Custom Native Ad Formats

Custom native ad formats

In addition to the system-defined native formats, Ad Manager publishers have the option of creating their own native ad formats by defining custom lists of assets. These are called custom native ad formats, and can be used with reserved ads. This enables publishers to pass arbitrary structured data to their apps. These ads are represented by the NativeCustomFormatAd object.

Load custom native ad formats

This guide explains how to load and display custom native ad formats.

Build an AdLoader

Like native ads, custom native ad formats are loaded using the AdLoader class:

Java

AdLoader adLoader = new AdLoader.Builder(context, "/21775744923/example/native")
    .forCustomFormatAd("10063170",
      new NativeCustomFormatAd.OnCustomFormatAdLoadedListener() {
          @Override
          public void onCustomFormatAdLoaded(NativeCustomFormatAd ad) {
              // Show the custom format and record an impression.
          }
      },
      new NativeCustomFormatAd.OnCustomClickListener() {
          @Override
          public void onCustomClick(NativeCustomFormatAd ad, String s) {
              // Handle the click action
          }
      })
    .withAdListener( ... )
    .withNativeAdOptions( ... )
    .build();

Kotlin

val adLoader = AdLoader.Builder(this, "/21775744923/example/native")
        .forCustomFormatAd("10063170",
            { ad ->
                // Show the custom format and record an impression.
            },
            { ad, s ->
            // Handle the click action
            })
        .withAdListener( ... )
        .withNativeAdOptions( ... )
        .build()

The forCustomFormatAd method configures the AdLoader to request custom native ad formats. There are three parameters passed into the method:

The ID of the custom native ad format the AdLoader should request. Each custom native ad format has an ID associated with it. This parameter indicates which format your app wants the AdLoader to request.
An OnCustomFormatAdLoadedListener to be invoked when an ad has loaded successfully.
An optional OnCustomClickListener to be invoked when the user taps or clicks on the ad. For more on this listener, see the "Handling clicks and impressions" section below.

Because a single ad unit can be set up to serve more than one creative format, forCustomFormatAd can be called multiple times with unique format IDs in order to prepare the ad loader for more than one possible custom native ad format.

Custom native ad format ID

The format ID used to identify a custom native ad format can be found in the Ad Manager UI under the Native section inside the Delivery dropdown:

Each custom native ad format ID appears beside its name. Clicking on one of the names brings you to a details screen showing information about the format's fields:

From here, individual fields can be added, edited, and removed. Note the Name of each of the assets. The name is the key used to get the data for each asset when displaying your custom native ad format.

Display custom native ad formats

Custom native ad formats differ from system-defined ones in that publishers have the power to define their own list of assets that make up an ad. Therefore, the process for displaying one differs from system-defined formats in a few ways:

Because the NativeCustomFormatAd class is meant to handle any of the custom native ad formats you define in Ad Manager, it doesn't have named "getters" for assets. Instead, it offers methods like getText and getImage that take the name of the field as a parameter.
There is no dedicated ad view class like NativeAdView to use with NativeCustomFormatAd. You are free to use any layout that whatever makes sense for your user experience.
Because there is no dedicated ViewGroup class, you do not need to register any of the views you use to display the ad's assets. This saves a few lines of code when displaying the ad, but also means you'll need to do a little extra work to handle clicks later on.

Here's an example function that displays a NativeCustomFormatAd:

Java

public void displayCustomFormatAd (ViewGroup parent,
                                     NativeCustomFormatAd customFormatAd) {
    // Inflate a layout and add it to the parent ViewGroup.
    LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) parent.getContext()
            .getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
    View adView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_format_ad, parent);

    // Locate the TextView that will hold the value for "Headline" and
    // set its text.
    TextView myHeadlineView = (TextView) adView.findViewById(R.id.headline);
    myHeadlineView.setText(customFormatAd.getText("Headline"));

    // Locate the ImageView that will hold the value for "MainImage" and
    // set its drawable.
    Button myMainImageView = (ImageView) adView.findViewById(R.id.main_image);
    myMainImageView.setImageDrawable(
            customFormatAd.getImage("MainImage").getDrawable());

    ...
    // Continue locating views and displaying assets until finished.
    ...
}

Kotlin

public fun displayCustomFormatAd (parent: ViewGroup,
                                customFormatAd: NativeCustomFormatAd) {
    val adView = layoutInflater
            .inflate(R.layout.ad_simple_custom_format, null)

    val myHeadlineView = adView.findViewById<TextView>(R.id.headline)
    myHeadlineView.setText(customFormatAd.getText("Headline"));

    // Locate the ImageView that will hold the value for "MainImage" and
    // set its drawable.
    val myMainImageView = adView.findViewById(R.id.main_image);
    myMainImageView.setImageDrawable(
            customFormatAd.getImage("MainImage").drawable);

    ...
    // Continue locating views and displaying assets until finished.
    ...
}

Render the AdChoices icon

As part of Supporting the Digital Services Act (DSA), reservation ads served in the European Economic Area (EEA) require an AdChoices icon and a link to Google's About This Ad page. When implementing custom native ads, you are responsible for rendering the AdChoices icon. We recommend you take steps to render and set the click listener for the AdChoices icon when rendering the main ad assets.

The following example assumes you have defined an <ImageView /> element in your view hierarchy to hold the AdChoices logo.

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/adChoices"
        android:layout_width="15dp"
        android:layout_height="15dp"
        android:adjustViewBounds="true"
        android:contentDescription="AdChoices icon." />
</LinearLayout>

The following examples renders the AdChoices icon and configure the appropriate click behavior.

Java

private AdSimpleCustomTemplateBinding customTemplateBinding;

private void populateAdView(final NativeCustomFormatAd nativeCustomFormatAd) {
  // Render the AdChoices icon.
  String adChoicesKey = NativeAdAssetNames.ASSET_ADCHOICES_CONTAINER_VIEW;
  NativeAd.Image adChoicesAsset = nativeCustomFormatAd.getImage(adChoicesKey);
  if (adChoicesAsset == null) {
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.setVisibility(View.GONE);
  } else {
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.setImageDrawable(adChoicesAsset.getDrawable());

    // Enable clicks on AdChoices.
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.setOnClickListener(
        new View.OnClickListener() {
          @Override
          public void onClick(View v) {
            nativeCustomFormatAd.performClick(adChoicesKey);
          }
        });
  }
  ...
}

Kotlin

private lateinit var customTemplateBinding: AdSimpleCustomTemplateBinding

private fun populateAdView(nativeCustomFormatAd: NativeCustomFormatAd) {
  // Render the AdChoices icon.
  val adChoicesKey = NativeAdAssetNames.ASSET_ADCHOICES_CONTAINER_VIEW
  val adChoicesAsset = nativeCustomFormatAd.getImage(adChoicesKey)
  if (adChoicesAsset == null) {
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.visibility = View.GONE
  } else {
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.setImageDrawable(adChoicesAsset.drawable)
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.visibility = View.VISIBLE

    // Enable clicks on AdChoices.
    customTemplateBinding.adChoices.setOnClickListener {
      nativeCustomFormatAd.performClick(adChoicesKey)
    }
  }
  ...
}

Native video for custom native ad formats

When creating a custom format, you have the option to make the format eligible for video.

In your app implementation, you can use NativeCustomFormatAd.getMediaContent() to get the media content. Then call setMediaContent() to set the media content on your media view. to your media view. If the ad doesn't have video content, make alternate plans to show the ad without a video.

The example below checks if the ad has video content, and displays an image in its place if a video is not available:

Java

// Called when a custom native ad loads.
@Override
public void onCustomFormatAdLoaded(final NativeCustomFormatAd ad) {

  MediaContent mediaContent = ad.getMediaContent();

  // Assumes you have a FrameLayout in your view hierarchy with the id media_placeholder.
  FrameLayout mediaPlaceholder = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.media_placeholder);

  // Apps can check the MediaContent's hasVideoContent property to determine if the
  // NativeCustomFormatAd has a video asset.
  if (mediaContent != null && mediaContent.hasVideoContent()) {
    MediaView mediaView = new MediaView(mediaPlaceholder.getContext());
    mediaView.setMediaContent(mediaContent);
    mediaPlaceholder.addView(mediaView);

    // Create a new VideoLifecycleCallbacks object and pass it to the VideoController. The
    // VideoController will call methods on this object when events occur in the video
    // lifecycle.
    VideoController vc = mediaContent.getVideoController();
    vc.setVideoLifecycleCallbacks(
        new VideoController.VideoLifecycleCallbacks() {
          @Override
          public void onVideoEnd() {
            // Publishers should allow native ads to complete video playback before
            // refreshing or replacing them with another ad in the same UI location.
            super.onVideoEnd();
          }
        });
  } else {
    ImageView mainImage = new ImageView(this);
    mainImage.setAdjustViewBounds(true);
    mainImage.setImageDrawable(ad.getImage("MainImage").getDrawable());
    mediaPlaceholder.addView(mainImage);
    mainImage.setOnClickListener(
        new View.OnClickListener() {
          @Override
          public void onClick(View view) {
            ad.performClick("MainImage");
          }
        });
  }
}

Kotlin

// Called when a custom native ad loads.
NativeCustomFormatAd.OnCustomFormatAdLoadedListener { ad ->

  val mediaContent = ad.mediaContent

  // Apps can check the MediaContent's hasVideoContent property to determine if the
  // NativeCustomFormatAd has a video asset.
  if (mediaContent != null && mediaContent.hasVideoContent()) {
    val mediaView = MediaView(mediaPlaceholder.getContest())
    mediaView.mediaContent = mediaContent

    val videoController = mediaContent.videoController

    // Create a new VideoLifecycleCallbacks object and pass it to the VideoController. The
    // VideoController will call methods on this object when events occur in the video
    // lifecycle.
    if (videoController != null) {
      videoController.videoLifecycleCallbacks =
        object : VideoController.VideoLifecycleCallbacks() {
          override fun onVideoEnd() {
            // Publishers should allow native ads to complete video playback before refreshing
            // or replacing them with another ad in the same UI location.
            super.onVideoEnd()
          }
        }
    }
  } else {
    val mainImage = ImageView(this)
    mainImage.adjustViewBounds = true
    mainImage.setImageDrawable(ad.getImage("MainImage")?.drawable)

    mainImage.setOnClickListener { ad.performClick("MainImage") }
    customTemplateBinding.simplecustomMediaPlaceholder.addView(mainImage)
  }
}

See MediaContent for more information on how you can customize a custom native ad's video experience.

Download the Ad Manager Custom Rendering example for a working example of native video in action.

Custom native ad format clicks and impressions

With custom native ad formats, your app is responsible for recording impressions and reporting click events to the Google Mobile Ads SDK.

Record impressions

To record an impression for a custom format ad, call the recordImpression method on the corresponding NativeCustomFormatAd:

myCustomFormatAd.recordImpression();

If your app accidentally calls the method twice for the same ad, the SDK automatically prevents a duplicate impression from being recorded for a single request.

Report clicks

To report to the SDK that a click has occurred on an asset view, call the performClick method on the corresponding NativeCustomFormatAd and pass in the name of the asset that was clicked. For example, if you had an asset in your custom format called "MainImage" and wanted to report a click on the ImageView that corresponded to that asset, your code would look like this:

myCustomFormatAd.performClick("MainImage");

Note that you don't need to call this method for every view associated with your ad. If you had another field called "Caption" that was meant to be displayed but not clicked or tapped on by the user, your app would not need to call performClick for that asset's view.

Respond to custom click actions

When a click is performed on a custom format ad, there are three possible responses from the SDK, attempted in this order:

Invoke the OnCustomClickListener from AdLoader, if one was provided.
For each of the ad's deep link URLs, attempt to locate a content resolver and start the first one that resolves.
Open a browser and navigate to the ad's traditional Destination URL.

The forCustomFormatAd method accepts an OnCustomClickListener. If you pass a listener object in, the SDK instead invokes its onCustomClick method and takes no further action. If you pass a null value as the listener, however, the SDK falls back to the deeplink and/or destination URLs registered with the ad.

Custom Click listeners allow your app to decide the best action to take in response to a click, whether it's updating the UI, launching a new activity, or merely logging the click. Here's an example that simply logs that a click took place:

Java

AdLoader adLoader = new AdLoader.Builder(context, "/21775744923/example/native")
    .forCustomFormatAd("10063170",
      new NativeCustomFormatAd.OnCustomFormatAdLoadedListener() {
        // Display the ad.
      },
      new NativeCustomFormatAd.OnCustomClickListener() {
          @Override
          public void onCustomClick(NativeCustomFormatAd ad, String assetName) {
            Log.i("MyApp", "A custom click just happened for " + assetName + "!");
          }
      }).build();

Kotlin

val adLoader = AdLoader.Builder(this, "/21775744923/example/native")
    .forCustomFormatAd("10063170",
        { ad ->
            // Display the ad.
        },
        { ad, assetName ->
                Log.i("MyApp", "A custom click just happened for $assetName!")
    }).build()

At first, it might seem strange that custom click listeners exist. After all, your app just told the SDK that a click happened, so why should the SDK turn around and report that to the app?

This flow of information is useful for a few reasons, but most importantly it allows the SDK to remain in control of the response to the click. It can automatically ping third-party tracking URLs that have been set for the creative, for example, and handle other tasks behind the scenes, without any additional code.