April 27, 2015
Guidelines Intended to Reduce the Friction in Planning, Transacting, Executing and Evaluating Mobile Native Ad Campaigns
New York – April 28, 2015 – Today, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) launched guidelines for mobile native ad formats, developed by the MMA Mobile Native Advertising Committee. This focused and practical set of ad formats, which address both form and function, is intended to eliminate confusion in the marketplace to help advertisers, agencies and publishers to more efficiently and effectively deploy mobile native advertising campaigns across the entire market.
The Committee reviewed and categorized each type of native ad on mobile to address the unique attributes of mobile and to provide increased opportunity for marketers. More specifically, because of mobile’s distinctive device capabilities, the MMA mobile native ad formats are designed squarely for the mobile marketing channel and include: in-feed social, in-feed content, in-feed commerce, in-map, in-game, paid search, recommendation widgets and custom. MMA committee member companies will provide quarterly reports to the MMA on the adoption of these formats to track, measure and provide further guidance.
The guidelines are the first in a series of reports on mobile native to be released by the Mobile Native Advertising Committee.
“In the wake of the MMA’s recently released Cross Marketing Effectiveness Research (SMoX), which uncovered that mobile native performed significantly better than mobile display, it’s very clear that native advertising will continue to evolve as one of the more effective mobile strategies for marketers,” said Sheryl Daija, chief strategy officer at the MMA. “By adopting a set of ad formats, the mobile advertising marketplace can more efficiently implement mobile native ads, enabling marketers and their agencies to take full advantage of this powerful opportunity to enrich and improve their mobile campaigns.”
The guidelines include:
In-Feed Social
- Social feeds include users’ posts to social networks and sponsored content from advertisers. Examples include Tumblr, Pinterest and Twitter.
In-Feed Content
- Editorial feeds, streams and walls include both paid and unpaid content in various forms, including written stories, music, games, videos and inboxes. Examples include Yahoo, news apps, SoundCloud and Sharethrough.
In-Feed Commerce
- Representing a large retail opportunity, commerce feeds contain product listings, and promoted products are integrated within. Examples include NFC, iBeacons, GPS and payments.
In-Map
- Mobile 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, hours, etc. Examples include Waze, FourSquare and Google Maps.
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. An example: Verizon’s video within Madden 15 where when a player watches the 30 second clip, they are rewarded with 250 coins to improve the gameplay experience.
Paid Search
- Ads appear on mobile search sites and apps integrated 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
- Recommendation widgets feature sponsored links and often appear at the end of a feed or when a user is finished reading an article. Examples include Gravity, Taboola, Outbrain and Yahoo Recommends.
Custom
- Content that is built by a brand. For mobile, it can be editorial, music, apps, games or videos. Custom mobile native ads are great for offline integrations with location data and augmented reality. Examples include Sit or Squat app sponsored by Charmin, Pandora sponsored station and Citibike sponsored app.
To view the full MMA Mobile Native Ad Format Recommendation report, please visit: http://www.mmaglobal.com/documents/mobile-native-ad-formats.
About the MMA Mobile Native Advertising Committee
The mission of the MMA Mobile Native Advertising Committee is to promote the definition of mobile native ads, educate marketers and publishers about native advertising benefits and best practices, and grow the global market for this emerging and increasingly effective digital display format.
These recommended mobile native ad formats are intended to help both buyers and sellers plan, transact, execute and evaluate mobile native ad campaigns. By identifying a limited but robust set of ad formats, the mobile advertising marketplace can more efficiently adopt and include mobile native ads into the repertoire of effective mobile marketing tactics. These recommendations will be the first in a series of releases that the Committee intends to issue, which will serve as a sort of playbook for leveraging mobile native advertising:
- Mobile Native Ad Formats
- Mobile Native Ad Effectiveness
- Mobile Native Ad Best Practices
The Mobile Marketing Association welcomes any feedback, from members and non-members alike, so that we can continue to refine and improve the guidance we provide to the mobile marketing ecosystem. Please send feedback to [email protected].
This MMA Mobile Native Advertising program was formed under the leadership of the Co-Chairs, Richard Jones of InMobi and Steven Schuler of Yahoo. There are currently 22 member companies: Aarki, Ahalogy, Applift Inc., Central Garden & Pet, DataXu, Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Facebook, Foursquare, Google, InMobi, Kargo, Microsoft, OpenX, PadSquad, Pinterest, PubNative, Quixey, Sharethrough, The Marketing Arm, Time Inc., Yahoo Inc. Any MMA member company is welcome to join this initiative, and if interested please contact us at [email protected].
About the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA)
The MMA is the world’s leading global non-profit trade mobile marketing association comprised of more than 800 member companies, from nearly fifty countries around the world. Our members hail from every faction of the mobile marketing ecosystem including brand marketers, agencies, mobile technology platforms, media companies, operators and others. The MMA’s mission is to accelerate the transformation and innovation of marketing through mobile, driving business growth with closer and stronger consumer engagement. Anchoring the MMA’s mission are four core pillars; to cultivate inspiration by driving the innovation for the Chief Marketing Officer; to build the mobile marketing capabilities for the marketing organizations through fostering know- how and confidence; to champion the effectiveness and impact of mobile through research providing tangible ROI measurement; and advocacy. Additionally, MMA industry-wide committees work collaboratively to develop and advocate global best practices and lead standards development.
Mobile Marketing is broadly defined as including advertising, apps, messaging, mCommerce and CRM on all mobile devices including smart phones and tablets. Members include: American Express, Colgate-Palmolive, Dunkin’ Brands, Facebook, Ford Motor Company, Foursquare, Google, Group M, Hewlett Packard, Hilton Worldwide, IKEA, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg Co., MasterCard, McDonalds, Mondelez International, Inc. Pandora Media, Pinterest, Procter & Gamble, Razorfish, R/GA, Starcom Worldwide, The Coca-Cola Company, The Weather Company, Unilever, Visa, VEVO, Vodafone, Walmart, xAd and many more. The MMA’s global headquarters are located in New York with regional operations in Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), Latin American (LATAM) and Asia Pacific (APAC). For more information about the MMA please visit www.mmaglobal.com.
