Adding Native Ads to your iOS App

The Native Ad API allows you to build a customized experience for the ads you show in your app. When using the Native Ad API, instead of receiving an ad ready to be displayed, you will receive a group of ad properties such as a title, an image, a call to action, and you will have to use them to construct a custom UIView where the ad is shown.

Let's implement the following native ad placement. You will create the following views to our native ad.

Step 1: Create Native Ad Views in Storyboard

Step 2: Load and Show Native Ad

Step 3: How to Get Aspect Ratio of the Content and Apply Natural Width and Height

Step 4: Verify Impression and Click Logging

Step 5: How to Debug When Ad Not Shown

Step 6: Load Ad without Auto Cache

Step 7: Test Ads Integration

See Known Issues in the Change Log

Step 1: Create Native Ad Views in Storyboard

1. After you have created a new project from iOS Getting Started guides, open Main.storyboard. Add a UIView element to the main View element and name it to adUIView.
   
   
   
2. In addition, add adIconImageView (FBMediaView), adTitleLabel (UILabel), adCoverMediaView (FBMediaView), adSocialContext (UILabel), adCallToActionButton (UIButton), adOptionsView (FBAdOptionsView), adBodyLabel (UILabel), sponsoredLabel (UILabel) under adUIView as illustrated in the image below.
   
   
   
3. You may notice that there is a red arrow nearby View Controller Scene. This usually means that there are missing constraints in your layout.
   
   
   You would need to select all the view objects in your scene and click the "resolve layout issue" icon to add missing constraints.
   
   
   
4. Now that you have created all the UI elements for showing a native ad, you will need to reference these UI elements in the ViewController interface. First open the ViewController.m (ViewController.swift if you are using Swift), then drag adUIView inside the ViewController object. You can name it as adUIView. After, you will need to do the same thing for adIconImageView , adTitleLabel, adCoverMediaView, adSocialContext, adCallToActionButton, adOptionsView, adBodyLabel, sponsoredLabel.
   
   
   
5. Build and run the project. You should see from your device or simulator empty content as follows:
   

Now that you have created all the UI elements to show native ads, the next step is to load the native ad and bind the contents to the UI elements.

Step 2: Load and Show Native Ad

1. In your View Controller source file, import the SDK, declare that ViewController conforms to the FBNativeAdDelegate protocol, and add a FBNativeAd instance variable
   SwiftObjective-C

   import UIKit
   import FBAudienceNetwork
   
   class ViewController: UIViewController, FBNativeAdDelegate {
       
     private var nativeAd: FBNativeAd?
   }

   #import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
   @import FBAudienceNetwork;
   
   @interface ViewController () <FBNativeAdDelegate>
   
   @property (strong, nonatomic) FBNativeAd *nativeAd;
   
   @end


2. In the viewDidLoad method, add the following lines of code to load the native ad content
   SwiftObjective-C

   override func viewDidLoad() {
     super.viewDidLoad()
       
     let nativeAd = FBNativeAd(placementID: "YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID")
     nativeAd.delegate = self
     nativeAd.loadAd()
   }

   - (void)viewDidLoad 
   {
     [super viewDidLoad];
   
     FBNativeAd *nativeAd = [[FBNativeAd alloc] initWithPlacementID:@"YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID"];
     nativeAd.delegate = self;
     [nativeAd loadAd];
   }
   
   

   The ID that displays at YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID is a temporary ID for test purposes only.

   If you use this temporary ID in your live code, your users will not receive ads (they will get a No Fill error). You must return here after testing and replace this temporary ID with a live Placement ID.

   To find out how the generate a live Placement ID, refer to Audience Network Setup

3. The next step is to show the ad when the content is ready. You would need your ViewController to implement the nativeAdDidLoad delegate method
   SwiftObjective-C

   func nativeAdDidLoad(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd) {
       
     // 1. If there is an existing valid native ad, unregister the view
     if let previousNativeAd = self.nativeAd, previousNativeAd.isAdValid {
       previousNativeAd.unregisterView()
     }
       
     // 2. Retain a reference to the native ad object
     self.nativeAd = nativeAd
   
     // 3. Register what views will be tappable and what the delegate is to notify when a registered view is tapped
     // Here only the call-to-action button and the media view are tappable, and the delegate is the view controller
     nativeAd.registerView(
       forInteraction: adUIView,
       mediaView: adCoverMediaView,
       iconView: adIconImageView,
       viewController: self,
       clickableViews: [adCallToActionButton, adCoverMediaView]
     )
       
     // 4. Render the ad content onto the view
     adTitleLabel.text = nativeAd.advertiserName
     adBodyLabel.text = nativeAd.bodyText
     adSocialContextLabel.text = nativeAd.socialContext
     sponsoredLabel.text = nativeAd.sponsoredTranslation
     adCallToActionButton.setTitle(nativeAd.callToAction, for: .normal)
     adOptionsView.nativeAd = nativeAd
   }

   - (void)nativeAdDidLoad:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd
   {
     // 1. If there is an existing valid native ad, unregister the view
     if (self.nativeAd && self.nativeAd.isAdValid) {
       [self.nativeAd unregisterView];
     }
   
     // 2. Retain a reference to the native ad object
     self.nativeAd = nativeAd;
   
     // 3. Register what views will be tappable and what the delegate is to notify when a registered view is tapped
     // Here only the call-to-action button and the media view are tappable, and the delegate is the view controller
     [self.nativeAd registerViewForInteraction:self.adUIView
                                     mediaView:self.adCoverMediaView
                                      iconView:self.adIconImageView
                                viewController:self
                                clickableViews:@[self.adCallToActionButton, self.adCoverMediaView]];
   
     // 4. Render the ad content onto the view
     self.adTitleLabel.text = self.nativeAd.advertiserName;
     self.adBodyLabel.text = self.nativeAd.bodyText;
     self.adSocialContextLabel.text = self.nativeAd.socialContext;
     self.sponsoredLabel.text = self.nativeAd.sponsoredTranslation;
     [self.adCallToActionButton setTitle:self.nativeAd.callToAction forState:UIControlStateNormal];
     self.adOptionsView.nativeAd = self.nativeAd; 
   }

Controlling Clickable Area

For a better user experience and better results, you should always consider controlling the clickable area of your ad to avoid unintentional clicks. Please refer to Audience Network SDK Policy page for more details about white space unclickable enforcement.




4. Choose your build target to be device and run the above code, you should see something like this:
   
   
   
   

Step 3: How to Get the Aspect Ratio of the Content and Apply Natural Width and Height

In the example above, the media content of the ad is shown in adCoverMediaView and its object type is FBMediaView. From previous step, we have shown how to use FBMediaView to load media content from a given FBNativeAd object. This view takes the place of manually loading a cover image. When creating the FBMediaView, its width and height can be either determined by the auto layout constraints set in the storyboard, or they can be hard-coded. However, the width and height of the view may not be fit with the actual cover image of the ad downloaded later. To fix this, the example following shows how to get the aspect ratio of the content and apply natural width and height:

1. Declare that your View Controller implements the FBMediaViewDelegate protocol
   SwiftObjective-C

   class ViewController: UIViewController, FBNativeAdDelegate, FBMediaViewDelegate {
     ...
   }

   @interface ViewController : UIViewController <FBNativeAdDelegate, FBMediaViewDelegate>
   ...
   @end


2. When the native ad is loaded, set the delegate of FBMediaView object to be your view controller
   SwiftObjective-C

   func nativeAdDidLoad(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd) {
     adCoverMediaView.delegate = self
   }

   - (void)nativeAdDidLoad:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd 
   {
     self.adCoverMediaView.delegate = self;
   }


3. Implement mediaViewDidLoad method in your view controller
   SwiftObjective-C

   func mediaViewDidLoad(_ mediaView: FBMediaView) {
     let currentAspect = mediaView.frame.size.width / mediaView.frame.size.height
     print(currentAspect)
     
     let actualAspect = mediaView.aspectRatio
     print(actualAspect)
   }

   - (void)mediaViewDidLoad:(FBMediaView *)mediaView
   {
     CGFloat currentAspect = mediaView.frame.size.width / mediaView.frame.size.height;
     NSLog(@"current aspect of media view: %f", currentAspect);
     
     CGFloat actualAspect = mediaView.aspectRatio;
     NSLog(@"actual aspect of media view: %f", actualAspect);
   }
   
   mediaView.aspectRatio returns a positive CGFloat, or 0.0 if no ad is currently loaded. Its value is valid after media view is loaded. There are convenience methods that will set the width and height of the FBMediaView object respecting its apsect ratio of the media content loaded. You can call applyNaturalWidth or applyNaturalHeight to update the FBMediaView object's width or height to respect the media content's aspect ratio.

Step 4: Verify Impression and Click Logging

Optionally, you can add the following functions to handle the cases where the native ad is closed or when the user clicks on it

func nativeAdDidClick(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd) {
  print("Native ad was clicked.")
}

func nativeAdDidFinishHandlingClick(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd) {
  print("Native ad did finish click handling.")
}

func nativeAdWillLogImpression(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd) {
  print("Native ad impression is being captured.")
}

- (void)nativeAdDidClick:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd
{
  NSLog(@"Native ad was clicked.");
}

- (void)nativeAdDidFinishHandlingClick:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd
{
  NSLog(@"Native ad did finish click handling.");
}

- (void)nativeAdWillLogImpression:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd
{
  NSLog(@"Native ad impression is being captured.");
}

Step 5: How to Debug When Ad Not Shown

Add and implement the following function in your view controller to handle ad loading failures

func nativeAd(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd, didFailWithError error: Error) {
  print("Native ad failed to load with error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
}

- (void)nativeAd:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
{
  NSLog(@"Native ad failed to load with error: %@", error);
}

Step 6: Load Ad without Auto Cache

1. We strongly recommend to leave media caching on by default in all cases. However, we allow you to override the default. Please be very careful if you decide to override our default media caching
   SwiftObjective-C

   let nativeAd = FBNativeAd(placementID: "YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID")
   nativeAd.delegate = self
   nativeAd.loadAd(withMediaCachePolicy: .none)

   FBNativeAd *nativeAd = [[FBNativeAd alloc] initWithPlacementID:@"YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID"];
   nativeAd.delegate = self;
   [nativeAd loadAdWithMediaCachePolicy:FBNativeAdsCachePolicyNone];


2. First, you will need to manually download all media for the native ad
   SwiftObjective-C

   func nativeAdDidLoad(_ nativeAd: FBNativeAd) {
     
     ...
     
     self.adCoverMediaView.delegate = self
     nativeAd.downloadMedia()
     self.nativeAd = nativeAd
     
     ...
   }

   - (void)nativeAdDidLoad:(FBNativeAd *)nativeAd
   {
     ...
   
     self.adCoverMediaView.delegate = self;
     [nativeAd downloadMedia];
     self.nativeAd = nativeAd;
   
     ...
   }


3. Next, you should only call registerViewForInteraction and display the ad after mediaViewDidLoad callback. All media has to be loaded and displayed for an eligible impression
   SwiftObjective-C

   func mediaViewDidLoad(_ mediaView: FBMediaView) {
     guard let nativeAd = nativeAd else {
       return
     }
     
     // 1. Register what views will be tappable and what the delegate is to notify when a registered view is tapped
     // Here only the call-to-action button and the media view are tappable, and the delegate is the view controller
     nativeAd.registerView(
       forInteraction: adUIView,
       mediaView: mediaView,
       iconView: adIconImageView,
       viewController: self,
       clickableViews: [adCallToActionButton, mediaView]
     )
       
     // 2. Render the ad content onto the view
     adTitleLabel.text = nativeAd.advertiserName
     adBodyLabel.text = nativeAd.bodyText
     adSocialContextLabel.text = nativeAd.socialContext
     sponsoredLabel.text = nativeAd.sponsoredTranslation
     adCallToActionButton.setTitle(nativeAd.callToAction, for: .normal)
     adOptionsView.nativeAd = nativeAd
   }

   - (void)mediaViewDidLoad:(FBMediaView *)mediaView 
   {
     if (!self.nativeAd) {
       return;
     }
   
     // 1. Register what views will be tappable and what the delegate is to notify when a registered view is tapped
     // Here only the call-to-action button and the media view are tappable, and the delegate is the view controller
     [self.nativeAd registerViewForInteraction:self.adUIView
                                     mediaView:mediaView
                                      iconView:self.adIconImageView
                             viewController:self
                            clickableViews:@[self.adCallToActionButton, mediaView]];
   
     // 2. Render the ad content onto the view
     self.adTitleLabel.text = self.nativeAd.advertiserName;
     self.adBodyLabel.text = self.nativeAd.bodyText;
     self.adSocialContextLabel.text = self.nativeAd.socialContext;
     self.sponsoredLabel.text = self.nativeAd.sponsoredTranslation;
     [self.adCallToActionButton setTitle:self.nativeAd.callToAction forState:UIControlStateNormal];
     self.adOptionsView.nativeAd = self.nativeAd; 
   }