Placement positions
Placement positions describe where an ad slot sits on the screen, as a rough guide to how visible and prominent it is. OpenRTB 2.x sends the value in Banner.pos and Video.pos, which also covers companion banners under imp.video.companionad and imp.audio.companionad. In OpenRTB 3.0 the AdCOM display and video placement objects carry the same field. Values 8 to 17 arrived in AdCOM 1.0-202607 for CTV and screen layouts.
Values
| Value | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
0 | Unknown | The seller does not know, or does not report, where the slot renders. |
1 | Above The Fold | Visible as soon as the page or screen loads, without scrolling. |
2 | Locked (fixed position) | A fixed slot that stays in place on screen while the content scrolls, such as a sticky anchor or floating player. |
3 | Below The Fold | The slot renders outside the initial viewport, so the user has to scroll to reach it. |
4 | Header | A slot in the top region of the screen or page layout, such as an app's top banner or a masthead leaderboard. |
5 | Footer | A slot in the bottom region of the screen or page layout, such as an anchored banner along the bottom edge of an app. |
6 | Sidebar | A slot beside the main content, such as a desktop right rail or a side panel in a tablet app. |
7 | Fullscreen | The ad covers the whole screen, as with interstitial, rewarded and app open formats. |
8 | Partial Screen | The ad takes part of the screen while the program or page content stays visible next to or under it. |
9 | Top Left | The ad sits in the top-left corner of the screen while the content keeps playing. |
10 | Top Right | The ad sits in the top-right corner of the screen while the content keeps playing. |
11 | Frame the content | The program is scaled down and the ad surrounds it, framing the content on its edges. |
12 | Double box | The screen splits into two boxes, one showing the content and one showing the ad. |
13 | Double box with background | A double box layout in which the ad also fills the background behind the two boxes. |
14 | Bottom Left | The ad sits in the bottom-left corner of the screen while the content keeps playing. |
15 | Bottom Right | The ad sits in the bottom-right corner of the screen while the content keeps playing. |
16 | L shape | The content shrinks into a corner and the ad fills an L-shaped band along two edges of the screen. |
17 | Reversed L shape | The mirror image of the L shape: the ad band runs along the opposite side and the bottom. |
Fields that use this list
How to use it
Send the most specific value that is true for the slot as it renders on the device that made the request. On web pages, 1 and 3 are the fold values. Values 4 to 7 were added in OpenRTB 2.1 for app layouts and describe a region of the screen instead of the fold, and the current list no longer limits them to apps. The list has no rule for choosing between two true values, such as a sticky footer that is both Locked and Footer, so pick a convention per slot type and apply it everywhere. Buyers read pos as a viewability prior and compare it with measured viewability over time, so a seller that labels every slot above the fold soon loses the benefit of the signal.
Common mistakes
- Sending 2 with its OpenRTB 2.0 meaning. In 2.0, value 2 said the slot might or might not be visible depending on screen size; 2.1 deprecated that meaning, and AdCOM now uses 2 for a locked, fixed-position slot.
- Labeling every slot 1. Buyers check declared position against measured viewability and discount sellers whose claims do not hold up.
- Using 7 instead of
Imp.instl. Fullscreen describes the position, whileImp.instlset to 1 is the flag many buyers use to choose interstitial creatives. Send both. - Sending
posas a string such as "1" or as an array. It is a single integer. - Sending 8 to 17 to buyers that built against the older 0 to 7 list without checking that they accept the new values. Some stacks treat unknown values as invalid and drop the field.
Validation
On OpenRTB 2.6 snapshots, RTBlint reports a value outside this list as openrtb.value.invalid. Paste a request into the tester to check the values you send.
Related lists
All lists are on the enumerated lists index.