MMA native ad guidelines address uncertainty over important mobile opportunity
The Mobile Marketing Association is attempting to bring some conformity to the growing mobile native advertising space with new ad format guidelines, as uncertainty persists over what exactly constitutes native advertising and its effectiveness.
Following Facebook?s success with ads appearing in-stream in its news feed, many other publishers have jumped on board to offering native advertising opportunities for reaching mobile users in a manner seen as less disruptive than banner ads. While numerous brands are jumping on board, the size of the budgets being allocated to mobile native ads is likely being hampered by certain ambiguities.
?There are a lot of buzz words thrown around and native is one of them,? said David Weinroth, vice president of sales for the East region at Tapjoy. ?Native can mean different things to different marketers.
?Also, it is still early days, so the jury is still out on the effectiveness of native,? he said. ?Native is less obtrusive than a banner ad but it is also not fooling anyone.
?I am always happy with standardization and steps towards attribution ? it would help move the industry forward.?
Reducing friction
The new guidelines from the MMA are intended to reduce the friction for advertisers, agencies and publishers in planning, transacting, executing and evaluating mobile native ad campaigns. They were developed by the MMA Mobile Native Advertising Committee.
The guidelines follow the MMA?s recent findings showing how mobile native ads perform significantly better than mobile display.
The committee reviewed and categorized each type of native ad on mobile to address their unique attributes and how they capitalize on mobile?s distinct capabilities.
The native ad formats identified by the MMA include in-feed social, in-feed content, in-feed commerce, in-map, in-game, paid search, recommendation widgets and custom.
Reaching millennials
The guidelines come at a time when marketers are increasingly looking to shift budget to mobile advertising but deciding among the different tactics available to them can be a challenge.
Abbas Rajani, media manager for Burns Motor Co., a Long Island auto dealership group based in Smithtown, NY, said native mobile ads will become more important as millennials increasingly become a desirable target market.
Although the group, consisting of nine dealerships for brands such as Lexus, Mercedes Benz, Acura and BMW, has a responsive Web site, it does not have a mobile application. The company currently allocates 50 percent of its budget toward mobile.
?The automotive market is usually a bit behind in terms of getting behind technology on the marketing side of things,? Mr. Rajani said.
?Mobile native ads will be very significant. As the millennials become more of the target group, especially with automotive marketers, they will (represent) large ratio of our marketing efforts. It?s the medium they adhere to.
?With a large purchase item such as a vehicle [mobile native] might not be as influential.?
In-feed content
For in-feed social ads, which are offered by Tumblr, Pinterest and Twitter, social feeds include users? posts to social networks and sponsored content from advertisers. Examples include Tumblr, Pinterest and Twitter.
For in-feed content, publishers such as Yahoo, SoundCloud and Sharethrough as well as news apps include both paid and unpaid content in various forms in editorial feeds, streams and walls. Content can include written stories, music, games, videos and inboxes.
In-feed commerce represents a large retail opportunity, with commerce feeds built around NFC, iBeacons, GPS and payment containing product listings and promoted products integrated within.
In-map native ads on Waze, FourSquare and Google Maps provide location and navigation information. In addition to map data and organically generated business listings, in-map native ads can show distance to location, navigation, directions, click to call and hours.
In-game ads are opt-in where players are invited to watch a video and earn a reward. The reward is a digital currency or feature that adds value to the player experience. For example, a Verizon video within Madden 15 enables players to earn 250 coins to improve the gameplay experience when they watch the 30-second clip.
Recommendation widgets
Paid Search ads appear on mobile search sites and apps for Google and Yahoo integrate with organic search results. Mobile features such as click to call, nearest location, driving directions, hours of operation. Examples include Google and Yahoo.
Recommendation widgets feature sponsored links and often appear at the end of a feed or when a user is finished reading an article. This type of native ad can be found on Gravity, Taboola, Outbrain and Yahoo Recommends.
Custom content is built by a brand, including editorial, music, apps, games or videos. Custom mobile native ads are great for offline integrations with location data and augmented reality. Examples include the Sit or Squat app sponsored by Charmin, Pandora sponsored stations and the Citibike sponsored app.
As advertising agencies increasingly make mobile a key part of their strategies for brands, native ads is one format they are keeping a close eye on.
Filippia Iboko, media supervisor for Moxie, a New York-based ad agency that is a unit of Publicis Groupe?s ZenithOptimedia subsidiary, said they use mobile native ads, seeing high engagement rates from doing so.
?When we look at mobile, we look at it in a screen agnostic sense,? Ms. Iboko said. ?So we?re not looking at it as a mobile tactic or as a display tactic. Native by itself stands on its own.
?It?s been effective,? she said. ?Engagement are high, consumers seem to be receptive to the messaging in that format.
?More budgets have to become available from the client side.?
Additional reporting provided by Michael Barris, staff writer on Mobile Marketer
Final Take?
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Marketer, New York
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Marketer, New York