Ad Units

From the Unity Ads Monetization dashboard, select Projects > Ad Units in the secondary navigation menu to create and manage Ad Units. An Ad Unit represents the ad format settings of a collection of Placements. Ad Units consolidate ad format information into a single object, which allows for easier Placement management.

New customers begin with six default Ad Units (one per format for each platform), to immediately draw on best-practice settings for each format without extensive setup. All you have to do to get started is create Placements with eCPM targets for the relevant Ad Units.

Managing Ad Units

Create, edit, and archive your Ad Units in the Monetization dashboard.

Creating Ad Units

To create a new Ad Unit:

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Monetization > Ad Units.
  2. Select Add Ad Unit to bring up the creation modal.
  3. Enter an Ad Unit name, then select a Platform (iOS or Android) and ad format (Rewarded, Interstitial, or Banner).
  4. Select Create to save your Ad Unit.

After you create an Ad Unit, select Advanced Settings to configure the ad format settings (refer to the section on editing an Ad Unit), or Placements Management to create Placements and set up eCPM targets.

Ad Unit formats

The following list details the various Ad format templates.

  • Rewarded - Allow players to opt in to viewing ads or promotions in exchange for incentives.
  • Interstitial - Show basic interstitial ads or promotional content. Interstitial Ad Units allow players to skip the ad after a specified period of time.
  • Banner - Create a dedicated banner Ad Unit.

Editing Ad Units

From the Ad Units page, select the Ad Unit that you want to edit to view its ad format settings.

Ad Unit ID

The Ad Unit’s unique identifier to reference in your code. This setting is read-only. The Ad Unit Name you specify automatically generates this ID when you create the Ad Unit, at which point you cannot change it.

Ad Unit Name

A descriptive identifier by which to recognize the Ad Unit in the dashboard.

Status

Enabled Ad Units can request and show ads, whereas archived Ad Units cannot. By default, Ad Units are enabled.

Ad Types

The following list details the various creative formats the Ad Unit can display. Select all that apply.

  • Video ads are full-screen video advertisements.
  • Display ads are full-screen static images.
  • Playable ads are full-screen interactive advertisements.
  • Cross-Promo ads allow publishers to backfill their Ad Units with promotions for their own apps.
  • AR ads offer players a fully immersive and interactive experience, by incorporating digital content directly into their physical world.
  • Banner ads are only available for Banner Ad Units.

Muting

Enable the Mute audio checkbox to mute audio by default when video creatives play. By default, Ad Units are not muted.

Allow Skip

Enable the Allow skip box after _ seconds checkbox to allow players to skip ads after a specified number of seconds. By default, rewarded ads are not skippable. However, you must make rewarded ads skippable if you want to comply with the Apple Kids Category or Google Designed for Families programs.

Tip: You do not have to change ad format settings for each Placement associated with the Ad Unit. Format settings are configured for the Ad Unit and automatically applied to all associated Placements.

Archiving Ad Units

You can archive Ad Units that you are not using into a collapsible workspace. To do so, select the overflow options icon and then select Archive. Archived Ad Units are automatically deactivated, which means that they cannot request or show ads.

You can expand the archived Ad Units section at the bottom of the Ad Units page to reactivate archived Ad Units at any time.

Referencing Ad Units in your project

Implementing Ad Units in your project is a three-step process:

  1. Initialize the Unity Ads SDK early in the project’s run-time lifecycle, preferably at launch. The recommended best practice is to use the latest SDK.
  2. In your app code, check if content is ready to display through your specified Ad Unit.
  3. Programmatically retrieve the available content and display it.

For comprehensive code integration instructions, read the respective documentation for your development platform:

Unity Standard Ad Units

Unity provide a default Ad Unit to call if you try to load or show an ad without specifying an Ad Unit (projects that use Unity Ads exclusively) or Placement (projects that use Unity Ads in a third-party mediation stack) ID in the function parameters.

Note: This replaces the legacy default Placements (Unity_Standard_Placement). Because most default Placements experience very small impression volumes, Unity expects minimal or no revenue impact.

  • Unity Standard Ad Units are interstitial format.
  • Unity Standard Ad Units display in reporting as Unity_Standard_Ad-Unit.
  • You cannot edit, rename, or adjust your Unity Standard Ad Unit.

To stop using Unity Standard Ad Units, change your app code to call a specific Ad Unit by using the Load API, and then release a new version of your project.