According to IAB Mobile Programmatic Playbook, “The most popular native format for mobile, and mobile programmatic, is in-feed advertising. In-feed ads are those that appear within the user’s natural activity stream. This includes traditional ads, videos or branded/sponsored stories which appear within a publisher’s content feed”.

Mobile Programmatic buying is known to improve performance on campaigns with Fiksu data proving that programmatic averages are better for both native and other programmatic advertising.
• Interstitial ads convert at a rate 2x higher
• Interstitial ads have CTRs 1.5x higher
• Native ads convert at a rate 4x higher
• Native ads have CTRs 1.2x higher

In mobile programmatic environment native ads are available via select publishers or open exchanges that consolidate the mobile app and mobile web native inventory of many publishers. Powerlinks and Unruly are partnering to launch an industry first native advertising effort where users will see an in-content stream and in-feed native ads across all devices. According to a Press Release, ” Advertisers will be able to access every placement with one standardized set of creative assets, including a video, headline and sponsor message, which will automatically adapt Unruly’s In-Feed video ads in real-time to the design and layout of the publisher’s website through Unruly’s proprietary Liquid Layout Technology.

The real-time bidding (RTB) integration will allow advertisers to reach audiences with granular targeting using 1st and 3rd party data, keyword level context and dozens of other data points to deliver highly relevant messages and to optimize performance.

With viewability in the forefront of buyer’s minds, Unruly’s In-Feed placements only begin to play once in-view, making the inventory 100% viewable. The partnership will provide detailed reporting and will allow advertisers to make changes and optimizations in real-time, while also using PowerLinks proprietary learning and bidding technologies to achieve engagement and conversion goals”.

According to IAB Mobile Programmatic Playbook, publishers and ad tech firms looking at buying programmatic for Mobile advertisers can look at the following options:

1. Native ads – As growth in mobile video continues, advertisers and publishers will look for more opportunities to buy and sell placements that are native to an app or site’s user experience. These types of ads could be placed within an app’s newsfeed or could take on a similar look-and-feel as the app or site itself.
2. Interactivity – Mobile devices and operating systems are continually introducing new features around user interaction. In time, programmatic mobile video will evolve to incorporate a number of these features to further enhance and customize the ad experience.
3. Upfront buying – To date, much of the programmatic activity in mobile video has been RTB-based. While this activity will continue to grow, there will also be an increase in non-RTB programmatic upfront buying. This will come as ad companies expand programmatic guaranteed solutions into mobile video.

Native Programmatic Advertising differs from Programmatic as it customizes  content to publishers’ feed at scale. In addition to contextualizing the content for Native advertising, the SSP uses the template of the publisher to customize the layout of native advertising.