Native Instincts

Bidstalk Vaibhav Gupta sortedVaibhav Gupta, CEO and co-founder of mobile advertising and app monetisation platform Bidstalk, examines the growing role of native ads within mobile advertising. 

In a rapidly growing market, mobile advertisers need to constantly be on the edge of their next big idea. Increased advertising of a certain type will inevitably make consumers apathetic and decrease the impact of ads.

Research into advertising suggests that 60 per cent of consumers do not remember the last display ad they saw. With billions of mobile apps being developed all the time, getting your ad seen is the easy part; getting consumers to interact with it is the challenge. In this arena, the latest, highly successful innovation is native ads.

Originally pioneered by Twitter through sponsored tweets, native advertising was originally intended for use on social media applications on desktop and subsequently mobile. However, it has been expanded, and is being used across mobile app platforms, and is growing rapidly in popularity.
Native advertising attempts to capture the success of websites such as Buzzfeed by providing content which not only has a brand message through it, but is interesting or funny, and that viewers will want to read or even share.

Social media
The biggest platform for native ads on mobile at the moment is still social media, or news feed applications. With the majority of time spent on social media now tipping from desktop to mobile, native ads are being seen more and more on mobile news feed apps.

Mobile adds a unique new element to native advertising. Ads can now include proximity to a retailer or products available in stock at your local store. For example, a piece of advertorial on the latest fashion trends could be targeted to someone who happens to be passing a clothing store, and include information on their proximity to the store. Mobile brings a whole new element to native advertising, allowing for dialogue with a customer when they are in a relevant place or near to an outlet through geolocation technology.

In mobile apps, native ads can be blended seamlessly into the content and design of the app, without disruption to the user experience. By publicising something with interesting content subtly, the clickthrough rate can be dramatically increased to a much higher rate than an in-you-face pop-up ad.

In the monetisation of mobile apps, native ads are playing a critical role. They are more effective, more relevant and perform better than traditional ad formats, and therefore advertisers are willing to pay more for them.

Unique opportunity
In the past, app developers simply sold ad space, and played no part in their content or where they were placed. Native ads provide a unique opportunity, not only for the app developer to decide on placement, but also for collaboration on content, in order to make sure it fits with the app and provides something of interest to its users.

One of the most exciting examples of native advertising I have come across in mobile are activity-generated ads. These ads are being seen more and more in the gaming and fitness app market, generating ads from interaction. For example, when someone reaches a fitness goal, they can be shown a relevant article about the latest fitness clothing and how it can enhance their performance further. The ad appears when a user achieves something, at the key moment where they are therefore most engaged, increasing conversion rates.

This type of advertising, that is not only targeted, but also subtle and informative, is very exciting, and demonstrates the importance of mobile as a key advertising channel. Native ads are predicted by many to be the future of mobile advertising, and with consumers gradually becoming immune to in-your-face pop-up adverts, native advertising is set to become a much more important part of the advertising spectrum.

Vaibhav Gupta is CEO and co-founder of Bidstalk