Why do people fall for TikTok? It’s a perfect alternative to social connection: engaging, fun, and personalized. Why do people shop from mobiles? Interfaces are clutter-free and native. In 2024, advertisers should have access to ad formats that embrace both nativity and engagement. With Adsterra, they do!
We moved much further than merely developing a Web Push analog. We created a glorious successor that leaves Web Push behind: users love it, conversions love it, too.
You are now going to unlock all secrets of the Social Bar push and display ad synergy. But let’s start with the “what is Social Bar?” question.
What is Social Bar by Adsterra?
Social Bar inherits all advantages of display and In-Page Push ads. Unlike Web Push, it doesn’t require subscriptions: ads are delivered to all browsers and OS, including iOS.
Ad creatives look like native notifications, widgets, icons, chats, but they won’t be blocked by browsers.
- Capacities: in-page push and display format combo.
- Traffic: all types of desktop and mobile traffic.
- Payment models: CPM, CPC, CPA.
- Delivery: ready-to-use skins (self-service platform); any custom design (managed campaigns).
- Top creatives templates: In-Page Push, Custom Widgets, Interstitials.
- Differentiators: up to 30X higher CTRs; 20+ templates; full customization on demand.
Social Bar interacts with users driving unprecedented CTRs. Skins you take from your Advertiser’s account have proved to convert and stream 10–30X higher CTRs compared to Web Push ads.
Choose among over 20 styles that will perfectly match your conversion goals and your vertical. Let’s provide more details about template skins now.
Ready-to-use creatives: add value to your offers with one click
On the Adsterra Self-Serve Platform (SSP), advertisers access over 20 battle-tested, pre-customized template styles they can customize and apply to any offer. Literally, the easiest way to stand out with your ads without extra effort. Let’s see them in action, shall we?
Creatives’ templates you can use on the Adsterra SSP
Advertisers can choose whether they want creatives to be native like those OS notifications, interactive like chat invocations, or action-focused like pop-up widgets.
After you log in as an advertiser, you need to pick Campaigns → Create. Now pick Social Bar in the Ad Unit and Pricing type and next, hit the + NEW CREATIVE field.
This ad unit embraces several templates we’re going to explore right now.
1. IN-PAGE PUSH: OS-friendly notifications
In-Page Push are best for offers that aim at engaging users to try a new product, download an app, or reply to a social network’s notification.
Here you choose between Android, Windows, iOS- or macOS-native push notifications and social networks and messaging apps invocations.
Offers that convert best: VPN, Antiviruses, PC/Phone cleaners, Apps, Games, Shops, Dating.
2. ICON NOTIFICATIONS or chat heads
This set of creatives allows you to interact with the audience. Creatives look like Insta Stories, chat invitations with or without a text bubble. The secret sauce is the animation that drives many clicks.
When a user gets a chat invitation with a “Hey there! Want to meet a perfect girl in your city?” they almost inevitably click. This Dating case study is the best proof.
Vivid isometric icons or photos collect more clicks than simple banners. It’s fair not only for Dating offers: our partners gain great profit by using chat invitations and icons for VPN, Antiviruses, and other mobile utility offers. Earlier, we shared a case study of making ROI 130% with Social Bar and a VPN offer.
Offers that convert best: Dating, Ecommerce, Apps, Utility, Sweepstakes, PIN Submit.
3. CUSTOM WIDGETS: Trending widgets that grab all clicks
You can now empower your ads look exactly like notifications sent by top mobile OS: friendly, neat, and attention-grabbing. Making your offer look credible from the start is a secret power, isn’t it?
Custom Widgets boast of having a vibrant CTA button or a wide image that you can amp with excellent ad copy. Advertisers can use dark or light themes to create the impact you need.
Offers that convert best: Software, Add-Ons, VPN, Apps, Sweepstakes, Streaming.
4. INTERSTITIALS: A shortcut to outbeat the competition
These full-screen ads are impossible to overlook as they overlay the web page’s content. With a large main visual and a dimmed background, interstitials are designed to capture the user’s attention and engage to click. The visuals are large enough to cover a significant screen share, ranging from 45% to 80%. Take advantage of this opportunity to make your brand shine.
Use cases: scale a Popunder campaign, re-engage users, increase CTRs, increase brand awareness.
Check this case study shared by an affiliate who managed to hit some $1900+ net profit.
Offers that convert best: VPN, iGaming, Dating, E-commerce, Finance, and many others.
Social Bar use cases: how advertisers reach their goals
Proper UX and ultimate engagement – that’s what our advertisers notice first. They use Social Bar’s versatility to create a perfect impact. How exactly? Let’s see some of the most usable marketing cases. We will use both template skins and fully customized creatives designed by our team on demand.
1. Installs, downloads, trials
Often used for advertising: VPN, Utility, Apps, Games.
With Social Bar creatives, you virtually pitch the product before leading users to a lander. To make users download or install an app or utility, you need a super-native format that doesn’t look like a salesly ad. Users are more likely to try a VPN or Dating app when you invite them in a non-intrusive way.
2. Pre-orders, sign-ups, opt-ins
Often used for advertising: E-shops, Apps, iGaming, Finance, Sweeps.
Social Bar makes it easier to deliver the value of an offer, use the FOMO (the fear of missing out) effect, and pre-warm users.
With templates, you can pick a Custom Widget with CTA button or try a chat head inviting users to sign up and try your service.
When you apply for a customized creative, there will be no limits at all. If it’s a seasonal sale, we would add a counter or an animated gallery. With a Sweepstakes offer, we will design a fortune wheel to activate with a mouse hover. E-shops and online gaming platforms deliver welcome coupons and promo codes designed as creatives.
3. Brand awareness, product demo
Often used for advertising: Video on Demand, Streaming, Games, Apps.
Multimedia content is something that neither advertisers nor consumers can go without in 2024. Social Bar can engage users with short videos like TikTok or Reels do. Videos or image carousels are perfect for promoting gadgets, games, or product interfaces. Customized creatives become your perfect movie trailers, teasers, and demonstrations.
How to buy Social Bar traffic (CPM, CPC, CPA)
Your best advertising strategy would be getting in touch with your manager or support team in a live chat on your dashboard to check the latest updates. Our managers are always ready to bring a fresh spin to your strategy making campaigns perform better.
As for pricing models, you can opt in for the following:
- In-Page Push – CPM, CPC, CPA
- Social Bar – CPM, CPC, CPA
- Interstitials: CPM, CPA
Which pricing is better, CPM or CPA?
With the CPA pricing, it is better to start with offers that have a shorter conversion flow, for example, VPNs, Apps, Add-Ons, Cleaners, Sweepstakes. These offers usually require lightweight target actions like installs, trials, op-ins (SOI or DOI), etc.
The CPM model is the first choice for more extended conversion flows, those that demand all types of purchases, credit card submits, deposits, etc. Usually, advertisers use the CPM model for Finance, E-commerce, and iGaming campaigns.
How to add Social Bar creatives
- After the registration, choose Campaigns → Create.
- Find the AdUnit and Pricing type category and pick Social Bar.
- Scroll down till the ADD CREATIVE section and start adding new visuals to your campaign.
Depending on the ad unit, you will then be able to choose the preferable pricing type.
- Every template allows for showcasing your product and deliver your message the best way. In the example above, we picked an In-Page Push template packed as a notification on a messaging app.
- Add headings and CTAs you find will be most engaging.
- Remember to save the creative before you switch to other skins and types.
- You can add up to 15 different creatives based on any template or skin.
What’s great about Social Bar is that you can wrap your offer in totally different visual messages, test them and then, select the most effective.
We recommend adding a ##BANNER_ID## token to your landing page’s URL to pass every creative’s ID to your tracking tool. This is super helpful for further analysis and optimization of your campaigns. See the full list of tokens and save this guide to setting up conversion tracking.
Let’s talk numbers: Benefits of the Social Bar ad format
- Ultra-native ads lead up to 10–30x CTR growth compared to web push.
- Impressive traffic volumes; over 9.9B ad views per month.
- Neat traffic from direct publishers.
- 20+ ready-to-use templates that can make any offer stand out.
- All devices, browsers, OS, iOS traffic included as opposed to web push.
- 20+ advanced targeting options, including OS version, browser version, mobile carrier, IP range.
- A/B testing for up to 15 creatives at a time.
- Great reach and 100% traffic volume; AdBlock won’t hide Social Bar formats.
- Full customization: eye-catching creatives, animation, and interactive elements.
- AI algorithms assure that users see the most relevant ads.
Most asked questions about Social Bar
Is Social Bar a more robust format compared to web push?
Simply put, yes. In 2016-2019, Web Push ads were on top due to their nativity and on-device performance. Lately, this format started folding up. It became too mainstream, ads too “pushy,” and Google Chrome updates too strict. In contrast, the Adsterra Social Bar hits all three goals: viewability, iOS-friendliness, clickability.
Earlier, we shared a definitive guide to key differences between the two ad units.
Is Social Bar an In-Page Push format?
It’s more of a combo format. Social Bar comes with both in-page push and display creatives that don’t require a specific fixed place on a publisher’s website. Most templates look like push notifications, but when you deal with customized design, Social Bar can be…anything, even a lead generation form.
Which pricing to choose for Social Bar?
You can go for the CPM, CPC or CPA pricing on either managed or self-serve account with all template creatives except for Interstitials. The latter come with CPM and CPA only.
We recommend using the CPA or CPC models with a simple conversion flow like installs, trials, and downloads. When your offer implies a complex conversion like credit card submission or payment procedure, it is less expensive and safer to pick the CPM pricing.
CPM works best with long-run campaigns when waiting for conversions and testing traffic slice by slice. Such campaigns are usually set up for iGaming, Sports, E-commerce, and Finance offers and imply user actions like deposits or CC submissions.
Which is preferable, Popunder or Social Bar?
They’re too different to compare. Traditionally, Pop ads generate more massive traffic. However, within Adsterra, the volumes are comparable: about 11.9B VS 9.9B views per month.
You should take into account the specifics of the product you advertise. VPNs, Antiviruses, Browser Extensions, PC Cleaners products are more native when advertised with push-alike formats. Dating services spark with creatives that appear as private chats or social networks’ notifications. Custom creatives with wheels of fortune and counters work splendidly on Sweepstakes and Ecommerce offers. But the latter ones are only available on managed accounts.
If you’re a beginner affiliate who’s not skilled enough in creatives making, you might take a try with Social Bar templates or choose Popunder traffic where you don’t have to design creatives at all.
Ideally, you should try Popunder first and then scale with SB, as this combo gives you almost unlimited opportunities to drive profit 😉
Why do users convert better with Social Bar?
Social Bar is a boiled-down offer description with a powerful visual impact. It allows you to pitch the product, pre-warm the audience while they’re on a publisher’s website BEFORE they pass to your landing page. That differs them a lot from static banners that only expose a picture with a heading.
In addition, the new format allows for showing neat and UX-friendly ads, which is mission-critical when dealing with millennials and gen-Z customers.
Can I test all creative types within one campaign?
Oh, yes, and this is great! You can carry out a battle between a Classic Notification, a Chat Icon, or a Widget powered by a CTA button. Or launch a test with 15 different widgets.
Final thoughts
Now that you’ve explored Social Bar’s capacities, you might want to test it. Our only advice here is, “go ahead and let your imagination fly!”
We also treasure your time and know that each try must be productive. And nothing helps as much as a couple of pro hints. Our managers are here for you in the live chat. They keep up with the agenda and market trends, so they are always ready to share a couple of tricks on how to make your ads stand out.
Let your campaigns skyrocket just as your profits!
