Project Adthenticate

Improve efficiency, predictability, and profitability in ad operations

Project Adthenticate from Adobe is a hosted service for ad validation and optimization that enables publishers and agencies to test and certify ads against a repository of specifications. The service helps publishers become more efficient at launching campaigns that are increasingly complex due to the proliferation of digital media devices and ad formats.

As an Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) member, Adobe has made this public beta available to the ad community to test ad units and ad tags. Publishers and agencies can test ads against the 2011 IAB specifications to improve creative asset validation, increasing workflow efficiency and reducing friction between agencies and publishers.

If you are interested in testing against customized ad specifications or API integration within your existing ad ops systems, contact the Project Adthenticate team.

Try and Discuss

Adthenticate provides automated testing of ad tags against specs with a simple upload and a few clicks of the mouse. Users receive an itemized report of issues, discrepancies, and information on how to bring the ad to spec.

Key Features of Project Adthenticate

Dynamic validation — Unlike existing decompilers and static SWF file inspection tools, online ads are run in a hosted, browser-based environment that is the core of Project Adthenticate.
Standardized CPU usage measurement by Adobe — Adthenticate enables consistent CPU usage measurements for agency ad creators and publisher QA teams. Without Project Adthenticate, the ad ecosystem must compare CPU usage across machines that vary greatly across different agency and publisher QA departments.
Advanced instrumentation — Using dynamic execution, Adthenticate can detect any requests for tracking pixels, animation beyond specified durations, as well as common clickTAG issues.
Rich media rules — Project Adthenticate allows publishers to set complex rules about polite, user-initiated, and automatic loading and playback of additional media, such as animations, video, and audio. Furthermore, analysis of script execution and media playback gives publishers fine-grained control over the ads they approve.
Web service API — The ad validation engine built into Project Adthenticate can also be accessed as a web service. This method enables integration into publisher-side order entry and ad serving systems. Rich media vendors with custom ad creation tools can also use the web service API to integrate Adthenticate into their tool chains.

Getting Started

Follow these steps to get started with Project Adthenticate:

Launch the Project Adthenticate site
Log in with an existing Adobe ID or create a new one if necessary.
Upload an ad unit or ad tag to Adthenticate to test against the 2011 IAB creative guidelines.
Read the release notes for additional information and known issues
Ask questions or share your feedback in the Project Adthenticate forum

Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Adobe.com Terms of Use.

Community

Below you'll find references and links to help you participate in the Project Adthenticate community.

Online Forum

Ask questions and discuss ideas with other users of Project Adthenticate in the discussion forums. Please let us know what you think of the technology. Your participation and feedback are very important to us.

Visit the Project Adthenticate forum

Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Adobe.com Terms of Use.

Social Media

Connect with other users and Adobe via Facebook and Twitter.

General Resources

If you want to learn more about releases on Labs as well as other Adobe technologies, visiting a user group or connecting with an Adobe Community Professional is a great place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the typical usage scenarios for Project Adthenticate?

Ad ops teams at publishers can use Adthenticate to help ensure compliance with their ad specifications via the web interface or via the web service API. Rich media vendors can integrate the dynamic validation features of Project Adthenticate into their Adobe® Flash® Professional plug-ins and toolkits via the web service API. Creative teams at agencies can use Adthenticate to test the compliance of their ad units against the IAB 2011 creative guidelines. Please contact the Adthenticate team for information on access and pricing for the web service API.

What types of ad units are supported for testing via the Project Adthenticate website?

The Project Adthenticate website is a demonstration site for the Adthenticate service and currently only supports Flash ads. Both the website and web service currently support only rich media ads. The following ad types, in varying screen dimensions, can be tested via the website: IAB 2011 Universal Ad Package and IAB 2011 Standard Ad Units. The Adthenticate service can be customized to validate any custom ad specifications, including logging tracking pixels, loading additional media, rich media scripting limits, audio/video restrictions, and more. Please contact the Adthenticate team for further details.

How are ads submitted to the Project Adthenticate service?

Users of the demonstration website or the web service can submit ads using: SWF files that comprise the ad creative, HTTP links to SWF files that have been staged on a server, and Ad tags (HTML fragments) that have been generated by an ad server.

Once ads are tested, how long are they stored by the Adthenticate service?

The Adthenticate service validates rich media ads by executing the SWF files that comprise the ad. The SWF files and associated preview images are cached temporarily and deleted on a regular schedule, at least every 24 hours.

How is the Adthenticate service different from SWF file checkers and ActionScript® decompilers?

In contrast to static testing tools, such as SWF file checkers, Project Adthenticate runs the rich media ads in a highly instrumented environment where CPU usage, memory profiles, network access, and so on are logged. The logs are analyzed for compliance with ad specs from the IAB or particular publishers. This dynamic content validation provides far more robust checking on content than that enabled by file checkers and decompilation.

What are the limitations of Project Adthenticate’s content validation?

The Adthenticate service does not currently support testing HTML5 ads. Additionally, targeting tests towards a particular operating system or browser version is not supported. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are also not targeted by this version. Please contact the Adthenticate team and let us know which of these capabilities are topmost on your list or about other limitations that you have found with the service.

What languages are supported?

The Project Adthenticate website and web service are available only in English.

What are the benefits of using Adthenticate?

Benefits include:

More thorough QA in less time: Automatically validate ads against custom specifications, enabling more complete testing in less time and with fewer resources.
Increased fill rates and yield: Deliver campaigns to fill inventory faster, with predictable deadlines and increased confidence levels.
Reduced risk: Lower exposure to malvertising with static and dynamic ad code analysis, and reduce iterations with structured spec publishing and management.

System Requirements

The public preview website can be used from any computer that supports Adobe® Flash® Player 11 software.

View the Flash Player 11 system requirements

Ad units and ad tags that are tested by Project Adthenticate need to use SWF files for this release. See the release notes for more details.

Release Notes

Project Adthenticate is prerelease software. The provided service is not final; but, many portions of the technology are fully implemented and ready for you to use and discuss.

See the full Project Adthenticate Release Notes