Vungle’s dynamic templates will give mobile publishers more video ad options

Vungle is launching new options for video ads that could bring some innovation back to the advertising of mobile ads and games.

The new “dynamic templates” represent a big change for the company’s mobile video ad platform, as they give mobile publishers more options in terms of how players will see video ads across a wide swath of devices, Vungle chief executive Zain Jaffer said in an interview with GamesBeat.

Jaffer said that both users and developers are “tired of the lack of innovation in mobile video ads.” To address that problem, Vungle’s templates will provide more choices for publishers who advertise their games and apps, giving them access to five different templates for showing video ads.

As an example, Jaffer said that many users in emerging markets, such as India, can’t run videos in full screen because it chews up too much bandwidth and processing power. So those users have to run videos in a smaller window. The templates will give publishers the option to do this without incurring big headaches. The result is a better consumer experience and possibly better conversion and downloads.

“Mobile has fundamentally changed the world of performance advertising. Low-quality, poorly designed video ads simply no longer have a place in apps today,” said Jaffer. “With the introduction of Dynamic Templates, we’ve now made it possible to develop rich creatives that can be scaled and optimized to run across a range of platforms and devices. Publishers will have even more ways to generate revenue without sacrificing their user experience. It is a critical part of our broader mission to help companies drive ROI through lifetime-value (LTV) optimization.”

A new Carousel template, one of the four unique designs already released, allows a user to swipe from side to side to view different videos. That template shows a 20 percent conversion uplift over existing full-screen video ad formats. And it has up to 800 percent conversion uplift in initial tests, with a 200 percent conversion uplift average over customer creatives.

”Vungle’s new Dynamic Templates are more than just a product enhancement; they solidify Vungle as one of the most innovative video ad tech companies,” said Sumee Oh, director of marketing at Jam City (formerly SGN), in a statement.

Dynamic Templates drive performance and enhance the ad experience by giving advertisers a range of new templates in which their creative can be used. Each new template is responsive, so ads always provide a premium ad experience for consumers, regardless of their OS, device, or screen orientation. The templates are also modular, so a single creative can be scaled and optimized in real time across multiple templates, thereby streamlining campaign efficiency and maximizing conversion rates.

For publishers, Dynamic Templates bolster revenue and protect the customer experience by increasing the ad variety that users see. Moreover, enhanced optimization and higher conversion rates for advertisers mean publishers can earn more ad revenue for their available inventory.

Publishers will have to download a new software development kit. But once they do that, the updates to new templates will come automatically, so publishers won’t have to repeatedly download new SDKs, Jaffer said.

This saves valuable engineering resources and app review cycles, while also granting immediate access to innovative, high-performing templates that can further increase ad revenue. Other ad formats include interstitial, overlays, and gradients.

Added Jaffer, “At Vungle, we’re on a mission to develop solutions that empower performance advertisers and publishers to deliver a great ad experience while also driving measurable ROI. Dynamic Templates goes a long way toward helping our customers achieve exactly that.”

Dynamic Templates is available now for iOS and Android through Vungle’s latest SDKs. Vungle is backed by Google Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, and Crosslink Capital.

Above: Zain Jaffer, CEO of Vungle, at Casual Connect USA.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi