From today, Monday 12 October, one of the most visible ad blocks in Korean ecommerce changes hands. According to a Naver advertiser-centre notice, the guaranteed (보장형) “Trend Pick” ads in the Shopping tab of Naver’s mobile homepage are ending. The whole Trend Pick block will instead show ADVoost Shopping and shopping search ads (the mall-product type).
The notice went up on 10 September with today as the start date, plus Naver’s usual caveat that “the schedule may change due to internal circumstances”. Few people noticed it at the time. It’s worth looking at now, because it fits a pattern: Naver keeps converting fixed, pre-sold inventory into automated, auction-priced performance ads.
What changes in the Trend Pick block
The notice spells out who sees what:
- Logged-in users with a history get “products that are good to buy together” recommendation ads.
- Logged-in users without a history get popular-product recommendation ads.
- Logged-out users get promotional recommendation ads, explicitly naming Super Points (슈퍼적립) and Super Deals (슈퍼특가).
Ads appear there if the campaign’s “Naver main – mobile” placement setting is switched on. Naver stresses that this is an expansion of placements and that “ad registration, ranking calculation and billing standards are the same as before.” Existing shopping search ad campaigns could therefore start appearing on the Shopping tab today without the advertiser doing anything. Check your placement settings and today’s placement reports.
The bigger pattern: guaranteed slots out, ADVoost in
Taken on its own this is a placement note. Taken together with Naver’s other recent notices, it shows where Naver is heading:
- Home feed. A new native ad slot at the top of the Naver app’s home feed, tested from 8 September, was rolled out to all traffic after 29 September. It’s designed to look like the content cards around it.
- Local. ADVoost Place (Beta) automates bidding, targeting and creative for place ads, building ad copy from the business’s Smart Place information. Naver says ADVoost Place will get exclusive placements over time.
- Offline. ADVoost Screen, Naver’s digital out-of-home product for place advertisers, added another update on 8 October.
- Search results. Last week Naver said it would test moving Super Points products into positions 1–2, above shopping ads, in the mobile recommendation block from 15 October.
Super Points appears again here, this time as the default for logged-out users on the Shopping tab. For Naver, that has two benefits: the space is sold as performance inventory, and it pushes its own membership rewards programme. The notice says “promotions such as” Super Points and Super Deals, so the list may not be closed. Even so, merchants outside those programmes look to have a weaker chance at the logged-out version of this slot.
Advertisers are already seeing personalised ad positions
On the Korean marketing community i-boss, two recent questions point in the same direction. One advertiser said their keyword ad ranks differently when logged in and logged out, and differently again for each Naver ID they log in with. Another found their Powerlink ad fourth in mobile integrated search but first after tapping “more”, with the same advertisers in the list and only the order changing. Naver hasn’t explained either behaviour, and anecdotes aren’t evidence. Still, if you check Naver ad positions from a single logged-in account, you’re probably seeing a personalised version.
What to do
- Shopping advertisers: check whether “Naver main – mobile” is on for your shopping search and ADVoost Shopping campaigns, and watch placement-level spend this week. If you don’t want Shopping-tab traffic, switch it off rather than finding out from the invoice.
- Smart Store sellers: work out whether Super Points or Super Deals participation is worth it. It now affects visibility in the recommendation block and in the logged-out Shopping tab.
- Brands that bought Trend Pick: the guaranteed option for this slot is gone. Find out from your Naver rep what replaces it, or budget for performance buying.
My view: Naver’s homepage used to be a place where brands bought fixed slots. More and more of it is now an auction run by ADVoost, with Naver’s own reward programmes featured by default. That’s good for ad yield and for smaller sellers with tight budgets, and harder for anyone hoping to keep visibility without paying. More on Naver’s commercial changes in Naver News.