Native Advertising is becoming an increasingly interesting topic as more companies are looking to use native advertising because of its costs and ROI.
Native advertising refers to digital ad formats where companies integrate their content, stories, and/or videos through sponsored posts on social media and editorial websites. What’s different about native advertising is that companies seek to not only provide engaging content to attract viewers, but they usually try to give their content the same format, style, and voice to the website the content appears on.
The most recognized forms of native advertising are Sponsored Facebook Stories, Promoted Tweets, branded playlists on Spotify, sponsored check-ins on Foursquare, and content integrations on sites like Buzzfeed or Men’s Journal.
Native advertising, when done correctly, consistently provides higher click-through rates than banner or sidebar advertisements. Also, the cost-per-click is significantly cheaper for native advertisements (typically less than $.50 per click) than for standard web advertisements.
Major Benefits
Advertiser Benefits
1. Increased Effectiveness. Because Native ads are not banners at the top of the page, but rather content within it, site visitors are much more likely to view and interact with the content.
2. Increased Perception. Because the brand isn’t detracting from the user’s experience through native advertising, it actually enhances the experience.
Publisher Benefits
1. Increased revenue due to higher click-through rates.
2. A generally increased experience through the removal of standard interruptive marketing efforts.
Drawbacks
1. The biggest drawback to native advertising is that you typically have a limited audience to view your content. While major brands, like Facebook and Twitter, provide a great platform for companies to provide large-scale native advertising, many other small publishers simply don’t have the site activity that provide the necessary ROI.
Many top publishers, however, have actually developed “open” environments. An open environment allows advertisers to execute their ads across multiple sites and platforms. (Sharethrough has put together a great .pdf that outlines the leading players on the editorial and social platforms that provides some insight into potentially advertising through those areas.)
2. Many consumers find native advertising to be misleading. In fact, a 2012 MediaBrix survey showed that while only 43 percent of people felt that promoted tweets were misleading, 86 percent of people felt mislead by sponsored videos.
Native Advertising Tips
1. Native ads are not press releases. This is not an opportunity for companies to hard sell their products. Rather, they are provided with a vehicle to share interesting content, case studies, or other relevant information.
2. Learn from others’ examples. There are a number of great examples out there that highlight positive native advertising. Study how they seamlessly integrated their content and maximized their success.
3. Pay attention to the audience. What type of platform are you creating the content for? What would interest them? What would annoy them?
If you would like to find out more about Native Advertising, the following articles are fantastic:
1. http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/19/the-secret-sauce-of-native-ads-the-next-wave-of-advertising/
2. http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/17/the-native-ad-movement-and-the-opportunity-for-web-publishers/
3. http://blog.kissmetrics.com/native-advertising/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+KISSmetrics+%28KISSmetrics+Marketing+Blog%29
