Placement types
All 8 placement types — id, purpose, the ad tags each generates, the creative types it accepts and the type-specific editor cards.
A placement’s type is chosen at creation and cannot be changed later. It decides which ad tags are generated, which creative types can be built for it, and which extra cards appear on the placement editor. Each type is gated by its own permission, so your network may offer a subset — and a type you cannot create is also absent from the creative-side fan.
There are 8 types.
The 8 types
The Id is the value the REST API and the reports use. The numbering is historical: it is not in menu order, and 8 is unused — nothing sits between Click-through (7) and Native (9). The Add new placement… menu on a zone lists the types in this order: Site, Non-standard, Mobile Site, Video, Application, Email, Click-through, Native, each offered only with its permission.
| Type | Id | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Site Placement | 1 | Standard desktop display slot |
| Mobile Site Placement | 2 | Display slot on mobile web |
| Video Placement | 3 | VAST/VPAID video slot (in-stream, outstream, overlay) |
| Non-standard Placement | 4 | Pop-up, floating, interstitial, footer bar, catfish and adhesion formats |
| Application Placement | 5 | In-app slot for native mobile apps |
| Email Placement | 6 | Ad slot inside email newsletters |
| Click-through Placement | 7 | Click/redirect tracking only — no rendered markup |
| Native Placement | 9 | Native ad slot returning structured JSON (title, image, CTA…) |
Creatives each type accepts
This is what the Banner type combo offers, listed in combo order. Assume every banner-type permission is enabled; each missing permission removes its row.
| Placement type | Creative types offered | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Site | Local File, External File, HTML Code, Template, OpenRTB | 5 |
| Mobile Site | Local File, External File, HTML Code, Template, OpenRTB | 5 |
| Video | Local Video, External Video, Third Party VAST/VPAID Tag URL, VPAID Framework, Advanced Local Video(s) (Beta), Local File, External File, HTML Code, OpenRTB | 9 |
| Non-standard | Local File, External File, HTML Code, Template, OpenRTB | 5 |
| Application | Local File, External File, HTML Code, Template, OpenRTB | 5 |
| Local Video, External Video, Local File, External File | 4 | |
| Click-through | (none) | 0 |
| Native | OpenRTB, Local Native, External Native | 3 |
Note: the native creative types (Local Native, External Native) are offered on Native placements only. They are declared for the site-family types as well, but a server-side filter drops them there because the editor renders no native fields outside a native placement. The REST API is looser — see Banner types.
Ad tags each type generates
The tabs on Ad tags & API, in the order they appear. Most tabs are additionally gated by their own per-tag permission, and the two JavaScript tabs also need at least one ad-serving domain configured on the network — with none configured they are hidden even for a user who holds the permission. Invocation code types documents what each tab produces.
| Placement type | Tabs |
|---|---|
| Site | Universal JS · Mount JS · Simple Iframe · Direct URL · API |
| Mobile Site | Universal JS · Mount JS · API · Direct URL |
| Video | VAST tags · Video Player |
| Non-standard | Universal JS · Mount JS · Direct URL · API |
| Application | API |
| Click-through | (no code tab) — Show tracking URLs |
| Native | API |
Simple Iframe is Site-only. Application and Native get the API documentation tab and nothing else — no generated snippet. Video and Email have no per-tag permission at all: their tab is always present. (The standalone preview page names the Email type Mail; the tab itself says Email.)
The Preview button in the placement header is offered on the types that have at least one previewable tab — Site, Mobile Site, Non-standard, Video and Email — and not on Application, Native or Click-through. A demo account sees it on every type.
Corner case: the site-level bulk Invocation codes dialog and the copy-ad-tag quick action are driven by a narrower list than the placement editor is — they cover only Site, Mobile Site, Non-standard, Video and Email. An Application, Native or Click-through placement never appears in either, even though the editor does give the first two an API tab.
Settings tab (default tag parameters)
Default invocation-code parameters — Channel, Custom parameter (key=value), third-party Click
URL and the consent/bundle pass-throughs — are appended to whatever the placement hands out.
They live on the Settings tab, the last tab of Ad tags & API, and that tab is
present on every editable placement, including Native and Click-through: the defaults append
to a native placement’s API request link and to a click-through placement’s tracking URLs just as
they do to a JavaScript tag.
The tag-generation controls that share that tab — Domain, Protocol, Ad wrapper and Fit container — are narrower:
| Control | Shown on |
|---|---|
| Domain, Protocol | All eight — they shape the JavaScript tags, the API request URL, the VAST / Mail URLs and the click-through tracking URLs alike |
| Ad wrapper | Site, Mobile Site, Non-standard |
| Fit container | Mobile Site, Non-standard |
Note: these four save on change — they update the placement, not just the displayed snippet — and they are disabled on read-only shares.
Type-specific editor cards
Every placement type is offered the same set of cards, each behind its own permission or feature switch: Basic info, Ad tags & API, Pre-targeting, RTB configuration, Pricing, Bid floor, Revenue share, Limits, Per conversion action limits, Frequency capping, Linked banners, Matching rules, Matched banners, Banners probability, Piggybacks, Third-Party tracking codes, Server-Side trackers, Content replacement and Daisy chaining. On top of that:
| Type | Extra cards and fields |
|---|---|
| Video | VAST tracking card (playback events, progress points, third-party pixels), the VAST / VPAID / VMAP URLs on the VAST tags tab, and the VAST configuration and video-RTB fieldsets in Basic info |
| Application | Ad category, Application OS and Display type in Basic info |
| Native | The Native Placement fieldset in Basic info — Icon size, Image size, Video size, Required fields, Context type, Context sub type and Placement type — plus a video-RTB fieldset |
| Click-through | Show tracking URLs — the per-creative tracking URL list — in place of the code tabs |
Corner case — the branded-overlay toggle is offered everywhere and honoured in three places. Branded overlay renders in Basic info on all eight placement types, but the ad server applies branding only on Site, Mobile Site and Non-standard placements, and only for requests that arrive on an ad-serving (JavaScript) domain. Ticking it on a Video, Email, Application, Click-through or Native placement saves the flag and changes nothing. The same is true of Always redirect and the auto-refresh Rotate interval, which the editor also shows unconditionally.
Corner cases
Corner case — Click-through placements are three dead ends at once. They generate no invocation code, have no compatible creative type, and no targeting type declares them — every one of the 38 dimensions lists the other seven placement types and not this one. The picker does not come back empty, though: the server filters by placement type only when the caller passes one, and the SPA never does, so the Pre-targeting card offers the full list here and any rule you save from it is inert. Treat targeting on a click-through placement as unsupported rather than as working — see Targeting dimensions. What they do have is the per-creative tracking URLs on Ad tags & API → Show tracking URLs (in the classic interface, the button of the same name in the placement header). If you are looking for a tag here, that list is it.
Corner case: a Video placement accepts plain display creatives (Local File, External File, HTML Code) alongside video ones — useful for overlay and companion demand — but the preview eye in the creatives grid is never offered under a video placement, whatever the creative type. The Preview button in the banner page header still appears for the four previewable types.
Corner case: Email placements exclude HTML Code by design — email clients don’t execute scripts. The Mail tag is an image-plus-markup hybrid and works with file and video creatives only. Note that a new Email creative starts on Local Video, not Local File.
Corner case — the “Native” label is fixed in the interface. The placement type carries a white-label label (default
Native) that older networks used to rename it, but the combo, the tree and the create fan always read Native Placement, whatever the white-label value is set to.
Related
- Create a placement
- Banner types — the inverse matrix, and the fields each creative type shows
- Invocation code types — what each tab produces
- Ad tags & API
