Native advertising is a format that lets website and app owners can flexibly manage the look and feel of ads by matching the design to the surrounding content, increasing visibility.
The Yandex Advertising Network is one of the few networks that lets you configure how native ads are displayed in apps. That is driven by the large audience of advertisers who provide data for compiling native ads (titles, text, images, and more) as well as Yandex expertise in monetizing its own applications.
We're constantly working to improve native advertising, and this time we added several new elements that will make your native in-app ads more eye-catching and informative.
New required elements
Last year, the Yandex Advertising Network introduced a new advertising control element: an icon with three dots. You can use it to hide ads, report them, and find out more about the advertiser. That helps monitor ad quality and restrict impressions to ads that are actually safe and helpful.
This element has been made a requirement for native advertising in apps. It's replacing the X button. And there's a nice bonus: some legal disclaimers, for example, a link to the project declaration in a real estate ad, will move to the ad management menu. That will make ad design easier and ads themselves more organic.
The advertiser's website domain is also now a required element. This is to be compliant with advertising legislation.
Starting with the Yandex Mobile Ads SDK version 5.2.0, native ad impressions without those elements will not be permitted.
As you design your ads, keep all those required elements in mind. You can see the full list in Help.
Age limit next to the ad label
Some app owners haven't added an age label to their native ads. Ads that must contain one by law were excluded for appropriate units. As a result, more profitable ads didn't make it to the auction, and the ad selection narrowed.
The Age label is no longer a required element for native design. It is automatically shown next to the Ad label where it is required. Experiments have shown that placing the age label there boosts native ad impressions and app revenue.
If your native ad design currently includes an age label, you can remove it.
Price and rating
There are new elements you can add to native block designs that make ads more engaging and elicit trust. The Price and Rating elements used to only be available for mobile app ads, but they're now available for others.
Price. The ad will display either the price the advertiser listed when launching their ad campaign or current data from online store feeds. If prices aren't available, the ad will be shown without them.
Rating. The Rating extension can pull data from a variety of Yandex sources, including Yandex Browser and Yandex Maps. It will only appear in the ad if the average rating is at least 4.
The developer decides how the extension will be displayed. Most importantly, the ad needs to natively fit the app, whether that's using stars, a number, or a combination of the two.
Image carousel
Multiple images can now be displayed in the required media element. No additional configuration is required on the app side.
You can learn more about native format in mobile apps in Help.