• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 4, 2013

Native ad formats and social have emerged as important new ad models. Now Google will offer support for both in DoubleClick.

Google has quietly been testing native ads with a handful of publishers, such as Forbes. Meredith Levien, group publisher and CRO at Forbes, addressed attendees at the DoubleClick advisory board meeting for advertisers and publishers Tuesday to explain how Forbes BrandVoice works.

The platform allows marketers at companies like SAP to connect with readers by creating content or native ads that run on the publisher's site. Levien said brands must adhere to strict guidelines, such as that the content must feel natural on the page, native rather than a pitch, and transparently labeled as ad content.

DoubleClick for Publishers will support native ad products like Forbes by allowing brands to integrate their content management systems into the platform and manage the native ad inventory alongside more traditional ad units.

Neal Mohan, Google vice president-display advertising, also introduced Google Web Designer, a free product that marketers can use to create content in HTML5 and CSS3, so it runs across all up-to-date browsers. Marketers create the content once to run across desktop, smartphones and tablets.

Google also finally integrated social capabilities into its DoubleClick advertising system through its 2012 acquisition of Wildfire. Alongside display advertising and search campaigns, the DoubleClick Campaign Manager will track the performance of non-paid social media campaigns, such as promotions.

The reporting will give brands insight into how social feeds into attribution models, according to Mohan. "This is just the first step," he said. "We aim to introduce a slew of connections between Wildfire and DoubleClick over the next few months and quarters."

Mohan said many in the industry have a misconception that digital technology creates a disconnect between one media and another, or a brand and its audience. A recent study with Boston Consulting Group in Europe found having a platform that connects media saves clients about 33% of time that is otherwise wasted in duplicate efforts. That time translated into days spent creating connections with business partners.