Press, Hold, Shop: PadSquad’s New Sticker Feature Turns Instinct Into Interaction

Marketers have been chasing the same goal for years: make digital advertising feel as natural as the way people already browse. That pressure isn’t slowing down. it’s accelerating as mobile and desktop behaviors evolve faster than most media plans.

Today’s consumers expect ad experiences that move like the rest of their digital world: fluid, responsive, and intuitive across every screen. While mobile leads in time spent, desktop still drives meaningful discovery, deeper research, and conversion.

That’s the backdrop for PadSquad’s newest shoppable ad feature, the Press & Hold “Sticker” - a high-impact engagement tool built around real user behavior, engineered for performance, and available across both High Impact Display and VidStream+ instream video.

Consumers Are Leading, Ads Are Catching Up

On mobile, users instinctively press-and-hold, swipe, and tap to unlock content. It’s a behavior deeply embedded in everyday mobile interactions — from saving stickers to pinning messages. On desktop, they expect hover states, click-to-expand modules, and fast interactions that don’t interrupt their flow. When an ad mirrors those behaviors, engagement follows.

PadSquad’s Press & Hold Sticker feature is designed with exactly this in mind. Inspired by the familiar iOS sticker feature, it leverages haptic-style logic to keep users focused on the creative, turning a static graphic into a opportunity for deeper brand interaction. This isn’t about introducing new behaviors. It’s about activating the ones consumers already use every day, and turning them into measurable brand moments.

How the Press & Hold Sticker Works

The mechanic is deceptively simple. Products appear as animated, cutout stickers within the ad unit. On mobile, a long-press causes the product to lift from the creative and drop directly into an in-unit shopping bag, mimicking the satisfying, tactile feel of picking up an iOS sticker. On desktop, a click or hover triggers the same experience, translated into interactions that feel native to that environment. Different motions. Same instinct.

What makes this format powerful is what it doesn’t do. Instead of kicking users out to a new tab the moment they show interest, the entire journey stays self-contained within the ad unit. Mobile consumers stay in their feed. Desktop consumers stay on the page. The shopping bag fills. The brand story continues.

Available Across Display and Instream Video

One of the most compelling aspects of this feature is its format flexibility. The Press & Hold Sticker is available across two of PadSquad’s most powerful ad environments:

Together, these two formats give brands a repeatable, scalable way to activate gesture-based shopping across the full digital media mix, not as a one-off campaign feature, but as a consistent cross-device and cross-format capability.

Native Interactions With Scalable Performance

The goal was simple: deliver a frictionless shopping experience that performs across desktop and mobile without compromising scale. Here’s how the Press & Hold Sticker delivers:

Gesture-driven on mobile, click-ready on desktop. The long-press interaction feels native on mobile; the click and hover experience feels equally natural on desktop. The format adapts without losing its core simplicity.

Designed for measurable brand lift. Interactive formats consistently outperform passive ones across devices. PadSquad’s shoppable features are engineered to move the metrics that matter: awareness, favorability, purchase intent, and recall.

Scaled reach, full support. Brands get broad reach across PadSquad’s premium mobile and desktop inventory, fully programmatic, fully measurable, and backed by our in-house creative studio.

The Road Ahead

Consumers expect to browse and buy within the environments they’re already engaging in, whether that’s scrolling on mobile, watching video, or researching on desktop. Interaction-first ad features are quickly becoming table stakes. The brands that win will be the ones that align creative with instinct, reduce friction, and turn familiar behaviors into measurable outcomes.

PadSquad’s Press & Hold Sticker is built toward that standard, a cross-format, cross-device capability that makes ad experiences feel natural, intuitive, and performance-ready wherever consumers meet them.

Contact us today to learn more!