December 2025 - Regulatory Check — Creative Time Restrictions

🔍 What This Validation Monitor Does

This month’s VMOM is a customer submitted monitor, and it’s one their team relies on every day. The Creative Time Restriction Validation Monitor checks for any active creatives that don’t comply with time based delivery rules, for example, ensuring a Less Healthy Foods (LHF) creative is only scheduled between 9 pm and 4 am.

Originally created by one of our UK Freewheel customers, this monitor helps keep campaigns aligned with changing regional advertising regulations and internal policy updates.

While this example is UK-specific, the concept is completely universal. Whether you’re working within government guidelines, brand safety rules, or internal compliance standards, Validation Monitors make it easy to ensure every campaign stays aligned and accountable, no matter your market or ad server.

Using Freewheel? Jump to the Freewheel setup ↓
Using Google Ad Manager (GAM)? Jump to the GAM setup ↓

💡 Why It Matters

Regulatory and compliance requirements can change quickly, and when teams are managing multiple campaigns, small trafficking details can slip through. A monitor like this removes the need for manual checks by automatically flagging anything scheduled outside the approved delivery window.

Whether it’s time-of-day restrictions for food advertising, rules around children’s content, or any other market-specific guideline, an automated check gives teams confidence that campaigns remain compliant. It cuts down on review time, prevents avoidable mistakes, and helps ensure everything stays aligned with the latest requirements.

In short, it’s a straightforward monitor that offers real peace of mind — especially for teams working in regulated environments.

🧩 Deployment by Ad Server

Freewheel

Go to the Monitoring Module in the top hand rail of the Watching That interface
Select the ‘Validation’ tab within the Monitoring Module
Click the pink + Add Validation Monitor button at the top right

In the ‘From DataSource’ dropdown, select your Freewheel source
In ‘Dimension’, select ‘FW:Creative Instance'
In the first Filter, select ‘Placement.daypart_targeting.part.start_time’ from the Field name dropdown. When you select ‘Placement.daypart_targeting.part.start_time’, the filters change and the next field shows ‘exists’. Change ‘exists’ to ‘not one of’. This adds a third filter option; input ‘your start time’ here
After setting the first filter row, click the blue ‘Add Filter’ button with the funnel icon at the bottom left. This adds another filter row
In the new filter row, select ‘Placement.daypart_targeting.part.end_time’ from the Field name dropdown. (Tip: search for ‘indicator’ to find it faster.) Like before, change the middle filter from ‘exists’ to ‘ not one of’. A third filter option appears; enter ‘your end time’ here. You can choose any times dependant on your specific guidelines

From here we do recommend adding some more filters (Tip: There’s no limit to the amount of filters you can add to a Validation Monitor) Like ‘Status’ is ‘ACTIVE’

The next step is to make sure you have applied a filter that helps identify the regulated or restricted creative types (e.g., LHF, HFSS, alcohol, gambling, kids’ content). Whether this is a clearcast code, a code used internally, a tag, a label, a naming convention.
Name your Monitor on the right-hand side
Optionally, add a description for your Monitor
There is a notification channel option, but instant alerts are not currently available for Validation Monitors (VMs), so leave this blank for now
Click Save to finish

Your monitor should look like the below:

Google Ad Manager (GAM)

Go to the Monitoring Module in the top hand rail of the Watching That interface
Select the 'Validation' tab within the Monitoring Module
Click the pink + Add Validation Monitor button at the top right

In the 'From DataSource' dropdown, select your GAM source
In 'Dimension', select 'Ad Creative'
In the first Filter, select ‘lineItems.targeting.dayPartTargeting.dayParts.startTime.hour' from the Field name dropdown. When you select ‘lineItems.targeting.dayPartTargeting.dayParts.startTime.hour', the filters change and the next field shows 'exists'. Change the 'exists’ to the greater than = symbol '>=’ A third filter option appears; enter the hour in a numerical value e.g:'21' here. You can choose any hour value between 0 - 23.

In the second Filter, select ‘lineItems.targeting.dayPartTargeting.dayParts.endTime.hour' from the Field name dropdown. When you select ‘lineItems.targeting.dayPartTargeting.dayParts.endTime.hour', like with step 6, the filters change and the next field shows 'exists'. Change the 'exists’ to the less symbol '<’ A third filter option appears; enter the hour in a numerical value e.g:'4' here. You can choose any hour value between 0 - 23.
From here we do recommend adding some more filters (Tip: There’s no limit to the amount of filters you can add to a Validation Monitor) Like ‘Status’ is ‘Ready’ or ‘DELIVERING’ etc.
The next step is to make sure you have applied a filter that helps identify the regulated or restricted creative types (e.g., LHF, HFSS, alcohol, gambling, kids’ content). Whether this is a clearcast code, a code used internally, a tag, a label, a naming convention.
Name your Monitor on the right-hand side
Optionally, add a description for your Monitor
There is a notification channel option, but instant alerts are not currently available for Validation Monitors (VMs), so leave this blank
Click Save to finish

Your monitor should look like the below:

🚀 Best Practice Tips

Keep it updated: Regulatory windows can change, make sure your monitor reflects the latest guidance
Expand use: Duplicate the logic for other restricted categories like alcohol, gambling, or kids content
Validation Monitor email digest - After creating your monitor, contact support@watchingthat.com to set up a daily digest that delivers monitor status updates to your inbox