Mobile native advertising blends seamlessly with content and converts well, making it a top choice in today’s digital marketing landscape. As mobile device usage continues to rise, it’s crucial for advertisers to ensure their ads deliver a consistent experience across both mobile and desktop environments.
What Is Native Advertising and How Does It Work?
The main feature that sets native advertising aside from the other forms of digital ads is its ability to mimic the style and content of the source. You are probably well aware of it both as an advertiser and as a user. But just in case, make sure you understand the role of native ads in digital marketing and read our recent blog post about this hot ad format!
What Makes Mobile Native Ads Unique?
Unlike desktop ads, mobile native advertising has two platforms to advertise on: web and app. Mobile-web is done through a mobile browser, while mobile-app runs from a mobile app a user downloads on their device.
How Do Mobile-Web and Mobile-App Native Ads Differ?
So, you might be thinking: “What’s the difference between these two besides the fact that a user has to download one to use it?” Seems like more work, why not just stick to mobile-web advertising instead? You can just adjust your desktop ads to fit smaller screens of mobile devices.
Wrong.
Mobile apps can be a quality source of traffic for many different aspects. The major differences between mobile-web and mobile-app traffic include:
- User tracking
- Access to user data
- Ad blockers
Let’s take a closer look at each of them to understand how exactly mobile native advertising is different.
How Is User Tracking Different Between Mobile-Web and Mobile-App?
Like desktop browsers, mobile-web relies on cookies to track users. Due to GDPR and other user privacy rules, users are often prompted to accept or opt-out of cookies. Without cookies you can’t identify who has seen your ad in their mobile browser. In mobile apps, users are traced by their Device ID. This Device ID can then be used to identify unique users and other valuable demographic information.
What User Data Is Available in Mobile-App Native Ads?
Since user tracking comes from cookies in mobile-web traffic, our insight about the user is based on their web activity (ie. most frequent websites, favorite shops, etc.). We are left to make assumptions about their age or gender based on their web activity, which can be quite a gamble.
Mobile apps, however, are able to collect information like the type of a device, OS, gender, age, carrier, and GPS location among other things. Mobile apps can then select what user’s demographic information they want to send to their advertising partners.
Voluum ad tracker can cooperate with AppsFlyer and other mobile attribution platforms to track your mobile campaign data. This way you will get the complete overview of all your marketing efforts. Voluum will track your web and mobile campaigns, so you will see your total cost and revenue.
How Do Ad Blockers Affect Mobile-Web Versus Mobile-App Advertising?
This is a big one. You already know ad blockers are bad news for desktop-web browsing. You might even be using one right now. Browsers even have built-in ad blockers so that users don’t have to proactively install any. Yet, this is not the case of mobile apps, as ad blockers cannot universally block in-app native advertisements.
Does this mean you should only run native advertisements on mobile app traffic? Not at all. Every traffic type has its pros and cons, mostly influenced by pricing. You should never rule out desktop or mobile-web traffic just because mobile-app traffic might have more user data. Cheaper traffic can often perform better for certain offers, but this takes a period of testing traffic to find out.
So now that we’ve agreed that no traffic type is perfect for any offer, let’s move on to some science.
How Do Users Respond to Mobile Native Advertising?
A study done at the University of Antwerp, Belgium demonstrates how users reacted to mobile native advertising on news apps. The results can be narrowed down to three key takeaways:
- Users don’t actually hate ads, they just want them to be relevant
- Users would rather see native ads than video or display banner ads
- People react positively to native ads when they are done right
And here’s what it means for your campaigns.
Why Do Users Prefer Relevant Mobile Native Ads?
When readers were questioned about different examples of native ads, they evaluated the ads based on the content quality and if the ads fulfilled their expectations. As such, if the ad’s headline had an interesting topic but on the click-through the article was a blatant commercial sales pitch, the ad was rated poorly. If, however, the ad had a topic the user was interested in and the content matched the quality of the magazine they’re advertising on, the ad was received well.
And how to make sure you show the right thing to the right crowd? Use an ad network or a DSP that has a lot of traffic targeting options. But this will only get you so far. Grab an ad tracker such as Voluum and A/B test different ad sets and identify profitable portions of your traffic.
Why Are Native Ads More Popular Than Banners or Video?
Users enjoy perceived control. When they were shown pre-roll video or banner ads, they preferred native ads. They explained it by saying that native ads are less obtrusive and give users the ability to choose whether to engage with the advertisement or not. Publishers need to understand this, because unhappy users not only waste advertiser money, they also drive users away from using their applications again.
What Makes Native Ads Acceptable to Users?
When asked about native advertisements in mobile news apps, most users understood that this revenue model is essential for the news magazine to remain free of charge. Readers preferred browsing free news with appropriate native advertising as opposed to paid memberships free of advertising.
What’s Next for Mobile Native Advertising?
This study, as well as the popularity of mobile activity, has given advertisers an opportunity to engage users in a friendly way. People aren’t as oblivious to advertising as they used to be, but they are also more understanding about seeing advertisements while web browsing. That is if the ads manage to stay relevant.
This is good news because it means that users aren’t ignoring ads. Since users care about what ads are shown to them, they are likely to convert when the right creative and offer is shown to them. The key is to target wisely and analyze recorded data. Even unprofitable campaigns teach you how to run better ads in the future and help create blacklists with bad placements.
Your ad network’s tracking system will only get you so far. Usually, it is very basic and does not provide detailed information on what actually works. Don’t believe us?
Sign up for a free Voluum Demo or buy Voluum now!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is mobile native advertising?
Mobile native advertising is a form of digital advertising that matches the look and feel of the platform—whether on mobile web browsers or within mobile apps—making ads more engaging and less intrusive.
Question: How do mobile-web and mobile-app native ads differ in tracking and user data?
Mobile-web ads use cookies for tracking, which are limited by privacy rules, while mobile-app ads track users by Device ID, providing more accurate and comprehensive demographic data.
Question: Why are native ads less affected by ad blockers in mobile apps?
Most ad blockers target browser-based ads, making it hard to block in-app native ads. As a result, mobile app ads are more likely to be seen compared to mobile-web or desktop ads.
Question: What do users think about mobile native ads?
Studies show users prefer relevant, high-quality native ads over banners or video ads. When done well, users accept native ads as a fair trade-off for free content.
Question: How can advertisers get the best results from mobile native ads?
Use robust tracking tools like Voluum to test, analyze, and optimize campaigns. Segment traffic, tailor creatives, and rely on data insights to target users with the most relevant offers.
Facebook
Telegram
