With Native Ads, developers get more flexibility from the component-based ad format. This means that users can choose the placement and creation of individual aspects like image, title, logo, and description. Microsoft points out that this gives developers tools to manage their ads more intuitively within their apps and games: “This enables the developers to use fonts, colors and animations of their own to stitch unobtrusive user experience in their app while earning high yield from advertising. For advertisers as well, this provides high performing placements since the ads experience is tightly built into the app and users tend to interact a lot more with such sponsored content.” The company cites a report by Mobile Marketing, which shows native in-app ads enjoy engagement five times more often that banner ads. This means advertisers are more willing to pay and developers can maximize the value of their creations. While the ability to create Native Ad slots in Microsoft Advertising SDK is now available, the company says this is only for the latest version (10.0.4 and above).
Native Ad Slots
Developers with the latest version of the SDK will see libraries for Native Ads within an app or game. From these libraries, dev’s can create a “Native” ad unit within their Universal Windows Platform (UWP)app. This feature is found within the ‘Monetize with ads’ area on DevCenter. Once the create option has been selected, the ad unit it ready for the application. Ads can be created for project types run with XAML/.NET and HTML/JavaScript.