APP advertising monetization 3 major advertising position design strategies

In 1995, the portal advertising era emerged, led by NetEase, Sohu, and Sina;
In 2000, search ads such as Google and Baidu gradually became popular;
In 2012, social media platforms such as Weibo and Tencent News launched information flow ads;
In 2018, short video advertising, led by Douyin and Kuaishou, exploded.

With technological innovation and industrial upgrading, Internet media is fluid, changeable, and rapidly developing, and users' attention is constantly shifting, giving marketing more possibilities.

For Internet media, advertising space is an important carrier of advertising creativity. The ad placement design strategy solves the problems of where, when, under what circumstances, and in what size and style the ads should be displayed to users.

In the early stages of APP commercialization, choosing the right ad placement and designing it well can often achieve twice the result with half the effort. In this issue, AdBright has specially sorted out and summarized three major ad placement design strategies for APP operators, providing basic strategic guidance.

Native Advertising

“New Era, New Advertising Design Primary Concept”

Native advertising was born in 2012 and became popular in 2013. It originated abroad and was gradually introduced into China.

Regarding native advertising, the verification code advertising service provider Solve Media gives the following definition: Native advertising refers to a specific business model that generates value and improves user experience by publishing relevant content in information streams. The specific implementation form is to embed advertisements as part of the content into the actual APP (PC) page design.

The founder of IDEAinside believes that native advertising has three characteristics: valuable, original, and proactive. That is, original advertising, its content is valuable, its form is not restricted by standards, it is an advertising form that changes with the scene, and is integrated with the page, which makes users happy to read and share.

After nearly 10 years of development and practice, the concept of native advertising has been mature and widely used:

• Ad space integrated into the APP startup page - splash screen ads
• The advertising space is made into a piece of content in the social information APP - information flow advertising
• The advertising space is a theme/skin control in the tool APP - Banner advertising
• The ad space is a message in the bulletin board of the e-commerce APP - Bulletin Board Ads
• ….

Native advertising is the primary concept of ad placement design. Its advantage is that it can minimize the impact of advertising on user experience by customizing the ad placement format specifically for the APP type.

▲Native advertising

Interactive Advertising

“Embed an advertising module for APP”

Judging from the pace of domestic development, interactive advertising began to appear in 2016, flourished in 2017, and experienced a blowout in 2018, with new forms and gameplay constantly emerging.

Interactive advertising is an advertising carrier or form of advertising. Its greatest value is to discover a new traffic scenario and build a communication bridge between advertisers and users through interactive communication with users.

There are currently three types of advertising spaces designed based on the concept of interactive advertising:

Traditional event advertising:

Advertisements are “activities”. Users can click on the activity icon (actually an ad space) on the APP to enter the activity H5 and participate in mini-games, such as “wheel draw, golden egg draw, scratch card draw”, etc., to obtain the rights or benefits of advertisers and guide conversions.

▲Traditional event advertising

Game trial ads:

It is mainly aimed at game advertisers, allowing users to try out the game online through h5, experience some of the game functions without downloading, and truly restore the scene, bringing high conversion to the advertisement.

Interactive video ads:

Currently, it mainly targets brand advertisers and introduces interactivity into video advertising. At the beginning of the advertisement, interactive options appear, and users can choose different advertising plots according to their personal preferences to enhance interaction and connection with the brand.

▲Interactive video ads

Different from native ads, interactive ads can be used as an independent advertising module within the APP.

The interactive advertising industry chain represented by traditional event advertising has matured. APP operators generally need to access an interactive advertising SDK and hand it over to an interactive advertising platform for distribution and sales. The advertising entrance is located in a specific location within the APP, such as the personal homepage, payment success page, etc.

However, game trial ads and interactive video ads require in-depth customization between the platform and advertisers before being embedded in the APP.

Linked advertising

“Combination of advertising positions”

"One shot" means there is no cut during the shooting, and the work is completed in one go using certain techniques. It is commonly seen in short videos. In the advertising circle, "one shot" was used in the linkage advertisements that were born in 2019.

Linked advertising is a form of advertising that links multiple ad spaces to display the same advertiser's creativity, continuously attracting users' attention. Currently, the most common is a combination of splash screen ads and information flow ads.

▲Linked advertising

• High reach and high visibility: Path-based coverage from the opening screen to the information flow, with double exposure, strengthens users’ memory of the advertisement while stimulating their deep interest in the content.
• Efficient communication: Supports various creative display forms such as static and dynamic, and reaches out in different communication forms, reducing exposure loss and improving communication efficiency.
• High cost-effectiveness: Purchase multiple ad spaces at one time to achieve the linkage effect of two high-quality resources at a lower price.

It is foreseeable that linked advertising will be combined with marketing needs in the future to launch more new forms, such as the linkage of multiple information flow advertising spaces and multiple page advertising spaces.

In summary, APP operators can refer to the following three strategies for ad placement design:

• You need to respect the user experience and design an ad space style that suits you based on native and APP types;
• You can selectively introduce third-party interactive advertising SDKs, set up independent advertising modules, and enrich the types of advertising slots;
• You can use combined strategies for ad slots, such as linked ads, to enrich the gameplay of ad slots.

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