TL;DR

• AdWall gives readers access to content in exchange for choosing to watch or interact with an ad.
• Brands can use video, static ads, or Rich Media. The choice depends on campaign objectives and the formats supported by each publisher.
• Performance is measured through reach, viewability, video completions, and clicks. KPIs are agreed before launch based on the campaign’s goals.
• In the Modivo campaign, AdWall achieved a 7.3% CTR and 97% viewability. It delivered the highest CTR of the three formats used.
• You can test AdWall and add it to your campaigns through Fusify. The team will recommend placements and help prepare your creatives.

Only 10% of readers pay for news subscriptions. Many others prefer free access supported by advertising, including people with higher incomes. In an IAB and Talk Shoppe study, 85% of US respondents with annual household incomes above $150,000 said they would rather see ads than pay for online services.

Attention becomes the new currency. Readers give their time in exchange for access to content, and brands get a chance to earn their interest. Both sides know what the exchange offers.

This model is called value exchange. A reader agrees to watch a video ad to finish an article. The publisher earns revenue from the impression, while the advertiser gets an opportunity to reach someone already engaged with the content.

AdWall is built around this value exchange. The format was developed by Membrana Media, which works with publishers and manages the AdWall inventory available across their websites. On the other side, Fusify works with brands and agencies that want to use this inventory for their advertising campaigns.

In this article, we look at how AdWall works from the advertiser’s perspective, what opportunities the format offers, and what brands need to launch a campaign through Fusify.

What Is AdWall and How Does It Work

AdWall is an ad format developed by adtech company Membrana Media that unlocks content in exchange for watching or interacting with an ad. It uses a rewarded advertising model: readers watch a short video or engage with an ad to access the full article.

How it works:

1. The reader opens an article and reads the first few paragraphs.
2. A prompt appears over the text: “Watch an ad to continue reading.” The rest of the article remains locked.
3. The reader watches the video or interacts with the ad.
4. Once they finish, the ad closes and the remaining content becomes available. The reader picks up where they left off.

AdWall helps brands overcome banner blindness by reaching readers who actively choose to view an ad to access the content. The format appears when readers are most focused, guaranteeing brands a high-intent audience, high CTR, and 100% creative viewability across vetted sites in Membrana Media’s network.

How Membrana Media and Fusify Work Together

Membrana Media is an international adtech company that develops monetization solutions for online publishers, including AdWall. It operates in 17 markets and works with more than 900 publishers. In 2023, it became a Google Certified Publishing Partner, a status that recognizes its expertise in Google’s advertising products and its track record of working with publishers.

Fusify is Membrana’s primary demand partner. Each company handles a different side of the operation — Membrana integrates and maintains AdWall on publisher websites, while Fusify plans, launches, and manages campaigns for brands and agencies.

Two platforms handle the buying and selling of ad impressions:

• DSP (Demand-Side Platform) — Fusify serves as the DSP in this partnership, automating the purchase of ad impressions for advertisers. The team sets the campaign’s targeting, frequency limits, and budget. The platform uses these settings to decide which impressions to bid on.
• SSP (Supply-Side Platform) — Membrana serves as the SSP, making impressions on publisher websites available to buyers and managing their sale. Membrana also develops, integrates, and improves AdWall across its partner sites.

The two platforms evaluate each impression from different perspectives. Our DSP checks whether an impression matches the advertiser’s campaign requirements and determines how much to bid. The SSP collects bids and runs an auction to decide which ad appears on the page. If Fusify wins the auction, the reader sees its client’s ad, and the publisher earns revenue from the impression.

Fusify simplifies three key aspects of your AdWall campaign:

1. Access to a network of 900+ publisher sites. Fusify selects sites from Membrana’s network based on your KPIs, target markets, and budget. You agree on a media plan with Fusify without negotiating with each publisher individually.
2. Campaign-ready creatives. The team checks which creative formats and placement options the selected sites support and coordinates technical requirements with Membrana. You approve the final creatives and campaign settings.
3. Results from all placements in one report. Fusify consolidates campaign results so you can compare sites against the agreed KPIs. This helps you decide which placements to continue and where to adjust your creatives or campaign settings.

What AdWall Offers Advertisers

An ad campaign needs to get people’s attention, encourage action, and deliver measurable results. AdWall supports these goals through its placement and the way readers interact with it.

1. Reaching Readers When They’re Most Focused

AdWall appears in the center of the screen while the reader is immersed in an article. The ad opens over the content, without competing with other banners or widgets for attention.

AdWall viewability can reach 100%, though placements come with a higher CPM than standard banner ads.

2. Readers Chose to Engage

In a rewarded placement, readers choose to start the ad to unlock the content. This gives brands an opportunity to get their message across. How readers respond depends on whether the offer is clear and relevant to them.

The creative format can be selected to suit the campaign’s goals:

• Video — show a product in action or explain how a service works.
• Static ads — introduce a new product, special offer, or discount.
• Rich Media — invite readers to interact with elements within the ad.

3. Measuring Results

KPIs are agreed during planning so it’s clear how the campaign will be evaluated:

• Reach and frequency — how many people the campaign reached and how often they were shown an ad.
• Viewability — the percentage of measurable impressions that met viewability criteria.
• Video completions and VCR — how many times a video played to the end and the percentage of video plays that were completed. Membrana’s article on rewarded advertising and publisher monetization reports completion rates of over 70% for rewarded formats, the category AdWall belongs to.
• Clicks and CTR — how viewers responded to the ad. In “Behind the Scenes of AdWall: Ad Sources and Quality Control”, Membrana reports AdWall CTRs of up to 16%, compared with 0.1% for standard banners.

What AdWall Offers Publishers

AdWall helps publishers earn revenue from readers who don’t have a paid subscription. Membrana says the format can increase programmatic ad revenue by up to 50%. Readers watch an ad to continue reading, and the publisher earns revenue from the impression. AdWall can work on its own or alongside subscriptions and site registration.

Publishers can choose from three placement options:

AdWall can be styled to match the publisher’s site, using its logo and custom text for the prompt. This native integration makes the prompt feel like part of the site readers already know. Publishers also decide how much of an article remains visible and which sections are blurred until the reader watches an ad. They can set how long access lasts (for example, a few days) and how often AdWall reappears, depending on the placement option.

AdWall in the Modivo Campaign

Campaign results show how AdWall performs in practice. For Modivo’s campaign in Ukraine, Fusify tested three ad formats: AdWall Video, Banner Slider, and Brander.

AdWall delivered the highest engagement, with a 7.3% CTR and 97% viewability. It generated more clicks per impression than either of the other formats tested.

In a mobile campaign for jewelry brand SOLO for Diamonds, AdWall achieved a CTR of over 8%. Fusify combined it with other ad formats, audience targeting, and contextual targeting to build brand awareness across different regions of Ukraine. The campaign reached more than 2.3 million people overall and built an audience for future remarketing — particularly useful in jewelry, where customers often take time to decide on a purchase.

How to Launch a Campaign with Fusify

Launching a campaign requires no complex technical integrations on the advertiser’s or publisher’s side. You can start with a short brief or an existing media plan.

To help Fusify recommend suitable placements, include:

• What you’re promoting and what you want to achieve. Your product, offer, and main campaign objective.
• Who you want to reach and when. Your target audience, markets, campaign dates, and approximate budget.
• What materials you already have. Existing creatives and a link to the page your ads should direct people to.

Based on the brief, Fusify selects an AdWall placement option and publisher sites that suit your campaign goals. The team considers reader loyalty to each publication and how closely its readership matches your target audience.

The team then configures the campaign’s buying parameters in Fusify’s DSP. With Membrana Media’s AdWall integrations already in place, the campaign can run across participating sites without separate negotiations with each publisher.

To discuss an AdWall campaign for your brand, get in touch through our contact form.

Conclusion

AdWall helps advertisers reach readers who actively choose to watch their ads. Launching AdWall through Fusify means investing in advertising that readers agree to view in exchange for access to content. Membrana Media’s technology provides direct access to a network of more than 900 premium publisher sites, while Fusify handles the technical setup, targeting, and campaign reporting.

Ready to try AdWall for your brand? Send us a brief, and we’ll put together a media plan with proposed placements and costs.