What Is Native Advertising?

Native advertising is a paid form of advertisement where the ads are kept amongst other contents in a site but making those blend uniformly with the environment. Native ads mix with the visual element and overall content to promote a certain content or product. without disrupting the user experience. Native advertising example can be a suggested post on Facebook, a sponsored tweet on Twitter or one of the videos recommended to you when you start browsing YouTube. Traditional and invasive advertising formats, like banners or pop-ups, interrupt the user’s navigation whereas native advertising has the ability to attract much more attention from the readers as it is less noticeable. It contains relevant & productive information so are shared more by people in the social media platforms increasing the customer reach.

Characteristics of Native Ads

• Content advertising integrates online advertising into web pages by using the content as support. Native advertising will be successful if its content is relevant. It should be in line will the rest of the articles that are there.
• In order to capture the attention of the potential client, engage them with highly valued information, which is so interesting and attractive that they will even want to share it with other people.
• Optimizing and adapting this type of advertising to the different devices and platforms available. Several videos, images and other dynamic multimedia forms should be used so that the user has the opportunity to interact with your content and engage with your brand.

Types of Native Ads

• Open – Consists of promoting the same content on various platforms or pages that share the same topic at once.
• Closed – This form of native advertising is the one which is published by a specific page or environment. It is formatted according to the environment itself, for instance, a post on a specific blog, or an advertising message on a social network.
• Editorial content advertisement – These are all content which includes a sponsored message and is perfectly integrated into the environment following its format and style. Content mainly created by the advertisers and the editors themselves. These types of messages blend in perfectly like a piece of content of the website which allows them to go unnoticed. These ads allow users to interact with them without interruption or leaving the page.
• Search engines advertisement –  The most popular search engines amongst users such as Google or Yahoo allow users to highlight their links in the results obtained by the user’s search. These sponsored links which come with a disclaimer identifying the brand or page appear at the top of the page of results.
• Recommendation Widgets: – These advertisements blend in but do not adopt the format of the rest of the content of the page. It contains something that sets them apart, such as “don’t miss this” or “we recommend”.
• Promoted lists – These advertised messages are presented identically like the other products that can be found on the page. Amazon would be the best example of a page that uses the promoted lists to include objects with a link which direct to the brand’s page.
• Standard advertisements – These ads present themselves similar to display, even though they are set apart from the rest of the page by an identifying label. These types of announcements are found outside the editorial area of the page and do not share the format of the rest of the content. They are generally linked and redirected to a page external to the advertiser itself.
• In-Game native Ads – In this case, the ads seamlessly blend into the gameplay environment. The game assets are usually branded or replaced with branded assets. Incorporation of native ads includes replacement of the in-game assets character apparel, background elements etc. with branded assets.
• Tailored  – The most creative form of branded content. This one is agreed on and created by the editorial teams of the environment and the advertiser. It can take on many creative shapes and types allowing for total creative freedom.

Benefits of Native Ads

The main benefits of this form of marketing come from the short-term interactions created with customers and the ability to build long-term relationships.

• No intrusion –  unlike banner ads that annoy the consumer, here the consumer is conditioned and given the space to consume the content as per his convenience without forcing him with pushy banner ads
• No efforts – The ad displayed in the background is subconsciously consumed by the consumer with zero efforts .  no efforts are required from the consumer to consume the content. The context in which the ads are placed allows for easy product/service registration in the minds of consumers.
• Latest trend – Native advertising on mobile is the ad format of choice for millennials  suggested by a survey of 300 where 38% said that in-feed native ads make them more likely to purchase the brand featured in the content.
• Unique – Native ads allow for advertiser content to stand out by blending in . Placed in the right context, native ads perform better and stand out from other low performing ad formats.
• Higher conversion – Native ads generate higher click rates than other mobile ads because of its non-intrusive nature it has a high acceptance rate thus resulting in higher click rates.
• Beneficial to all – Native ads provide a win-win opportunity for all key players in the ecosystem. Advertisers effectively communicate the brand offering, Publishers do not worry about losing their user base and the Users enjoy their content without interruption.

Limitations of Native Ads

Recently, the total number of native advertisers has been stagnant and overall expansion has slowed. Only about 11% of online advertisers use native formats now and brands that buy native ads only run them across 10% of the total number of sites that they advertise on considering the limitations:

• Measure – Measuring the performance and sustainability of native campaigns is difficult for advertisers. Without unified standards, it is hard to gauge metrics, such as return on investment (ROI), impact, and effectiveness.
• Effort – A great story and design require both time and labor for advertisers and content creators. The actual process of crafting a native ad campaign is a costly, multistep process which involves a lot of collaboration and rounds of review done over a long period of time.
• Deception – Consumers should only be exposed to online advertisements that are fair, clear, and engaging. Unfortunately, native advertising has the potential to be too discrete especially when the poor content does not disclose much of the product.
• Native advertising can be more expensive than other forms of content marketing.
• If the experience with the native ad content is bad the negative feelings directly affect the brand.

Round Up

Native advertising lets the brand customize their branded experience to a great extent to suit the product or service offering. It offers high quality, useful and updated information to the final user. Additionally, it carries the added advantages of digital advertising which include cost-effectiveness, broad spectrum of audience and the ability to precisely target viewers based on various factors which may include demographics, psychographics, behavioral targeting. Native advertising types have far exceeded the expectations of digital marketers and is fully future-ready.

Abhishek Dey

I and my team research various ad networks and can help you increase your overall ad revenue; so you could rake in more greenbacks with the best monetization platforms. I am just a mail away, so reach out to me if you want to scale up your website revenue. mail: [email protected]