Formats & creative · also called native ads, sponsored content
Native advertising
Native advertising is paid advertising designed to match the look, feel and placement of the content around it, such as sponsored posts in feeds or promoted articles, and labelled as sponsored.
Native ads blend in. Instead of a box that looks like an ad, a native ad borrows the style of the page: a sponsored article in a news feed, a promoted post on social media, a "recommended" link under an article, a promoted listing in a shopping app.
Technically, programmatic native ads are assembled from parts. The advertiser supplies assets (headline, image, description, logo, call to action) and the publisher renders them in its own design. The IAB Tech Lab's OpenRTB Native specification defines how these assets are requested and returned.
Native ads usually earn more attention and clicks than standard banners, but they raise disclosure questions: they must be clearly labelled as advertising under consumer-protection rules, such as the US FTC's guidance on native ads and endorsements. Content recommendation widget widgets are a large native channel and also a key traffic source for traffic arbitrage.
Think of it like this
Native advertising is like a shop placing its sample on the restaurant's menu in the same font as the dishes, with a small "sponsored" tag beside it.
An example
A travel brand's native ad appears in a news app's feed with a 1200×627 image and the headline "10 hidden beaches in Portugal", labelled "Sponsored", earning a 0.9% CTR.
Related terms
Content recommendation widget
A content recommendation widget is a block of sponsored and editorial links, often under an article, that recommends stories or products and earns money when readers click the sponsored ones.
Display advertising
Display advertising is visual online advertising, such as banners, images, animations and rich media, shown in ad slots on websites and apps, as distinct from search, video or audio ads.
Paid social
Paid social is advertising on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest and X, where ads appear in feeds, stories and short videos.
Sponsored products
Sponsored products are ads that promote specific products within a retailer's or marketplace's search results and product pages, looking like regular listings but labelled as sponsored.
Creative
A creative is the actual ad content a person sees or hears, such as an image, video, audio spot, HTML5 animation or native text, delivered into an ad slot.
Sources: IAB Tech Lab: OpenRTB Native