Native is a component-based ad format that gives publishers the freedom to customize how ad assets like headlines and calls to action are presented in their apps. By choosing fonts, colors, and other details for themselves, publishers are able to create natural, unobtrusive ad presentations that can add to a rich user experience.
AdMob offers two different ways to implement native ads: Native Ads Express and Native Ads Advanced. Native Ads Express has been designed to make getting onboard with native ads as easily as possible, and it's a great choice for publishers who are new to the format. Native Ads Advanced has been designed to maximize the amount of freedom publishers have in creating their presentations. It's currently in a closed beta with a limited group of publishers.
Native Ads Express
With Native Ads Express, native ad assets (the text and images that make up an ad) are combined with a CSS template at the server level and displayed in a native express ad view within an app. Publishers customize their ad presentations by modifying the CSS template associated with each of their ad units.
This approach has several benefits. One benefit is that ad presentation can be changed without deploying new versions of an app. Another is that the editor you use to create your CSS templates can provide live validation and preview, making it easy to know your presentation is exactly what you need. Plus, because the work of customizing the presentation happens on the server, less mobile code is required to load and display ads. In practice, the amount of Java needed to show an ad is about the same as it is for a banner.
The best way to get started with Native Ads Express is to read through the Native Ads Express guide.
We also have sample code available at our GitHub repository.
Native Ads Advanced
With Native Ads Advanced,
apps receive native ad assets directly from the Mobile Ads SDK
and then display them using UI elements that are native to the platform.
A string asset can be displayed in a
TextView,
for example.
The benefit of this approach is that because publishers are displaying assets themselves, they have a great deal of control over how ads are presented. Not only can they determine fonts, colors, and positioning at runtime, but publishers can also display native ad assets using the same platform-specific UI classes they're already using to show content.
Native Ads Advanced is currently in a closed beta with a limited group of publishers, but you're welcome to take a look through our Native Ads Advanced guide.
Our GitHub repository also offers sample code for Native Ads Advanced.
