Of the total digital advertising in India of Rs.9490 crore in 2016, almost 50 percent is contributed by mobile advertising. In the years to come, mobile specific advertising will dominate the digital advertising space.

There are multiple ad formats of mobile advertising. Yahoo rolled out Tiles in 2016. InMobi launched video ad suit in 2016. mCanvas introduced recently Streambox.

Banner ads have been widely used since the introduction of online promotion. This is the horizontal ad you see at the top or bottom of the page. It promises visibility and high recall value. It is not intrusive too. It has minimal production cost. Users can interact with it by clicking.

Interstitial ads are the ads which cover the entire mobile screen. This is full-screen advertising after loading or closing an app. It is sponsored by advertisers. To contiue, either the user watches the ad or purchases the ad-free version of the app.

Rich media ad is expandable ad which could be seen as a combination of banner and interstitial ads. It seamlessly integrates call-to-action and other interactive measure to engage the viewer with the advertisement. It combines text, images and video.

Native advertising works seamlessly with the content of the website or app.

(In-app) Video ads uses HD videos targeted at a demography of users to gain maximum impact. It has been steadily gaining traction in India. With the advent of OTT and mobile gaming there is a remarkable growth in video ad spends by marketers.

Aprt from the format, what matters is the placement of the ad. Placement is a function of viewability of the ad, its ability to keep content consumption unhindered and the context of the content.

The challenge the marketers face here is the skip option. Another challenge is the standardisation of ad measurements across the platforms.

Though ad blocking is a bane in the longrun, it will improve the quality of online ads.

In measuring effectiveness, the metrics used were reach, impressions, time spent, frequency, video views. These days there are  third party tools which provide insights beyond reach, CPMs, CPCs and CPIs.