Is it allowed to add a button for the user to request a new native ad themselves?

[actinarium]

Hello,

I am writing an app of such nature that users may actually be interested in viewing more ads without any incentive (an app appealing to the users who are very bored). Therefore I’m thinking of adding a reasonably subtle “Refresh ad” button so that users may request another ad until they encounter something interesting.

My two questions:

• Is this allowed by the policy?
• Will it have any negative impact on my revenue? (Because I read somewhere that serving more ads to a single user results in lower CPM)

Regards,
Paul

[westsidefeline]

@actinarium

Hi - I’ve synced with our Policy team on this and this suggested behavior would almost certainly end up violating Section 4e which prohibits misleading clicks. We would not recommend integrating MoPub in this fashion.

You can learn more by reviewing our Terms of Service and Supply Side Policies.

Tiffany

[actinarium]

Hi! Thanks for the response.

Regarding 4e — hmm, I would never thought my solution would violate that section. The thing I have in mind are neither inducements (I wouldn’t offer any reward for refreshing the ad) nor artificial clicks (I wouldn’t design it so that people would unintentionally refresh or click the ads). I was thinking of just adding a “Serve another ad” button somewhere in the context menu for the native ad card UI. After all:

• banner ads do refresh automatically each 30+ seconds, and that’s OK;
• some platforms like AdMob provide an option where you can “Close this ad”, particularly because “I’m not interested in this ad”, and the SDK will serve you another;
• an answer from MoPub staff here suggests that it is acceptable to implement auto refresh of native ads:

We do not support refreshing for native ads, but if you wish, you can force a call to loadAdsForAdUnitID: at your desired time

so I don’t quite understand why refreshing a native ad — not automatically but when the user is explicitly interested — would violate the policy. Besides, the ad will refresh anyway if the user leaves and re-enters the app, or simply rotates the screen (on Android) — so why not make it more convenient?

Anyway, I am not implementing such scenario unless I am absolutely sure this is acceptable.

Regards,
Paul

[westsidefeline]

I circled back with our Policy on your concerns and they still stand by the decision. The main issue is that user-initiated refresh will either a) be incentivized in some way (w/a reward or no) or b) could potentially be abused or circumvented (i.e., bots, etc…).

You can take advantage of the sanctioned and certified ad refresh options that MoPub provides.

[actinarium]

Okay, fair enough. Thank you.