VAST playback events (quartiles, complete, mute, viewability…) are already switched on when a video placement or video banner is created — two independent sets, *New video placements* and *New video banners*, each with its own Save. Copied once, at creation: changing the defaults never touches entities that already exist, a copied placement or banner keeps its source's events rather than the defaults, OpenRTB banners are skipped (no VAST tracking card), auto-placements are not covered. | A video placement or video banner is created. |
| **Placement domain as default channel** | One Active/Inactive select, *Default value of domain as default channel for new placements*: whether a new placement is created with its domain used as the default channel. See [Create a placement](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/placements-create.md). | A placement is created. |

### Settings read live

These take effect for everything on the network, including objects created long ago.

| Card | What it sets | Read at |
|---|---|---|
| **Rules management** | Two selects — *Publishers tab* (*All campaigns rules* / *None of campaigns rules*) and *Advertisers tab* (*All inventory rules* / *None of inventory rules*). They decide what an entity with the Matching rules card **on and no rules attached** matches: *All…* means it pairs with everything on the other side, *None…* means it drops out of rule matching. The entity's card prints the answer in its own empty state. Needs the *Rules* permission as well as *Inventory & Campaigns Settings*. | Every ad-cache rebuild, and every entity edit page. |
| **Banner approval obligatory fields** | Which of *Advertiser category*, *Pricing*, *Targeting*, *Limits* must be filled before a banner can be submitted for approval. The *Pricing*, *Targeting* and *Limits* checks are additionally skipped for a user who lacks the matching permission (*Manage Pricing*, *Manage Demand Targeting*, *Manage Capping & Limitations*); the *Advertiser category* check applies to everyone. | Every submit-for-approval. Tightening it immediately blocks submissions for banners that already exist. |
| **Banner approval moderation fields** | Which field changes on an **edit** send a creative back to moderation — three checkboxes, *URL for local/external banner type*, *Banner Creative for Local/External File Banner Type* and *Code for HTML code banner type*. It does **not** decide whether new banners are moderated: a banner created by a user who holds *Banners Moderation With Deactivation* or *Soft Banners Moderation* (and not *Banners Approval*) starts pending whatever this card says, and the card is never consulted for a brand-new banner. See [Moderate banners, sites and traffic quality](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/moderation-and-quality.md). | Every banner save. |
| **Accounting period management** | Three sets of share types (*Is Owner*, *Can Edit*, *Can View*), labelled *Sharing type requirement for preliminary confirming / confirming / finalizing*. The report page enables the matching accounting-period buttons only when the user's share on every selected row is in the set; an empty set means any share qualifies. See [Finances, fees and referral billing](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/finances-and-billing.md). | Every analytics page load. |
| **Macros accessibility** | Two Active/Inactive selects — publisher-side entity names (`$$PLACEMENT_NAME$$`, `$$ZONE_NAME$$`, `$$PUBLISHER_NAME$$` and their `_ESC` variants) and advertiser-side ones (`$$ADVERTISER_NAME$$`, `$$CAMPAIGN_NAME$$`, `$$BANNER_NAME$$`). Switching a side off **strips** those macros from the served markup rather than leaving them unresolved, and removes them from the macro reference lists in the UI. See [Macros reference](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/reference/macros.md). | Every macro substitution, i.e. every ad served. |

### Over the API

Any signed-in user can read the three defaults that shape their own creates:
`GET /rest-api/network/settings.do` returns `newEntities.active` (*Advertiser default status*),
`newEntities.siteApprovalStatus` (*Site default status*, only for a user who may create sites) and
`newEntities.piggybackActive`.

## Where the vocabularies live

| Screen | Where it is documented |
|---|---|
| **Categories & labels → Advertising categories / Inventory categories** | [Manage category taxonomies](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/taxonomies.md) — the two vocabularies a rule's **Category** field draws on. |
| **Creatives & tags → Custom ad units & sizes** | [Other admin tools](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/admin-tools.md) — the size catalogue every placement and creative picks from. |
| **Categories & labels → Labels** | [Manage categories and labels](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/taxonomies.md) — free-form values attachable to banners, campaigns and placements, and matchable by a rule's **Label** field. |
| **Categories & labels → Custom country groups** | Not yet documented. Named country sets reusable in geo targeting — edit the group once and every targeting rule using it follows. |

## Per-role notes

- **Admin with *Rules* only** — can author rules but not set **Rules panel default status**, so
  *Apply automatically to* never reaches new entities until someone with *Inventory & Campaigns
  Settings* turns the card on. Grant the two together.
- **Admin with *Inventory & Campaigns Settings* only** — sees and saves **Rules panel default
  status**, but not the **Rules management** card, which needs the *Rules* permission as well.
- **Network manager** — never sees these screens; works with the **Matching rules** card (active
  rules of the opposite type only) and **Matched banners** / **Matched placements**.
- **Publisher, advertiser** — no Matching rules card; rules apply to them unseen.

## Related

- [Matching rules and network defaults](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/rules-and-defaults.md)
- [Attach matching rules to an entity](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/targeting/entity-matching-rules.md)
- [Manage category taxonomies](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/taxonomies.md)