Asynchronous tags for iBillboard Ad Server

Basic concept

This documentation describes the functionalities and API of the new asynchronous tags available for iBillboard Ad Server. These tags were design with maximum "container-tag friendliness" in mind. That means that care was taken to allow for maximum configurability within the container tag and minimum (if any) changes required in the publisher's web page.

The tags were designed also to fulfil the requirement of allowing multiple instances of iBillboard Ad Server to manage the ad slots in the same page.

For example, publisher may use one instance of the ad server to manage 3 ad slot by himself and allow media sales house to manage another 2 ad slots. The sales house may use a different instance of the ad server and so the two should be able to co-exist in one page.

It was also required to make it possible to "re-load" certain ad slots (especially for single page, ajax based, application) or to delay loading of certain ad slots to the moment when the internet user can really effectively see the ads (lazy loading).

As a result, the new asynchronous tags are very flexible and usable on many platforms. (Any platform that supports modern JavaScript should be able to use the tags to deliver ads - no matter where it is a PC, mobile phone, smart TV or game console.). The tags make no assumption about what is the source of ads, in what form the ads are delivered or how they should be placed into content. All these things are now configurable without actually changing the "tag" itself. That is why we also say the tags are "ad server agnostic".

The API described bellow is the result of the above mentioned requirements. 

Advantages of these new tags:

• they are asynchronous, i.e. they can be used in single page application or after the page is loaded to the browser.
• they support reloading of selected ad slots as demanded
• they allow for asynchronous collection of data (e.g. from DMP platform) before the request for the ad is made. This can be used for passing the results of e.g. header bidding to the ad server but there are other applications as well.
• they support lazy loading
• they are container tag friendly
• they require no changes in publisher pages if ad server configuration changes
• they support multiple ad servers in one page

Implementation of asynchronous codes:

Usage of asyn codes
Events in asyn codes
Plugins

Implementation examples

Standard implementation of asyn codes
Implementation with reload of ad-slots on onclick event
Implementation with set events "Ad is returned / Ad is not returned"