How to Use Google AdSense Native Ads?

Advertisements are the major source of revenue for the internet companies those do not offer real products. All giants like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter are literally in a war to attract advertisers by offering good user experience. Though Google AdSense was running more than a decade, it does not offer native ads like Facebook or Twitter. In order to fill this gap, Google recently announced the introduction of native ads for AdSense publishers. Let us discuss more about how to use Google AdSense native ads in this article.

Standard Display Ads Vs Native Ads

The standard display ads are placed outside the readable content like above post, below post or on the sidebar. Though there are ways to place the display ad code inside the post content, the match and look may not always fit the content. This will result in a distraction and bad user experience. Especially on mobile devices, the ads are long away from the content making less clicks and less revenue for publishers as well as Google.

Native ads are different from the traditional banner or display ads. These ads are placed in between the content and will fit with the feel and look of the site. As a result, the number of clicks will get increased and the revenue for publishers and Google. Native ads offer better user experience especially on mobile devices.

How to Create Native Ads in AdSense Account?

All AdSense publishers can create three types of native ads from their AdSense account.

• Native in-article ads
• Native in-feed ads
• Native matched content ads

Login to your AdSense account and create an AdSense ad unit by navigating to “My Ads > New ad unit”. You will different options like below and native ads are highlighted.

Native In-article Ads

Select in-article ads option and customize the look by choosing font and colors. You can preview the look of your customization, once finalized click on the “Save and Get Code” button to get the ad code.

Native In-feed Ads

Unlike in-article ads, in-feed ads have different styles. Clicking on the native in-feed ad option will show you further ad styles like below.

Choose the required style and start customizing your in-feed ad.

Native Matched Content Ads

Matched content ad was offered as standard ad before which is being converted into a native format. You can read the separate article explaining how to use matched content ads.

Placing Native Ad Codes on Your Site

Here is where the problem of native ads lie. You can easily show the standard display ads site wide by placing the code on sidebar, below or above post. Most of the content management systems like WordPress also offer plugins for this purpose or you can do it yourself by modifying the theme’s files.

But native ads can’t be used site wide, they are to be placed inside the content on each page manually, especially in-article ads. This is not an easy task when you have hundreds of thousands of blog posts with different format and content. On other hand, in-feed ads are to be placed on your index pages like blog index, archive and search results pages. This is even more complicated that you need find a loop in your themes’ core files and place the ad code with appropriate custom styles. You should select correct image size, valid width and height in order to show the ads properly without distortion. We don’t think a normal AdSense publisher will have this much technical expertise for inserting the ad code.

Summary

AdSense publishers can make use of matched content ads for the eligible sites by placing it below the content or on the sidebar site wide. In-article ads can be used on selected pages with high traffic. The chances of using in-feed ads are remote for regular publisher due to the complexity. We can expect bigger content management systems like WordPress soon will have automated plugin for native ads to make publisher’s life easier.