Google Heavy Ad Intervention

Ads that consume a disproportionate amount of resources on a device negatively impact the user’s experience—from the obvious effects of degrading performance to less visible consequences such as draining the battery or eating up bandwidth allowances. Chrome sets limits on the resources an ad may use and unloads that ad if the limits are exceeded.

An ad is considered heavy if the user has not interacted with it (for example, has not tapped or clicked it) and it meets any of the following criteria:

• Uses the main thread for more than 60 seconds in total

• Uses the main thread for more than 15 seconds in any 30 second window

• Uses more than 4 megabytes of network bandwidth

All resources used by any descendant iframes of the ad frame count against the limits for intervening on that ad. It’s important to note that the main thread time limits are not the same as elapsed time since loading the ad. The limits are on how long the CPU takes to execute the ad's code.

If the ad meets both criteria, Google classifies it as a "heavy ad" and removes it from the webpage. In place of the ad will be a grey square with the label "Ad Removed", see screenshot above as an example. 

It is important to note: 

Google is not blocking the ad, the browser allows the ad on the site, it lets it load on the page. It might even appear in front of the user before the browser intervenes and determines if heavy ad criteria has been met. The impression will be counted even when removed from the page.

Publishers are not responsible for any ads removed by Google Chrome browser or any browsers built on the Chromium platform.

What we can do to help prevent this intervention:

The Globe and Mail ad validates all third party ad tags to ensure we are meeting our recommended ad specs. We will advise of ways to ensure your ad tags are not being removed by Google. By validating all third party served creative, we can see all assets, pixels, CPU usage, file load, initial and subload phases before going live.

We will work with vendors to ensure all ad tags are not meeting any of the Google heavy ad intervention criteria. It is the ad vendor’s responsibility to ensure creatives are meeting all ad specifications.

Utilizing polite load and IAB LEAN specs are recommended. Low file sizes and minimal CPU usage are things to consider when dealing with heavy ads.