Mobile advertising network InMobi has announced the public launch of its native ads platform, which lets advertisers display their ads in a non-intrusive manner, after a beta launch in January this year. Native advertising is a relatively new concept in online advertising through which advertisers can reach target audience through relevant content, instead of relying on banner ads on mobile. InMobi CEO Naveen Tewari claims that since the beta in January, over 20 billion ads have been served for 100 publishers including Tango and TextMe, across 35 countries, touching 250 million users. InMobi told Tech Crunch that it will invest around $100 million in fleshing out the new native ad platform. Built on top of its ad network, InMobi says that the platform will offer in-context mobile ad units like in-stream ads, icons and news feeds to publishers. They will also have access to global campaigns from app developers, brand marketers and and commerce advertisers on the InMobi ad network. InMobi says that the platform auto-stitches the ads on the fly using the creative assets like logo, tagline, call-to-action & others provided by the advertisers and allow them customize minute details in these ad units, so that it matches the app’s look and feel. This includes visual representation, interaction elements (like swipe or flip) and social sharing options. Native advertising is the way ahead, since everyone is making the switch to mobile. When content is buried in the form of Facebook-sponsored stories, Twitter-promoted Tweets and branded videos on YouTube, such ads do seem less intrusive. In India,…
