Apple is adding a new ad format to its Apple News app that would allow publishers to include advanced advertising assets, so-called “native ads,” that would appear in-line with regular articles.
The upcoming ad functionality was detailed in a new developer document titled Ad Specifications for iAd (PDF link), which outlines seven ad formats — Standard Banner, Medium Rectangle Banner, Double Banner, Large Banner, Interstitial Banner, Pre-Roll Video and Native Banner — content creators can deploy in the iOS News app. Business Insider reported on the document’s publication earlier today.
Native ads are designed to appear in a News content feed between regular news content. The formatting of the ads will be similar to the news feed, and can contain 22 to 64 text characters, along with a thumbnail photo. The new ads will be clearly labeled as an ad, by using a “Sponsored by” tagline, which will appear at the bottom of each banner ad.
While publishers are currently able to upload sponsored content to Apple News, they must flag those stories as “native content” in their metadata, or risk having their Apple News access suspended.
“Publishers that participate in Apple News put an RSS feed into Apple News. That feed is essentially a feed of content and some of those pieces of content might be branded content. The onus is on the publisher in that case to very clearly label and title that content,” Kunal Gupta, CEO of advertising-tech firm Polar, told Business Insider.
