Where Does Native Advertising Fit into Your Marketing Strategy?
Marketing today relies heavily on the production of content. With tactics such as social media or digital video it’s ever important to have as much content as possible to keep your brand enthusiasts coming back for more. And with technology like ad blockers, television streaming and TiVo, it’s becoming more difficult to get that content in front of people. So, marketers are more often considering native advertising as a way to encourage brand loyalty among consumers and further engage with them.
How does native do this?
- Native ads match the form and function of the platform upon which they’re served (meaning, the ad feels natural/organic to the content). So it’s often overlooked as an ad and users tend to engage with it more frequently. In fact, 67% of consumers feel that custom content from a company is valuable and 73% of consumers actually prefer to get information in this format rather than traditional ads.
- Within each platform, native ads are also delivered as part of the user’s experience. So whether it’s a quiz on BuzzFeed or a promoted tweet, they’re all designed to not interrupt the user.
Native advertising isn’t always the best recommendation, but when it’s the right fit there are several advantages:
- Native ads are viewed 53% more frequently than display ads. That means all that content you’re generating is being put to good use. In fact, people who view native ads often mention that they personally identified with the brand prior to making a purchase.
- When comparing native to standard ads, it’s also important to remember that native ads are: 52% more visually focused, have an 18% higher purchase intent and have a 9% lift in brand affinity (high level of brand loyalty).
Once you’ve determined you have plenty of content available to include native advertising into your marketing plan, and you’ve allocated a budget to run it effectively, then you have two options to set up your campaign:
- You can work with a publisher such as the Huffington Post or BuzzFeed. Producing publisher-direct ads with partners like these requires larger budgets because you generally have a much larger audience available. One of the most successful examples of publisher-direct native advertising can be seen in an article featured on the New York Time’s website titled, Women Inmates: Why the Male Model Doesn’t Work. This piece was sponsored by Netflix to promote their series “Orange is the New Black” and yet nowhere in the article is the show mentioned.
- You can run your native campaign programmatically. With programmatic native advertising you purchase it on a CPM basis and often a much lower minimum spend than publisher-direct.
No matter which option you choose, remember that your native ad will be served on the sites your audience frequents. So while it may be natural to presume your content will be seen on sites related to your industry they most likely will not. Native goes where your potential audience goes, not where you go.
