Twitter Buys Namo Media, Ups Native Ad Capacity

Continuing to develop its native ad strategy, Twitter has agreed to buy Namo Media for an undisclosed sum.
 
Per the deal, Twitter plans to add Namo’s technology to its existing native advertising infrastructure.   
 
“In our conversations with the Namo Media team, it became clear we share a vision for how native advertising can improve the state of mobile app monetization,” Kevin Weil, vice president of product at Twitter, said in a Thursday blog post.
 
That vision, as Namo explained in its own post, is based on the “belief that mobile banner ads don’t work for users, publishers or advertisers.”
 
The addition of Namo follows Twitter’s acquisiton of MoPub, last October. Soon after that, the mobile ad exchange debuted a native ad product for mobile app publishers, which is meant to match the look and feel of an app’s surrounding content -- except for a “Sponsored” label.
 
By its own account, Twitter has benefited greatly from its ongoing investments in native advertising.
 
“With the integration of MoPub, we now reach more than 1 billion iOS and Android users each month, making us one of the largest in-app mobile ad exchanges in the world,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said earlier this year when the company reported its first quarter earnings.
 
Revenue for the first quarter grew 119% year-over-year to $250 million, which was better than most analysts’ estimates. Advertising revenue totaled $226 million -- an increase of 125% year-over-year -- while mobile ad revenue was approximately 80% of total ad revenue.
 
For the past several months, Twitter has been testing a set of ad creative, targeting and measurement features designed to promote app installs and user engagement. The offering includes a native ad unit that combines Twitter Cards and Promoted Tweets.
 
At Twitter, Namo plans to continue building its native advertising platform for app developers.
 
Namo investors include Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Betaworks, Trinity Ventures and Susa Ventures.
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