Tag: native ads

Snapchat To Sell Branded Selfie Lenses

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat is reportedly considering monetizing one of its most recent additions to the app – the selfie lenses, which let users add fun special-effect overlays to their selfies. The popular messaging app is said to be pitching brands sponsored selfie lenses for as much as $750,000 for one day. Similarly, Snapchat recently launched Sponsored Geofilters, allowing brands like McDonald’s to offer customers near one of its stores a unique branded filter to use on their snaps.

What Brands Need To Do
Sponsored lenses represent a new kind of native advertising that is more interactive and engaging than traditional ads. While the Sponsored Geofilters can feel a bit tacked on to the photos, the Sponsored Lenses overlay on the sender’s face, making them unique and intimate. For Snapchat, this is potentially a new revenue stream, and another great native ad units for advertisers and brands to buy to reach young millennial consumers.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Adblock Plus Releases Mobile Browser App

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Eyeo, the creator behind popular ad-blocking extension Adblock Plus, has launched its own mobile browser apps for both iOS and Android devices, beating Apple at releasing content blocking tools with the upcoming iOS 9. Adblock Plus’ browser is free, and built on top of an extensible iOS browser called Kitt, which suggests that it is unlikely to be as efficient as Apple’s upcoming tools.

What Brands Should Do
Regardless of its efficiency and the fact that not many mobile users would actively seek out third-party browsers, this new browser from Adblock Plus continues the ascent of ad-blockers and the resulting debate among ad industry and online publishers. We details several ways that brands and media owners can do to minimize its impact in one of our most recent Fast Forward analysis, including adapting with native advertising and partnering with data owners that don’t rely on ad network tracking.

 

Source: The Next Web

Facebook Starts Testing New Immersive Ad Format

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has finally started testing its new immersive mobile ads that it first announced in Cannes this year. Several brands including Gatorade, Mr Porter, Michael Kors and Carrefour are brought on as launch partners to try out the new format, which enables the creation of full-screen interactive experiences within the Facebook mobile app. According to the demo videos that Facebook released, the new ad format and experience feels very close to Facebook’s new publishing tool Instant Articles, essentially swapping out editorial content for branded content.

What Brands Should Do
The new format works like an in-app version of a brand’s website but will load more quickly and be more interactive because the content is natively hosted on Facebook. Users would get a richer experience as the new format allows the viewer to flip and scroll through text, photos, videos, and other content. This type of native ad formats has been gaining significance and grabbing industry attention lately, especially with the rise of ad-blockers dismantling the traditional display ads. And if Facebook can prove the ROI on this new format to be worthwhile, brands should certainly get on board and try it out.

 

Source: AdAge

Header image taken from Mr. Porter’s demo video

Yahoo Adds Support For Native Video Ads On Third-Party Apps

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Yahoo will start helping developers add native video ads into their apps, the company announced on Wednesday during its Mobile Developer Conference in New York City. Mobile developers will soon get tools on Yahoo’s ad platform necessary for integrating video ads that fit their apps’ design.

What Brands Should Do
According to a recent study by Nielsen and Sharethrough, native video ads perform better than other video ads including pre-roll ads. For brands that wish to spread its branded video content in the increasingly app-centric mobile ecosystem, Yahoo’s new addition could be helpful in increasing the reach while simplifying the process.

Source: TechCrunch

How Miller Lite Is Targeting Millennial Guys On Instagram

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Miller Lite is going after millennial guys on Instagram with tailored brand content that capitalizes on trending topics in font design and typography. By using hashtags such as #graphicdesign, #typography, #thedailytype, as well as age verification to rule out underage users, the beer brand is looking to connect with a specific set of Instagram users by adding a unique branded lens on the existing content trends on the photo-sharing platform.

What Brands Should Do
For brands looking into content marketing on social platforms, Miller Lite’s new campaign points to new ways to target niche audiences by utilizing the user data available to identify the trending topics and interests of the target audience, and serving them with high-quality native content that fits the bill.

 

Source: AdWeek
Image courtesy of @MillerLite on Instagram

Instagram Display Ad Sales Soon To Overtake Google And Twitter

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
According to a new eMarketer report, Instagram is set to generate $2.81 billion in ad sales by 2017, making it bigger than Google and Twitter in terms of U.S. display ad sales. Such an optimistic projection is no doubt fueled by Instagram’s efforts in making its platform more brand-friendly in the past few months, including debuting new “Carousel” multi-photo ad unit with clickable links, launching its first official content vertical, and retooling its search and explore page to offer brands more ad opportunities. Its inherently visual platform also grants brands a natural environment for native ads, while its parent company Facebook presumably provides a strong data support for targeting and measurements.

What Brands Should Do
With the increasing usage of ad-blocking extension, we have long advised brands to look into native advertising to bypass the blocking for higher engagements and better viewability. In this ever-shifting market landscape, quickly adopting emerging ad platforms is becoming increasingly important for brands of all types.

 

Source: AdWeek

Instagram Presents New Ad Opportunities With Revamped Search Page

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Wired

Instagram has been making strides in making its platform more brand-friendly, and earlier this week, the photo-sharing social media debuted two new features that would offer brands more ad opportunities.

Firstly, Instagram updated its search bar to include trending locations, based on the geo-tags of the trending pictures. This could easily be utilized by hospitality marketers to serve interested users with location-specific native ads.

Moreover, it also debuts a revamped Explore channel that includes Trending Tags, which organizes and presents content channels based on popular hashtags in real time. Although Instagram has yet to reveal whether brands could buy a “promoted tag” or not at the moment, history seems to suggest that it will become open to brands sooner or later.

Tinder Claims Over One In Five Users Swipe Right For Brands

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: AdWeek

As the most popular dating app, Tinder has attracted a fair number of brands that wishes to woo young, single consumers active on its platform. Our POV on dating apps detailed some prime examples of Promoted Profiles, which allows advertisers to create “dating profiles” for brands. If users swipes right on those profiles, brands will be enabled to send them more content via chat messages.

Tinder has rarely revealed any of the stats regarding its ad offerings, but Sean Rad, co-founder of Tinder, just claimed that over twenty percent of users swiped right on brand profiles, and that this engagement rate remains consistent throughout various campaigns. Rod also mentioned that the average user spends 11 minutes a day swiping and texting through Tinder.

While the authenticity of these numbers would be difficult to verify, there is no denying that fractured mobile users are increasingly consuming media content on new platforms. Therefore, brands need to go where the audience is going, even if that means an eighty percent “left-swipe” rejection rate.

 

Apple Adds Ad-Blocking Extension To iOS 9

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: 9to5Mac

Preview of the upcoming iOS 9 reveals a new ad-blocking extension in Safari, which would prevent specified web resources (like images and scripts) from loading in Apple’s native browser, which affects the entire supply chain of digital media.

Two weeks ago, we reported on the increasing usage of ad-blocking, especially on mobile devices, and recommended brands and marketers to look into native ads as a way to circumvent the trend. Apple’s new move seems to be mostly targeted at cutting down Google’s ad revenues from iOS devices, as its AdWord serves the majority of digital ads, and Apple’s own iAd platform is unlikely to be affected. Therefore, it may be worthy for media owners and publishers to migrate from mobile web into apps, or Apple’s very timely News app, to avoid further hemorrhaging ad revenues due to ad-blocking.

European Mobile Carriers Plan To Block All Online Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Financial Times

A recent report claims that some mobile network operators in Europe are planning to start blocking online ads to target Google’s stranglehold on digital ad revenue. The mobile carriers have reportedly installed ad-blocking software in their data centers and plans are afoot to switch the technology on by the end of the year.

The software, developed by an Israeli-based company named Shine, will prevent most advertisements from loading, thereby causing some severe viewability issue for online advertisers. However, it seems that it will not affect social “in-feed” ads on Twitter or Facebook. Should this actually be implemented, which seems highly unlikely given relevant regulations, digital display ads would be seriously impacted. Maybe now is the time for brands and advertisers to take a look into native ads.