Yahoo Native Ads let you combine various brand assets to produce rich, compelling ad experiences and display them alongside content, providing user interaction and engagement superior to traditional display advertising. You can use video and images for vivid, personal and emotional brand storytelling across desktop, mobile and tablet.
Native image and native video ads reach over 650M mobile users across a massive mobile network of over 1,000 apps, including Yahoo properties and top syndication partner apps.
Redefining Native¶
With Native advertising making up nearly 60 percent of all digital display spending in 2018 – a 10 percent increase over the previous year – Yahoo continues to innovate on different native features and formats to offer advertisers powerful new options.

For a deeper understanding of the power of Native, download The State of Native ebook here
. The ebook (in PDF format, 10.7MB) addresses these important topics for Yahoo advertisers:
State of the industry
Context is King
Value beyond the click
The next generation of native
Explore Native Ad Formats¶
To explore ad formats, click the video below for animated examples. There’s no voice-over audio narration but the examples speak for themselves.
Important
Choose from a wide range of ad formats, described in the sections below, to help you get your message across in a non-intrusive way.
Search Ads¶
Search link ads are highly relevant ads that reach searchers on Yahoo at the moment of intent. Yahoo Search reaches over 117M unique searchers per month, 33% of which can’t be found on other engines.
Tip
To learn how to create search on native ads in the Native UI, check out Use Search on Native to Drive More Traffic & Extend Reach.
Mail Ads¶
Yahoo Mail Ads are a companion to the native ad, and served exclusively in Yahoo Mail. On user-click, the Yahoo Mail Ad displays in the Mail message pane, displaying as if the user had opened a marketing email from the advertiser. Users can interact with the HTML content in the message, forward it to friends and family, save it to their inbox (where it will appear with other incoming email messages), or close it without taking any other action.
Yahoo Mail Ads turn the prominently placed top ad in the user’s inbox into a native ad that can be read, saved or forwarded, similar to an email. Mail Ads have demonstrated click-through rates as high as 4x industry averages.
Key benefits:
Get your message across in a non-intrusive way by native Mail Ads that open instantly right within Yahoo Mail.
Users can forward or save your promotional emails to refer to them.
Cut down on the funnel and with one click lead get templates.
Use one of robust responsive email templates to present your products.
Note
The example shown in the video is of a sponsored Mail Ad.
Note
You can’t use Yahoo Mail Ads without a companion Native Ad. Ensure that you prepare Native Ad assets when building this ad format.
Important
To address the issue of how Native Ad Platform handles custom form fields in Mail Ads, note the following: Data is sent directly to the client. Yahoo does not store a copy of the data. Yahoo does not collect or store any form fill information. Data in form fields is passed directly to the advertiser website when the user submits the form within the Mail template.
Image Ads¶
Native Image Ads are image-rich ads that fit the form and function of the content around them, such as within the content stream on Yahoo properties, apps and third-party publishers.
Compared to traditional display, native ads lift brand-related searches up to 3.6X, and site view-through up to 3.9X.
Recent attribution studies show that native ads account for an average 30% of incremental online conversions, more than double the conversions driven by the next largest tactic.
Important: New Restrictions for Square and HQ Images in Single Image ads¶
When creating your ad, you will need to include an imageUrl and imageUrlHQ in the API and an Ad HQ Image URL in BULK. Note that the imageUrl must have a 1:1 aspect ratio. A square image (imageLargeUrl) is mandatory. If you upload an 800x800 image, for example, the asset will be resized down to 627x627 pixels. And if you upload an 800x850 image, the asset will be resized and cropped down to 627x627 pixels. If the image is off from the 1:1 aspect ratio by more than 10%, the asset will be rejected and ad creation will fail. For example, an 800x1000 image is more than 10% off from 1:1 square, so it will be rejected.
This applies to API, UI and BULK uploads. Ensure that you follow these requirements when creating single image and carousel ads. Use a 1:1 aspect ratio and an exact size of 627x627 for a square asset for carousel ads.
Note that this is a requirement now for Image ad formats. Video, Mail sponsored, and carousel ads are unchanged as they’re already required to meet these restrictions.
The image requirements for various assets is shown in the table below:
Asset |
Required? |
Aspect ratio enforced? |
---|---|---|
Rectangle image - 1200x627px |
Yes |
Yes - 1.9.1 |
Square image - 627x627px |
Yes |
Yes - 1:1 |
Thumbnail - 180x180px |
Optional |
No - 1:1 |
Note
Existing ads that are missing square assets will experience reduced supply as they are dropped from rendering on ad units that need the square asset.
Tip
To learn how to create Images Ads in the Yahoo Native UI, check out Create Native Ads with Images.
Native Video Ads¶
Yahoo Native Video Ads are clickable video ads that fit the form and function of the content around them, such as within the content stream on Yahoo properties, apps, and third-party publishers. Yahoo Native Video Ads view and completion rates have outperformed industry averages.
In a recent study, Yahoo Native Video Ads drive a 50% lift in brand favorability and 28% lift in purchase intent.
Important
Support is now provided for CPM bidding for Video Ads. The minimum bid is $4 USD. Under Promote my brand campaigns, a CPM bid is still set on Ad Groups, which can now have Video Ads.
The image requirements for various assets is shown in the table below:
Asset |
Native UI |
Native API |
Aspect ratio enforced? |
---|---|---|---|
Rectangle image - 1200x627px |
Required |
Required |
Yes - 1.9.1 |
Square image - 627x627px |
Required |
Required |
Yes - 1:1 |
Thumbnail - 180x180px |
Optional |
Optional |
No - 1:1 |
Account logo - Height: 180px min, Width: 180px - 2560px |
Optional |
Optional |
No - 10.1 maximum |
Account icon - Height: 180px min, Width: 180px - 2560px |
Optional |
Optional |
No - 1:1 |
Important
Existing ads that are missing square assets will experience reduced supply as they are dropped from rendering on ad units that need the square asset.
Tip
To learn how to create native ads with video in the Native UI, check out Create Native Ads with Video.
App Install Ads¶
Ads for apps are effective at prompting re-engagement. Even if users saw the ads but did not click through, they were 11% more likely to reuse the app. App users acquired with video ads have up to 43% more sessions compared to an average user.
The Video App Install format is a combination of a card plus a 30-second video spot.
On loading, a full-screen, 30-second video ad will display followed by a full-screen endcard. The end-card will include a call-to-action, instructing the user to download the app in the app store and a close button that will allow the user to immediately return to the app they were using.
Carousel Ads¶
The Native Carousel offers advertisers the ability to tell a visual story by grouping up to five cards (images and captions) in a single execution. Each image that users swipe though can link to a unique landing page to drive deeper user engagement.
Carousel Ads can drive 2X to 3X higher CRT compared to single image ads.
Note
Carousel Ads are best handled by managed accounts. If you’re a self-serve account, you may want to step up to a managed account and take advantage of Carousel Ads.
Tip
To learn how to create Carousel Ads in the Native UI, check out Use Carousel Ads To Deliver Impactful Storytelling Messages.
User Personalized Ads¶
User Personalized Ads let you serve native ads and personalized messages to your best consumer audience, based on their geo locations. Consumers are served ads that feature their specific city, state or country.
Improve CRT and drive ROI by personalizing your ad titles, descriptions, and landing URLs by geo (city, state, country). Add the macros {city}
, {state}
& {country}
in the Ad title, description and landing page URL in the Native UI. You can also add these abbreviated macros: {state_abbr}
, {country_abbr}
.
Early results show a compelling lift for User Personalized Ads over non-personalized image ads. CPC improved by 25%, CTR by 2x (102%), and CVR improved by 92%.

Note that location is determined by IP and geo location data. If the location is unavailable, User Personalized Ads will not serve. Because of this, advertisers should also run a non-personalized version of the ad. Personalized and non-personalized should be in the same ad group.
User Personalized Ads are available in any language and in all markets. User Personalized Ads also support app install campaigns. Advertisers can use single image, video, or mail (pencil unit) ad formats when targeting app install objectives.
Learn More¶
For more information on deliverables, guidelines & specifications, refer to Yahoo Native Ad (Standard).
- ad spend¶
Ad spend tracks the cost of a campaign and is used to calculate the ROAS metric (return on ad spend).
- ad group¶
An ad group is a set of ads and related keywords within a campaign. The ads that can be displayed to prospective customers searching for or viewing content related to advertiser keywords and/or ads. You can apply a default ad group bid to all keywords in an ad group or set custom bids for individual keywords.
- ad description¶
The description of the ad that will be shown to the user. The maximum length is 150 characters.
- ad group settings¶
- Ad group settings are user-selected settings for ad groups
in the user interface that include fields for name, schedule, bid strategy and average bid.
- ad¶
An ad is an assembly of creatives and other ad details, like title, description, landing page URL, display URL, and more.
format The format of an ad unit.
- audiences from a customer list¶
Enables advertisers to target their ads to a specific set of people with whom they have already established a relationship. Audiences can be defined using Apple’s Advertising Identifier (IDFA), or Android’s advertising ID (GPADVID). Once created, these segments will be available for targeting using the TargetingAttribute service. A user will remain in an audience for 30 days from the moment their device was added, unless removed earlier using the API.
- audiences from website¶
Audiences from an advertiser’s website allow you to define and manage audience segments of people who have visited or have taken certain actions on your website. Once created, these segments will be available for targeting using the TargetingAttribute service.
- audience¶
The settings in the user interface to define an advertiser audience, including locations, age,
interests, and so on. An audience is a collection of consumers with similar interests, habits,
or online and offline behaviors.
- app install ads¶
Ads for apps are effective at prompting re-engagement. Even if users saw the ads but did not click through, they were 11% more likely to reuse the app. App users acquired with video ads have up to 43% more sessions compared to an average user.
- ad landing URL¶
The ad landing URL is the URL where the user was redirected to upon clicking the ad.
- auto reload¶
Auto reload is an option to set automatic payments for a campaign. When the campaign runs out of funds, the advertiser is charged again automatically and the campaign keeps running.
- ad exchange¶
An ad exchange is an ad platform that enables the sale of advertising space from publishers to advertisers through real-time bidding.
- bid¶
A bid is the maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click (CPC) or for 1000 impressions (CPM)).
- bid adjustment¶
A bid adjustment is the percentage or a fixed monetary amount by which to increase a bid for cases where traffic appears to be consistent with an advertiser’s selected targeting preferences. Used by advertisers to bid more competitively for certain targets.
- bid limit¶
The bid limit is the maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click when campaign optimization is turned on.
- bidding strategy¶
A bidding strategy enables an advertiser to hit a CPC goal while also driving additional conversions, or maximizing the number of conversions driven by budget to meet specific spend goals.
- bid estimation¶
A bid estimation is the expected amount of a bid prior to an auction. A bidded match type is the keyword specified by the bidded match type.
- bidded search¶
A search that produces at least one ad (or impression) that was shown.
- bucket¶
A bucket is a group of users, defined by browser cookies (bcookie), exposed to an experience or technology.
- bid amount¶
The bid amount is the maximum price an advertiser is willing to pay when one of its served ad listings experiences a user-click event.
- blacklist¶
A blacklist is list of URLs that are absolutely prohibited as ad inventory on the platform for quality control reasons. Compare with whitelist, which is a list of URLs that are approved as ad inventory on the platform.
- budget¶
Budget is the money allocated for a campaign, specified in the currency of the account, and is intended to be spent in total or on a daily basis for a specified timeframe, as indicated by the start and end dates of the campaign.
- broad match¶
A Broad Match finds all ads where the user query broadly matches the advertisers keyword. There are no syntactic requirements for a match. There do not have to be words in common, but they should have something semantically in common. The least restrictive form of matching, driven by various forms of offline analysis.
- campaign¶
A campaign contains one or more ad groups sharing the same budget, schedule, and targeting criteria. A campaign is typically created to support a particular marketing goal.
- CPC (average)¶
The CPC (average) is the average cost per click over a selected time frame.
- CPI (average)¶
The CPI (average) is the average cost per install value.
- CPM (average)¶
The CPM (average) is the average cost per thousand impressions.
- campaign objective¶
The campaign objective is defined in the campaign settings of the user interface, also referred to as the campaign goal.
- carousel ads¶
Carousel ads present a visual story that is created by grouping up to five cards (images and captions) into a single execution. Each image that users swipe through links to a unique landing page to drive deeper user engagement.
- click¶
Clicks are the action that occurs when an ad is selected.
- Cost Per Click (CPC)¶
The Cost Per Click (CPC) is cost of advertising divided by the number of clicks.
- Cost Per Completed View (CPCV)¶
Cost Per Completed View (CPCV) is the price an advertiser pays every time a video ad runs through to completion; rather than paying for all impressions, some of which may have been stopped before completion, and advertiser only pays for ads that finished.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)¶
Click-Through Rate (CPC) is the number of clicks received divided by the number of impressions generated. Example: An ad that is displayed 100 times and receives 25 clicks has a click-through rate of 0.25.
- conversions¶
The total number of conversions, including both post-click and post-impressions.
- Cost Per Impressions (CPM)¶
Cost Per Impressions (CPM) is the maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for 1,000 views of an ad.
- completion¶
Completion is the number of impressions divided by the number of bidded searches, measured as depth - high, medium or low.
- cost per acquistion¶
The cost of acquiring a conversion (CPA) is calculated as the total cost of online marketing activities divided by the number of conversions.
- cost per click¶
CPC is the cost per click over the current base bid.
- cost per completed view¶
- The cost per completed view (CPCV) is the price an advertiser
pays every time a video
ad runs through to completion; rather than paying for all impressions, some of which may have been stopped before completion, and advertiser only pays for ads that finished.
- call to action¶
A Call to action can be a text link, button, image, or some type of web link that entices a user to visit a landing page and take action –– for example, Shop Now.
- destination URL¶
The destination URL is the landing page URL where the user will be taken to when clicking on the ad.
- dot tag¶
Dot is Verizon Media’s universal tracking tag. Dot tags are used to communicate website and app events when advertisers want to track performance and optimize Yahoo search, native and display campaigns.
Dot tags also enable retargeting and advanced audience targeting for various Verizon Media channels.
- DSP (Demand-Side Platform)¶
A system that handles the programmatic bidding and purchase of auction-based online advertising.
- exact match¶
An Exact Match finds all the ads where the user query is exactly the same as the advertiser’s keyword. For example, a user searches for “red flowers” and advertiser is bidding on “red flowers”. This is the most restrictive form of matching.
- editorial guidelines¶
A set of editorial guidelines give advertisers direction for creating ads that will help provide a quality experience for users on the Verizon Media network.
Following the editorial guidelines is required in order for ads to be displayed by Verizon Media Search Marketing.
- effective CPM (eCPM)¶
effective CPM (eCPM) is the cost per Mille (1000) impressions. A performance measure of an ad unit, it is calculated after serving an ad and processing any transactions (for example, clicks). Advertisers pay this fee which is distributed to Verizon Media and publishers. eCPM = (total-earnings / impressions) * 1000
- frequency capping¶
Frequency capping limits how often a particular creative is served to a user – for example, no more than 3 times per 24 hours.
- geographic targeting¶
Geographic targeting is a type of audience targeting that is based on a user’s geographic location as defined by country, state, DMA or other marketing area, and custom geographical areas.
- geotargeting¶
A technique for pinpointing the geographical area (address, city, state, postal code) to use for search, and thus find more relevant sponsored listings based on regions advertisers associate with their listings. A user may be associated to a location by IP address, by Keywords, by citystpc, or by hloc (home location).
- geolocation¶
A technique for approximating a user’s Internet location.
- GUCE (Global User Consent Event)¶
All products (desktop, mobile, native apps, appliance software) that have front-end, user-facing experiences must implement trapping logic, also known as a pop-up banner upon arrival, and show consent of their updated privacy policy and terms of service. This is part of GDPR.
- GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)¶
GDPR is a European Union (EU) regulation designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe that is intended to protect and empower the data privacy for all EU citizens. Verizon Media is present in the EU and subject to these
regulations.
- hard targeting¶
Hard targeting is a form of search targeting associated with a searched-for bidded-term, when that bidded-term is retained, if it passes the evaluation for the targeting demand (for example, gender targeting). Targeting that causes an ad candidate to be kept or discarded.
- Image ads¶
Image ads are ads that fit the form and function of the content around them, such as within the content stream on Verizon Media properties, apps and third-party publishers.
Impression One instance of an ad displayed on a webpage. Ad serving systems typically track impression statistics to help evaluate performance.
Impression share The impression share of the advertiser within the marketplace, based on keyword level data.
Impression tracking URL The 3rd-party tracking URL utilized to track impressions.
- impressions¶
Impressions are the number of views an ad receives.
- In App Post Click Conversions¶
The total Post Click Conversions that occurred in the app after it was installed. These conversions occurred in the app, but were attributed to clicks made on an ad outside of the app, for example, a 7 day lookback window.
- keywords¶
A keyword is a token or query. It can be a word or phrase that relates to the products or services an advertiser wishes to promote or sell. When prospective customers look for information related to advertiser keywords, relevant ads may be displayed.
- KPI (Key Performance Indicator)¶
KPI is a tool in the user interface that enables advertisers to view and customize charting data and key performance metrics for their campaigns, ads, ad groups and keywords. An advertiser can view hourly data for campaigns, ads and ad groups, and perform day-parting bid optimization for enhanced campaign performance.
The KPI tool supports the following date ranges: Today, Yesterday, and a custom range within 24 hours. The tool supports these entities: Campaigns, Ad Group, Ad, and Keywords.
- Mail ads¶
Mail ads are a companion to Native ads served exclusively in Yahoo Mail. On user-click, the Yahoo Mail Ad appears in the Mail message pane, displaying as if the user had opened a marketing email from the advertiser. Users can interact with the HTML content in the message, forward it to friends and family, save it to their inbox (where it will appear with other incoming email messages), or close it without taking any other action.
- match types¶
The search matching technology that uses a bidded-term’s match type to generate an initial set of ad candidates for a result set. Each bidded term is associated with one of these match types: Exact Match, Phrase Match, or Broad Match.
- MVP (Minimum Viable Product)¶
MVP defines the bare minimum set of features a product needs to ship to production. Once an MVP is launched, the product can be improved in rapid iterations. Used for fast and quantitative market testing of a product or product feature.
- MAPPI (Mobile App Install)¶
MAPPI (Mobile App Install) is the the name given to an offline pipeline and serving system dedicated to making user-level predictions of click and conversions for mobile app install ads. MAPPI is integrated with native serving as an external ranking service and used to make predictions for all incoming requests on mobile phone and tablet having a mobile device id.
- negative keywords¶
Negative keywords are search terms you may want to prevent from being used to match to the ads in your account. The excluded words feature lets you refine your matching by blocking words that you believe are not relevant to your products or services. This can help keep your ad relevant to searchers.
- native¶
Native Ads have the look and feel of the content around it as well as are contextually and personally relevant to the user.
- native video ads¶
Native video ads are clickable video ads that fit the form and function of the content around them, like the content stream on Verizon Media properties, apps, and third-party publishers. Typically, native video ads will drive a 50% lift in brand favorability and 28% lift in purchase intent.
- oCPC (Optimized CPC)¶
oCPC (Optimized CPC) is a performance pricing feature, best used if an advertiser is concerned about CPA (Cost Per Acquistion), but not any other metric. Based on the conversion prediction, oCPC will automatically work out the bid (instead of using a fixed maximum bid) in the auction to optimize for conversion. oCPC performs well on mature advertising accounts that have extensive conversion data. The model can work out a more accurate conversion prediction, given more historical data.
- phrase match¶
Finds all ads where the user query is a contiguous subset of the the advertiser’s keyword. For example, a user search for “red tea roses” will match for an advertiser keywords “red tea roses”, “deep red tea roses”, “red tea roses with white”, and “deep red tea roses with white”.
- Post View conversions¶
A conversion that takes place after a users has viewed the ad.
- Post Click conversions¶
A conversion that takes place after a user has clicked on the ad.
- Post Impression conversions¶
A conversion that takes place after a user has viewed the ad.
- product feed¶
A product feed, also known as a product catalog, is a data file that consists of an advertisers’ product information, leveraged by any commerce advertiser across verticals, like Retail, Travel and Auto.
- Real-time bidding (RTB)¶
Real-time bidding (RTB) is the process of using demand-side platforms (DSPs) to bid automatically, in real-time for ad impressions. The bidding occurs in the fractions of a second between the time a user clicks an ad and lands on its corresponding landing page.
- Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)¶
Return On Ad Spend is the revenue (conversion value) divided by ad spend. ROAS will calculate the ROIs that are returned for each campaign, according to the Conversion Value that the advertiser provides via their Dot tag instrumentation.
- ROI¶
A Return on Investment is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of an investment, or to compare the efficiency and profitability of multiple investments.
The formula for ROI is: Gain from Investment minus Cost of Investment, all divided by Cost of Investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or ratio.
- retargeting¶
retargeting is a form of behavioral search targeting employed by online marketers and used to target an audience based on users’ previous searches across websites. This allows an advertiser to target users who have visited (or not visited) their website and performed (or not performed) some action on that website.
- SoN (Search on Native)¶
SoN (Search on Native) is a feature that uses Search demand to serve ads in Native ad serving. This enables advertisers to drive more traffic and maximize the impact of their search campaigns by targeting customers who have searched for their products on native inventory, thus extending the reach of campaigns.
- SSP (Supply-Side Platform)¶
In the context of programmatic advertising, the SSP is the publisher for the DSP.
- search¶
A word or phrase that is entered into a search engine to find information, products, or services online. Advertisers select and bid on keywords relevant to their products or services. Ads can appear in search results when people enter a search term related to a keyword.
- Sticky¶
Release: 1.0 on 2019-07-08 Author: Tom Maremaa Reading time: 3 minutes Target: Managed Accounts Abstract: New feature in UI that enables advertisers to analyze how a customer reached a conversion, either by click or impression. Used to measure the weight of each touchpoint and optimize ad spend for best results and ROI.
- Tiles ads¶
Tiles ads are an ad format optimized for mobile that loads instantly with videos, images, and text and is designed to communicate an advertiser message in a portrait format that is natural, engaging, and immediate.