ADSTERRA
Adsterra Social Bar: A Flexible Ad Format for Higher Engagement
Adsterra’s Social Bar is a proprietary advertising format that combines elements of display advertising and push-style creatives. Unlike traditional web push notifications, Social Bar does not require users to subscribe or opt in, which can help advertisers reach a broader audience across desktop and mobile devices, including iOS and macOS.

According to Adsterra, Social Bar traffic is available across 248 GEOs and generates more than 10 billion ad views weekly. The format supports CPM, CPC, and CPA traffic models, making it suitable for both performance advertisers and publishers looking for additional monetization options.

What Makes Social Bar Different?Instead of relying on one fixed creative type, Social Bar includes multiple interactive templates. Advertisers can use:

  • In-Page Push — notification-style ads that work without browser subscriptions
  • Icon Notifications — compact creatives that can resemble chats or animated notifications
  • Custom Widgets — larger units with images, messaging, and prominent CTA buttons
  • Interstitials — highly visible overlays designed to capture attention
Adsterra currently offers 20+ templates, while advertisers can upload up to 15 creatives for A/B testing. The company says Social Bar can deliver CTRs significantly higher than conventional web push campaigns, although actual performance will naturally depend on GEO, offer, creative, targeting, and traffic quality.

Which Verticals Can Work With Social Bar?

The format is flexible enough to cover a wide range of performance verticals. Adsterra highlights use cases such as:

Social Bar Type

Common Verticals

In-Page Push

VPN, antivirus, utilities, apps, games, e-commerce, dating

Icon Notifications

Dating, e-commerce, apps, utilities, sweepstakes, iGaming

Custom Widgets

Software, VPN, apps, subscriptions, sweepstakes, iGaming

Interstitials

VPN, e-commerce, antivirus, dating, iGaming


Optimization ToolsSocial Bar campaigns also benefit from Adsterra’s wider advertising toolkit. Advertisers can use CPA Goal to optimize CPM or CPC traffic around conversion performance, Smart CPM for automated second-price auction bidding, and Custom Bid to increase bids for stronger placements while reducing spend on weaker ones.

The platform also supports S2S tracking, advanced targeting, traffic estimation, and in-house anti-fraud controls. These tools make Social Bar more than just a creative format — it can be managed as a performance traffic source with placement-level optimization.

Is Adsterra Social Bar Worth Testing?

For advertisers, Social Bar is most interesting when traditional banners or web push are not generating enough engagement. Its main advantage is the ability to use notification-style and interactive creatives without requiring a prior push subscription.

For publishers, the format offers another way to monetize traffic across different operating systems and devices without relying exclusively on standard display placements.

Overall, Adsterra Social Bar is worth testing for performance campaigns where creative visibility and user engagement are important. As with any traffic source, the best approach is to test several creatives, track conversions properly, optimize placements, and scale only the combinations that deliver acceptable CPA or ROI.

Explore Adsterra Social Bar