Sentinel InsightsIn-feed native advertising:how it works and where it runs.

In-feed native advertising is paid content placed inside the stream a person is already scrolling: a sponsored story between two news headlines, a promoted product in a list of results, a short video in a social feed. It takes the look of the posts around it and carries a label saying it’s an ad.

It’s the most common type of native ad and the one most marketers mean when they say native. Done well, it gets read because it appears where attention already is. Done badly, it either gets ignored or leaves readers feeling misled. The difference lies mostly in the creative, the label and where you choose to run it.

What in-feed native advertising is

The IAB Native Advertising Playbook lists in-feed ads as one of six native unit types, alongside paid search units, recommendation widgets, promoted listings, in-ad units with native elements and custom formats. The IAB’s July 2015 deep dive on in-feed ad units describes them as ads that fit neatly within a user’s natural activity stream, and it concentrates on what a reader sees before they click.

That focus on the pre-click view matters. An in-feed unit is judged in the half second a reader spends deciding whether to stop scrolling. Headline, image, label and source name all have to work together in that moment, because most people will never see anything else.

In-feed units differ from recommendation widgets, the blocks of suggested stories that appear under an article. Widgets show up after someone has finished reading, while in-feed ads appear while they’re still choosing what to read. That timing is why in-feed creative has to hold its own among real headlines.

In-feed units are also the main native format on phones, which we cover in our guide to mobile native advertising.

Where in-feed ads run

The IAB deep dive splits in-feed placements into three kinds of feed. Each one asks for different creative and suits a different kind of brand.

• Content feeds. Editorial sites, news apps and feed readers. Ads appear as story cards among articles and usually link to a sponsored article or a guide on your own site.
• Product feeds. Retail and marketplace listings where a promoted product sits among organic results. Here the unit is a product card, and price, photos and reviews do much of the selling.
• Social feeds. Social apps, where a sponsored post or video sits between updates from friends and accounts the user follows.

Content feeds suit brands with something to explain. Product feeds suit retail and ecommerce. Social feeds sit somewhere in between and reward creative that looks like it belongs on that particular platform.

Common in-feed ad formats

Within those feeds, the IAB describes four ad types. Most campaigns use one or two of them.

• Story ads: a headline, thumbnail and short line of text that open a full article.
• Video ads: short clips that play in the feed, usually muted until tapped.
• App install ads: units that send people straight to an app store listing.
• Product ads: product cards with an image, a name and a price.

For a PR-led brand, story ads are usually the starting point. They let you put an argument, a piece of research or a founder’s view in front of people who read about your industry, with the full piece one tap away.

Labelling in-feed native ads

Because in-feed units sit inside the content, the label does a lot of work. The FTC’s Native Advertising: A Guide for Businesses, which accompanied its December 2015 policy statement on deceptively formatted advertisements, says disclosures should go in front of or above the headline of a native ad. It notes that labels placed to the right of an ad, or below it in a vertical stream, are less likely to be noticed.

The same guide lists terms such as Ad, Advertisement, Paid Advertisement and Sponsored Advertising Content as likely to be understood, and says advertisers shouldn’t use terms like Promoted or Promoted Stories. A brand logo on its own, without a clear text disclosure, doesn’t count.

We agree the label with each publisher before a campaign goes live, and we record every in-feed unit as paid in the client’s coverage log. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Regulated sectors such as finance, healthcare and crypto have extra advertising rules on top of the FTC’s.

How to write in-feed creative that gets read

1. Write the headline for the feed. It should read like the other headlines around it, with a clear promise and no sales language.
2. Use a real image. Stock photos of handshakes read as ads. A chart, a product in use or a photo of a real person works better.
3. Name the brand plainly. The source line should say who paid. Hiding it might win a click, and it costs trust.
4. Make the landing page worth the tap. Send readers to a full article, guide or piece of research. A hard sales page breaks the promise of a story ad.
5. Test several headlines. Run three to five variations early and move budget to the ones that keep readers on the page longest.

A hypothetical example: a cybersecurity firm with new research on phishing could run story ads on technology news feeds pointing to a short report, with headlines testing the most surprising finding against a practical tip. The report does the persuading. The ad’s job is to get the right people to open it.

How to buy and measure in-feed native advertising

There are two main routes. Programmatic native runs through native ad platforms and demand-side platforms that assemble your headline, image and text into each publisher’s format. It scales well and suits testing. Direct deals with publishers give you more control over context and placement, and they often come with a sponsored article on the publisher’s own site, which overlaps with our media placement work.

Before buying, list the feeds your buyers use. A short list of relevant publishers and apps, checked by hand, does more for a campaign than a long list of cheap inventory. We share that list with clients before any spend goes live, so they can question it.

Measure in-feed native on what happens after the click. Time on the landing article, scroll depth, return visits and the share of readers who take a next step are better guides than click-through rate. Clicks still matter, but a unit that pulls cheap clicks from the wrong audience is a poor buy.

Sentinel’s native advertising service plans and buys in-feed units alongside earned and placed media. Our Media Buying Management fee is 15% of spend with a $2,000 minimum, and we review results with clients every month. You can see how we judge each opportunity on our how we work page.

Mistakes that waste in-feed spend

• Running a banner as a native unit. Text-heavy graphics and logos in the image make the unit look like a display ad.
• Picking feeds for reach alone. Cheap inventory on unrelated sites brings clicks from people who will never buy.
• Weak or hidden labels. They create legal risk and wear down trust in the brand and the publisher.
• Changing too much at once. Test the headline or the image, one at a time, or you won’t know what worked.
• Stopping at the click. Without landing-page measurement you can’t tell good traffic from bad.

If you’d like in-feed native advertising planned as part of a wider campaign, our digital media buying team can map the feeds your buyers read and build the units to match.