"Place disclosures in front of or above the headline of the native ad." That line is from the Federal Trade Commission's December 2015 guide to native advertising, and it ties the disclosure to the headline.1 A bubble holds the two in one small panel, together with a body of at most 90 characters, the advertiser's display domain, one link, and a small "Ads by AdBubbles" mark. The label reads "Ad," and the headline runs to at most 40 characters. An advertiser writes the headline and the body and chooses the word; the label and the mark are the same on every bubble.
The label answers the question the regulator asks first
The FTC's enforcement policy statement of December 22, 2015, gives the principle in one sentence. Messages "that are not identifiable as advertising to consumers are deceptive if they mislead consumers into believing they are independent, impartial, or not from the sponsoring advertiser itself."2 Knowing the source, the statement adds, "typically affects the weight or credibility consumers give it."2 The guide names the words that work: "Ad," "Advertisement," "Paid Advertisement," and "Sponsored Advertising Content" are "likely to be understood."1
On influencer posts, the Competition Bureau of Canada says the same: disclosures "should be prominent" and should avoid "ambiguous terms and abbreviations."3 Every bubble carries the word "Ad," in full, and an advertiser cannot change or move it. It sits in the same small panel as the headline. The guide asks for that proximity: disclosures belong "as close as possible to the native ads to which they relate."1
Readers noticed a mid-story label more than twice as often as a top one
Two experiments in the Journal of Advertising in 2016 measured what a label's position does. In the first, Bartosz Wojdynski and Nathaniel Evans showed 242 adults a sponsored article labeled at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom. Fewer than 8 percent, 17 of the 242, recognized it as advertising.4 In the second, an eye tracker followed 60 readers. Forty percent of readers given a top label looked at it, against 90 percent given a mid-story label and 60 percent given a bottom label.4 Wording that used "advertising" or "sponsored" raised recognition, and recognition, the abstract adds, "generally led to more negative evaluations."4
The study tested labeled articles, not bubbles; what carries over is the position. The embed scans only the scope the publisher configured, skips headings and navigation, and underlines the first occurrence of a bought word in the body text. A bubble therefore opens only from inside a paragraph, at the line the reader has reached. Its label appears where the reader is already looking, and the reader arrived there by choice.
A bubble carries no image; its label, underline, and domain do the visual work
The panel holds no picture and no logo. Apart from the copy, the reader sees the "Ad" label, the light dotted underline on the bought word, the display domain, and the small mark. The FTC guide asks for a label "that consumers can easily read on the screen," in a color that will "contrast strongly with the background."1 Rendered inside a Shadow DOM, the bubble keeps the publisher's stylesheet from altering the label, and it follows the reader's color-scheme setting. Its display domain names the source the enforcement statement says readers weigh, and every link carries rel="sponsored noopener".2
The underline is the only part of the ad visible before the reader hovers, taps, or presses Enter on the word. AdBubbles sets no cookie, stores no identifier, and collects no personal data from readers. AdBubbles matches the words on a publisher's pages to the advertiser who bought them. It does not choose which people see a bubble, does not follow a reader from one page or site to the next, and does not promise any result. Every bubble also gives the reader a route to the ad policy.
Forty characters hold one idea, and the first two words carry it
Nielsen Norman Group's 1997 reading study found that 79 percent of test users scanned any new page and only 16 percent read word by word.5 Its advice included "one idea per paragraph."5 A later Nielsen study cut links and headlines to their first 11 characters and asked users what each led to. Users "typically see about 2 words for most list items," and the opening words should let a reader predict what a click will bring.6 The first two words of a 40-character headline are what a scanning reader is likeliest to take in.
For comparison, a responsive search ad's headline fields "support up to 30 characters," its description fields "support up to 90 characters each," and Google can show "up to 3 headlines" together.7 A bubble shows one headline, ten characters longer than a Google headline, and one body, the length of a Google description. The FTC's 2013 guidance on digital disclosures calls space-constrained ads "teasers," and it says a link's label should "convey the importance, nature, and relevance of the information it leads to."8 A bubble's body is the text beside its one link.
Suppose a company that installs tankless water heaters buys the phrase "tankless water heater" on home-improvement sites. A headline such as "Tankless heater installed this week" runs to 35 characters and opens with the two words the reader has just read. A body such as "Licensed installers, a written quote before any work, and a twelve-year warranty" runs to 80 characters and says what a click will show. Whether that copy sells anything is not a figure a specimen can supply; what it shows is each part doing one job.
The word bought is the placement decision
An advertiser on a display network chooses a slot. An advertiser on AdBubbles chooses a word, and the word decides the paragraph. At most one bubble opens per word, never two in the same paragraph, and never more than the maximum the publisher set. One advertiser holds a keyword on a site for a calendar month, and a taken word is shown to other advertisers with the next free month.
The word is also the only context the reader has when the bubble opens. The FTC judges an ad by "the net impression the ad conveys to consumers."1 A reader who opens a bubble forms that impression from the word, the label, and the headline together. A headline written for "tankless water heater" reads as a continuation of the sentence the reader was in. Attached to the word "water," the same headline would open in a paragraph about anything, and its first two words would have to do the bought word's work.
The creative rules allow no all-capitals, no emoji, one link, and a category from a fixed list, and a person reviews every creative before it goes live. The practical point is to count before writing: a three-word phrase, repeated in full at the front of the headline, uses about half of the 40 characters. A headline that opens with two of those words keeps the rest for what the link leads to. An advertiser can build a campaign, enter that headline and body, and see per keyword how many sites carry it and the estimated monthly page views, before paying anything.