This article explains roadblocking in Google Ad Manager, a feature that serves multiple ad creatives from a single line item together on the same webpage. It details the difference between "Guaranteed" roadblocks, which ensure all creatives serve together, and "Non-guaranteed" roadblocks, which serve as many as possible without that assurance.
Roadblocks are set up within line items. They can be set up to work with all of the creatives in the line item, or to work with master/companion creative sets, where a master creative is always delivered first.
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Roadblocks don't prevent multiple line items from being served to a webpage
For example, let's say you set up a roadblock for a line item with three creatives and the line item is then served on a webpage that has five ad slots. All three creatives from the roadblocked line item are delivered, as well as two more creatives from other line items.
Guaranteed roadblocks
Guaranteed roadblocks are roadblocks where Ad Manager guarantees that multiple creatives will be served together on a page.
Guaranteed roadblocks only work with Google Publisher Tags in single-request mode . With these tags, all of the creatives for a webpage are requested at once, so Ad Manager can select groups of creatives and serve them together.
Activate guaranteed roadblocks
Requires permission
Turning on "Guaranteed roadblocks" can only be done by users with the "Administrator" user role. If you aren't an administrator, you can learn more about this role and what to do next .
- Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
- Click Admin, then Global settings, and then Features.
- Click the toggle to activate or deactivate Guaranteed roadblocks(GPT SRA only).
Non-guaranteed roadblocks
Non-guaranteed roadblocks work with any tagging method and serve as many creatives together as possible from a single line item, but there is no guarantee that all creatives will be served.
Why can't Ad Manager guarantee all roadblocks?
When Ad Manager receives an ad request from Google Publisher Tag in any mode other than single-request mode, there's no way to guarantee that there will be subsequent requests from the same webpage. In these cases, Ad Manager serves the first creative in the roadblock. If additional requests come in, Ad Manager gives priority to other creatives from within the roadblock.
Line items with the "Display creatives" settings set to "All" are treated as if they were set to deliver "As many as possible" when Google Publisher Tag is not in single-request mode or if creative-level targeting is applied.
Roadblocks and frequency capping
If you've set a frequency cap for a line item, Ad Manager considers each delivery of the line item as a single view toward the frequency cap, even if multiple creatives are delivered together. This is true for all roadblock types, even if multiple impressions are counted for reporting purposes.
