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The public almost always tends to repel traditional advertising. It seems abrasive, and that does not go well with the audience. However, native digital advertising seems like a reliable alternative, and if done right, it would resonate with your audience.
The evolution of digital advertising comes with its setbacks — building trust among your target audience seems to be of major concern, and if your target audiences are people of a younger generation, then you’ve got more issues — they intentionally ignore direct advertising, and may not engage with your content.
To surmount the mental hurdle that comes with using traditional advertising, you’ve got to opt for online digital advertising. With digital advertising, you’d have a healthy mix of content marketing and advertising, and that is the recipe to help you create a natural and seamless digital ad.
In this guide, you’d discover all you need to know about native advertising, and also get to know about some native advertising examples to help you create a robust advertising model for your brand.
But first, what is native advertising?
Image Source: Google Support
Digital ad formats that mimic the feel, function, and look of the platform they appear on are termed native advertising. Typically, native advertising is designed to mimic the appearance of organic content found on the website or app. This way, it does not come off as an ad. Some critics claim that native ads trick users into believing that they are engaging with non-sponsored content. Well, they are far from the truth — after all, native ads are neither disruptive nor deceptive.
The primary goal of the native ad content is to seamlessly fit into the web page layout or social media timeline as the target audience is exposed to paid content. Marketers tend to choose native advertising over traditional social ads. Why? Because native ads do not take the user away from the experience they are having.
Image Source: Google Support
Native ads, just like performance marketing, are controlled by supply and demand. Publishers dominate the supply side, and they draw an audience who desires to monetize their sites. Advertisers pretty much make up the demand side as they attract an audience to reach their sales, awareness, and lead generation goals.
When a user needs an ad space from a website, the publisher’s SSP sends a bid request to the DSP — and metadata metrics and bid is sent back to the advertiser. The advertiser that has the winning bid gets their ad shown to the users.
Critics claim that native advertising is a dishonest attempt to trick the audience into consuming paid ad content. Yes, there is some level of truth to the claim — after all, there are lots of poorly designed native ads. But that’s not the absolute truth. There are marketers out there who are creating high-quality ad content, and these ads are showcased to the right audience in the marketplace. Here are why you should use native advertising.
Native advertising helps in the creation of high-value experiences with the target audience. Customers are always weary of traditional paid ads. And as such, the popularity of such ad format is on a rapid decline. Native advertising, on the other hand, has gained, and still gaining popularity across all industries. These ad formats are engaging and reader-friendly — and as such, they almost always perform better, and generate more sales.
Increasing brand awareness and recognition is one of the best ways of attracting customers without tricking them into engaging with your ad. When a native ad seamlessly appears on social media timelines without a clear call to action (CTA), you get to boost your brand’s awareness and recognition in the marketplace.
By merely warming your audience to your company using ads, you’d pretty much increase your perceived interest among your target audience and they may subsequently interact with your company. This way, they won’t feel fooled into engaging with your company. If you’re still skeptical, here are some native advertising campaign stats to help you make up your mind.
Just like other advertising models, native advertising has various types. Here are the various native advertising formats.
Typical examples of in-feed units are sponsored posts that appear on publisher’s sites like Forbes, or in social media feeds. These paid placements fit in seamlessly with other posts, articles, or editorial content. In-feed units differ from site to site as they are designed to fit the user experience of each site.
You can use native advertising on search engines. Remember those top-of-the-page advertising marketers bid on? Well, they are native ad placements. They are usually found on top of paid search results, and pretty much appear as organic search results.
When you take a close look at social media, search engine result pages, and publisher’s sites, you’d find native advertising in the recommendation widgets section. These ads are usually seen by the side of the web page, or at the end of the article. They help in recommending additional content to the web user.
If you’re a regular online shopper, you may have come across promoted listings. Let’s say you’re searching for plumbing books on Amazon, you’d come across various sponsored listings — even though the position of these listings has been paid for by the publishers, they appear like organic listings.
These native ad types are similar to other ad types you may have crossed online. But what makes the difference? Well, they are contextually relevant to the site you see them on.
The paid media fits into an app’s user interface along with other filters found on Snapchat.
By now, you probably know that native advertising is the ad type that fits into the platform that it appears. But some examples of native advertising will help you gain more understanding of the concept.
Here are some best native advertising examples.
Native advertising comes in various forms — and that includes audio content. Spotify uses the user’s data and listening history to come up with recommended playlists. Another example could be seen on Netflix where Spotify’s team promoted the “Stranger Things” show. There is the option for users to enable the “Stranger Things” mode, and they get assigned to a playlist based on their preferred character. This model helps in promoting the show using background logos and art designs. It also resonated with the listener’s interest since the playlist tracks are tailored based on the user’s listening history.
Story filters on Snapchat and Instagram help in connecting the users to the brands using fun and shareable content. The filters could be things like background graphics, interactive quizzes, AR makeup overlays, or editing techniques with brand names.
Sponsored hashtags on Twitter have always been around. But you can get the most out of it by using them in native and engaging ways to boost your ads. When users use your hashtags for votes or challenges, it could raise your brand’s awareness, and pretty much help you get the most out of your paid hashtags.
Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook connect users using features like feed. Feed pretty much involves the content and posts that appear on the timeline where users get to connect with content from other accounts.
Typically, paid ads appear on these feed as well — and they can be tailored in such a way that it becomes somewhat difficult to differentiate from the regular content on the platform. Although users get to see the tag and identify it as sponsored or promoted. However, if this sponsored content is well designed with good graphics, video, or text, the target audience won’t mind engaging with them.
TikTok is a social media platform that relies much on native advertising. It’s okay to sponsor content that appears as video pop-ups, but if you desire more success, you’ve got to opt for content that is in line with trending videos and sounds. If a trending video or sound fits into your product or service offering, creating a TikTok video seems like the best course of action to follow. On the flip side, if your target audience does not agree with your marketing model, they’d likely drop some disapproving comments on your post. As a marketer, you’ve got to pay close attention to the feedback your content is generating, and make the necessary adjustments (if there are any).
Aside from social media platforms, you can find native advertising in magazines and online news websites. Sponsored posts are usually found in the Recommended Articles section. It could also be found as an in-feed button that takes readers to a separate page.
Sponsored article posts are written to promote a different brand — but the content within the blog is useful and offers valuable information to the audience. Since sponsored posts offer useful information without clusters of banners and pop-ups, they get to attract lots of people to a native advertising page.
Native advertising is a rapidly evolving industry. Here are some advertising trends you should look out for.
Native ads are found on various kinds of platforms — publisher sites, social media, retail sites, and search engine platforms. A close look at the trend shows that native ad budgets for publishers are on a rapid decline, but that of social media is on the increase. Instead of going for ad placements on Forbes, Buzzfeed, and other sites, marketers prefer opting for Instagram In-feed advertisements, LinkedIn sponsored content, Snapchat filters, and other kinds of ad types on social media platforms.
Traffic generated from mobile devices are on the increase — about 52.2% of web traffic is from mobile devices, and the figure is predicted to increase by 26.5%. When it comes to mobile devices, native ads are more preferred to display or banner ads. After all, the limited real estate available on mobile devices makes it increasingly preferable to opt for native advertising. This way, customers who are always available on their smart devices will easily engage with your ads.
Nowadays, more advertisers tend to spend more on mobile and digital video ads. Native video advertising is arguably the new gold mine — and lots of advertisers are investing more in it. In the near future, native video ads will likely become more pronounced in publisher sites and social media feeds.
When it comes to attracting customers using native advertising, you can opt for PPC campaigns — but it’s not that simple, especially when you’re managing multiple campaigns in a single account. In such cases, you’d need a tool like the PPC Signal tool to help you keep a close eye on all your campaigns.
Let’s say you’re running a campaign, and you decide to optimize it by adjusting your cost per conversion — after all, cost per conversion is one of the most important factors that determine how good your campaign will perform.
From the PPC Signal tool dashboard, choose the cost per conversion from the metrics option provided. After that, an automated signal will be displayed on your screen in real-time. From the signals displayed, you’d get enough insight into the cost per conversion of your campaign.
That’s not all, you get to know information about the shifts, trends, anomalies, and outliers in your data. To get more insights about the signals displayed on your screen, you’d have to click on the Explore button.
After clicking on the Explore button, a graphical data representation of your campaign will be showcased on your screen. This way, you get to discover everything you need to know about the cost per conversion of your campaign.
There is also the option of representing your data in a tabular format — and that’s a good alternative to help you check other relevant metrics that are affecting the cost per conversion of your campaign.
The automated signals are a sure-proof way to help you make the right decisions. This will, in turn, help you to optimize your campaign. In the long run, you’d generate the desired result for your campaign.
With the PPC Signal tool, you get to easily make the right decisions even if you’re running your campaign using limited resources. It is a recommended tool for marketers who want to maximize their return on investment (ROI).
Native ads are designed to match the look and feel of your app or website and offer a user-friendly experience for your users. When it comes to the difference between native ads and standard ads, native ads are tailored in such a way that it fits right into the user’s path through the app or website. A close look reveals that they’re ads, but it fits seamlessly into the overall app or site content.
Native advertising pretty much helps businesses to integrate their marketing messages into the surrounding content. This way, they won’t appear intrusive or jarring. In the long run, the format helps reduces the number of visitors that bounces off the ad content.
It primarily points to the fact that native advertising is better received by the target audience. Since they don’t appear like regular ads, people are more likely to view and consume these ad content.
Native advertising is the type of social media ad that matches the format and style of the organic post. A typical example is a boosted or sponsored post. Native ads look much similar to organic social content. The difference is that these ad content are identified as “promoted” or “sponsored”.
Digital marketers are opting for native advertising in large numbers. And their reason is not far fetched. Native advertising is more engaging, and entertaining, and will likely generate the most sales, brand awareness, and clicks for your business.
Creating paid ad content that is similar to the surrounding content of an app or site is a sure way of attracting the most audience and growing a community of loyal audiences.
A good understanding of ad performance is an essential step for marketers who desire continued growth for their businesses. Without a good understanding of digital marketing, generating the most dollars for your business will be an issue.
Now you’ve seen some native advertising examples, what platforms will you be exploring using native ads?
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