About native ads

Native ads match the look and feel of a site or app and provide a better user experience for visitors. Native ads are different from standard ads in that they're designed to fit neatly inside the user's path through a site or app. Visitors still know they're ads, but they look great next to publisher content.

Native ads can serve on mobile app, mobile web, and desktop websites. You can assign them to any display line item.

Benefits of native ad campaigns

• Better consumer engagement than other ad types
• Effective at increasing brand awareness
• Opportunity to tell a product or service's story
• Less disruptive experience for the consumer than other ad types

Limitations

Third-party ad serving is not supported for native ads.

Native ads are based on flexible components

Native ads are broken up into separate assets or components that are styled by the publisher instead of the advertiser. You provide a collection of images, text, and a link, and these assets are inserted into components styled by publishers.

How a banner ad is served

As the above example shows, with traditional banner ads:

1.  The advertiser provides a completed ad with a fixed size.
2.  Display & Video 360 hosts the ad, doesn’t change it, and serves it into the stated size.
3.  The user sees the ad exactly as the advertiser prepared it.

How a native ad is served

With native ads:

1.  The advertiser provides the assets for a native creative (like the headline, image, URL, logo, and so on) instead of a tag.
2.  Display & Video 360 sends the assets to the publisher to generate an ad with an appearance that is appropriate for the context of each impression.
3.  The user sees an ad that fits seamlessly into the surrounding content.

One creative, many layouts

Native ad assets can be inserted into many different layouts, depending on the type of device where the ad will appear, how the content on the page appears, the amount of space available, and more.

In the above example:

1. The advertiser provides the assets (such as “10 Makeup Tips” for the headline). These assets are stored in a single native creative.

2. For an impression in a mobile app content feed, Display & Video 360 sends the assets to the publisher, and they get filled into a responsive layout that fits in with their app content.

3. For another impression on desktop web, Display & Video 360 sends the assets to the publisher, and they get filled into a layout appropriate for a 300 x 250 display ad slot.

This example shows how a single native creative can flow to two completely different native styles for different inventory. Both native styles use the same assets, but show them to users in different ways.

Types of native creatives

Learn about the types of native creatives below.

Native app install

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Native app install ads are a display format designed to encourage people to install your app. This format is integrated with the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, so you can get details like your app's logo, rating, and price from the store to create your ad.

Make an app install creative 

Native site creative

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Square or rectangular native display format for promoting your website.

• Make a native site creative
• Bulk upload native site creatives

Native video

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Promote your website with an in-banner video. This display format is similar to the native site creative, but uses a video instead of an image.

• Make a native video creative
• Bulk upload native video creatives

Assets required to bid

Display & Video 360 will not bid with a creative unless the bid request includes the minimum assets for the format. This means your native ad will only run on publishers or exchanges that use a minimum of one of the following combinations of assets.

Minimum asset requirements do not apply to native creatives assigned to Programmatic Guaranteed deals. Instead, the publisher can render any combination of assets they choose. As you negotiate the deal, confirm with the publisher what assets will be used in creatives.

Native app install

At a minimum, native app install inventory must include one of these combinations:

Combination 1	Combination 2	Combination 3
Image	Image	Logo
Headline or Body text	Headline or Body text	Headline
Stars or Price	Call to action	Body text
Call to action		Call to action

Native site

At a minimum, native site inventory must include one of these combinations:

Combination 1	Combination 2
Image	Image
Headline or Body text	Headline or Body text
Logo or Advertiser name	Call to action

Native video

At a minimum, native video inventory must include one of these combinations:

Combination 1	Combination 2
Video	Video
Headline or Body text	Headline or Body text
Logo or Advertiser name	Call to action

Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) and native ads

Since native ads are rendered and served by publishers, your OBA advertiser setting does not apply. Instead, OBA compliance icons will appear only on publishers that support it.