Brands use native advertising to reach audiences in a contextually relevant and non-intrusive way, which resonates well with consumers. Globally, the predictions are that advertisers will be moving 25% of their marketing budgets from traditional advertising to native advertising by 2022. According to Business Insider, native advertising will drive 74% of all advertising revenue by 2021. Marketers can create native ads in the form of consumer content, influencer marketing, topical articles, mobile apps, social media, eye-catching videos and stickers.

Stickers are an area where Viber has thrived for years, with over 2.5bn sent each month. Users love to share them and send them in a natural, conversational manner, which is exactly how brands also want to engage with users. That’s why we built a “Stickers Best Practice” guide (below).

We’ve analyzed the various sticker components and have provided tips and tricks to ensure your stickers are not only fun enough for our users, but interesting enough to drive results.

Text

Stickers are a fun and often new ad type for people to experiment with in their marketing. Having said that, many of the same words and types of text will and will not work. Be expressive, thematic and conversational. Don’t be offensive, careless and don’t just showcase your product without thinking of the context of how stickers get used by consumers. It will not resonate.

Visual

There is a massive opportunity to be creative with the stickers you create. The key is not to go overboard— build a vibrant, legible and cohesive sticker pack that ties back to your brand and/or campaign. Avoid turning your stickers into just another digital ad that disinterests users.

Audio

We already have users’ attention in the app for 30+ minutes every day per user, so give them something to hear too. Pairing the imagery with audio can have a tremendous impact on delivering your message as well as scaling the reach and exposure of your stickers. Testing both static and animated stickers with sound is crucial to understanding what works for your brand.

Pro tip: Use the most native form of ads on the market—the dos and don’ts of stickers.

Download the full infographic here.

Marketing experts estimate that most Americans are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day. So now that consumers’ daily digital lives look like Time Square on steroids, here’s the truth: the overwhelming majority of digital ads that consumers see are not just mediocre—they’re bad.

It’s not necessarily the brands’ fault. They are somewhat restricted with placement and spec restraints. Agencies aren’t all to blame. They’re at the mercy of their clients, and publishers are not entirely responsible. After all, they can only give so much latitude to brands on creative liberties. This is why we built “Ads Best Practices.”

We’ve dissected the various ad components and have provided tips and tricks to ensure your ads are not only captivating to our users, but intriguing enough to drive conversions.

Campaign
It’s exciting to get the green light on starting a campaign but take a moment and think it through before executing. The key points here center around testing, number of creatives and user relevancy. Test, test and test some more. Seriously do it.

Image
We’ve seen this before. The ad campaign is well thought out but the image is completely lost on the audience. Emphasize vibrant colors and simplicity with your images. Quit trying to fit everything under the sun into one image – it will yield minimal to no results.

Title
The title is the text that will make or break the ad. Without a compelling title, the quality of the image and campaign may not matter. Make sure to highlight what makes you better, be broad with messaging in hopes of retargeting in future campaigns and consider snackable, numbered lists. Everyone loves a list. (See Buzzfeed).

CTA
This is your final call to your audience to engage with and click on your ad. Be clear with the action that they are taking, make them feel empowered to click and feel free to create a sense of urgency. Putting time restraints usually helps.

This is important! Focus on the fundamentals—the dos and don’ts of ads.

Download the full infographic here.