‘Mobile is big’ is no longer news in 2014 and every technology company has realized the potential of mobile. The shift from desktop to mobile has been quick and all the players in the technology chain have had to adapt fast. Advertisements on mobile have been a primary channel for monetization and ad networks have grown tremendously over the last six to seven years. InMobi is one of the big mobile ad networks from India and the company has now launched its Native Ad Platform.

The evolution of mobile ads

The screen sizes became small with mobile and so did the banner ads. With mobile, new monetization models were developed but ads still remain a big chunk. “Another equation with mobile is the huge number of publishers (read app developers) and this makes it difficult to build a bridge between advertisers and publishers,” says Krishnendu Majumdar, head of products, supply and development solutions at InMobi. Advertisers have a custom creative message they want to release to the public via as many modes as possible, and the publishers have to take it upon themselves to fit in the banner so they can monetize.

This wasn’t working too well and the next phase was the interstitial ads which is transition based. “This sort of an ad works very well with a certain kind of app, for instance, gaming. It is distracting with other use cases,” says Krish. Newer models are being tried out to make ads less intrusive and InMobi’s Native Ad Platform is a move in this direction. “This is the next phase of evolution for us,” says Krish.

How does this native ad platform work?

InMobi started solving this problem by working with a bunch of app developers and identifying their pain points. “The publishers haven’t been empowered in this space. They always have had to adjust according to the advertiser and this is what changes with the Native Ad Platform,” says Krish. The Native Ad Platform is a space for publishers and advertisers to collaborate effectively so that advertisers get more purchase and the monetization is better for publishers.

The user never goes out of the app and the ads are customized according to the nature of the app. “There is the publisher and there is the advertiser, we do the magic in the middle. We have the capability to stitch the ads in real time using assets provided by the advertiser,” says Krish. Essentially, ads are being generated on the fly according to the nature of the app and being delivered in an unobtrusive manner.
InMobi’s ad network of around 700 million users across 165 countries and the testing for the Native Ad Platform has had some very promising results with click-throughs increasing almost 10 times. The platform was launched recently and more concrete results will start trickling in.

Website: The Native Ad Platform

Original article posted here.