Question: where can I find information about full screen native ads, of what's ok to do there?

[Liran Barsisa]

Right now, it says on the docs:

Set your media view to a consistent size

Google always tries to serve the best-sized native assets for optimal performance. To facilitate this, the sizing for your native ads should be predictable and consistent. Your media view asset should be the same size for every ad request on the same device. To accomplish this, set your media view to a fixed size, or set the media view to MATCH_PARENT and make the parent view a fixed size. Repeat this step for every parent view of the media view that is not a fixed size.

1. This is quite an impossible thing to do. By the time I get the native ad, the size that's available could be different than what we started with, as orientation can change, and the user might even switch to split screen. How could I have such a thing?

2. Not only that, but what does it really mean, that I should use MATCH_PARENT for width and height even if the aspect ratio of the media isn't perfectly fitting the one of the display?

3. There is no room for me to customize here the media at all, to still fit the size it can reach yet give me space for other things? For example, if the media it landscape, yet I'm on portrait, there are empty spaces around the media. I could put there other UI components that are needed. I could also move the media to the top or bottom, instead of always centered... 

4. Is it ok for me to change the screen orientation when I got the ad, to fit the same aspect ratio as the ad? 

If so, what happens if the screen changes the orientation when I got the ad and tried to bind to it (because sadly there is no API to detect if the request to change the orientation worked) ? 

This can also occur if I decide to do the opposite, meaning to lock on current orientation from the beginning, because sadly the request to have a specific orientation doesn't mean it will work. It can be ignored...

5. Why can't Admob offer various accepted layouts and logic to use for this? It has various ones for rewarded ads and interstitial ads... We don't even have what was offered on the docs...

Even on the sample of it, it has a huge UI on top of the MediaView, which can hide important data behind, especially on landscape (which BTW can cause a crash when I switch the orientation):
https://github.com/googleads/googleads-mobile-android-examples/issues/934

6. Should I have one ad-unit-ID for portrait and another for landscape? It says this after all: "Your media view asset should be the same size for every ad request on the same device"...

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Liran,

Thank you for contacting the Mobile Ads SDK support team.

I will check with our team regarding your queries and one of my team members will reach out to you.

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[2025-10-10 04:59:09Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01u8mAq:ref" (ADR-00335088)

[Liran Barsisa]

Thank you. Another issue I've noticed is that there is no official way to change the video controls, hide them, move them, etc... There isn't even a way to detect where they are.

This means that when in full screen, it's impossible to know if a View of mine overlaps the controls, hiding it, not letting the user reach them.

It also means I can't completely hide them and use my own instead.

In fact, this issue exists even on the sample of Admob:
https://github.com/googleads/googleads-mobile-android-examples/issues/934

And it's magically not shown at all on the Admob docs, as if the issue doesn't exist at all:
https://developers.google.com/admob/android/native/full-screen

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Liran,

Currently, this functionality is not supported by the AdMob SDK. However, I'll escalate this to our wider team and follow up with any updates.

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[2025-10-13 06:59:58Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01u8mAq:ref" (ADR-00335088)

[Liran Barsisa]

I need clear understanding of what's allowed and what's not allowed on full screen native ads, to also understand how to handle all of the various scenarios that can happen for them.

Can I change the size of the MediaView and move it, for example? 

It seems against the rule that I've mentioned, but then it's very restrictive, and means I can't know where I can put the various UI components, as they can overlap important parts of the media.

Even on your own sample it doesn't work properly, as I've shown, and yet on your docs it shows as if all is so perfect...

So with yet another restriction of the video controls, this is another thing to know of, that even if I assume the video controls are always in the bottom-left corner, I can't put anything there, including even in the center-bottom because it's in the bottom-left corner of the content of the MediaView, and not of the MediaView itself. I could make some very sophisticated calculations, but then I lose the point of using layout XML, I can make mistakes , and things might not be future proof too...

The most basic thing that needs to be handled is all possible combinations of media aspect ratio being portrait/landscape, together with display aspect ratio being portrait/landscape, and of course we might want to make it look differently in light/dark theme.

Add to it that the aspect ratios of both the display and the media are quite random, and you can't put UI components without either a lot of compromise (smaller UI, or overlapping, or both), or without a lot of sophistication (calculations and rules during runtime) that make it hard to maintain.

So, it could be very nice if at least for size and movement of the MediaView, you could tell me that it's allowed for this purpose, and that the rule of the docs means that it's for the media content itself, and not the MediaView.

For example, if the media aspect ratio is landscape, and I'm on portrait display, it doesn't really need the entire height of the display. It needs only what matches the aspect ratio.

So, I should be able to make the height smaller to fit it, and move it up or down, similar to here on rewarded ad that the video is a bit up (not really centered, and not taking entire space), yet there are UI components above and below: