Newspapers were the first form of mass circulation. You can say it was the first generation of mainstream media. While it is not known whether they used metric and analytic data during that time, publishers knew that headline font sizes and advertising positions need to be in specific areas to grab attention.
However, newspaper advertising could not look as native as they hoped to be. Print advertisements definitely looked out of place. While the latter grabbed attention, there was no guarantee it added knowledge to the consumer to pique their curiosities. In fact, it only made consumers aware the product or service existed.
Decades later, TVs established the next generation of mass communications. It allowed advertisements to become part of shows. Later on, they became individual paid segments with their respective slots in primetime television. In fact, they even looked like real shows. Episodic commercials were some of the best performing commercials during the era. In this light, episodic advertisements in the form of video gain huge interest in digital marketing today, such as Dell’s amazing example.
When the Internet era exploded through social media, companies were eager to spend much on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. With people spending more time on social media and the Internet, it was fertile ground for establishing an online presence. According to Entrepreneur, there are four types of digital advertisements: Display, Video, Social, and Native advertisements.
Citing a Salesforce poll of 4,000 marketers, Entrepreneur said native advertising plays a major role in many businesses. Daily Beast is one of them. The company spends about 90% of its revenue on native advertising.
Indeed, digital native advertising is not as different compared to its TV commercial counterpart. Its visibility does not impede on consumer experience. One great example of digital native advertising is IBM’s sponsored content it published on The Atlantic. It reads like the periodical’s usual piece except it labels it as sponsored content, which it really is. However, because its form is similar, and it does not make secret of its true intent, consumers are likely to read the content.
Indeed, native advertisements are the future for online advertising. The traditional print-ad can now be an informative piece that highlights the positives of a product or service. While content is still king, packaging it in a familiar form helps make it easier to consume.
Five Signs Native Ads Are the Future
Highest Engagement
A Business Insider report on native advertising showed that it is capable of being two to five times better at engagements compared to traditional advertising. It said the highest native ad engagement was through smartphones. Given the increasing use of the portable mobile device in the near future, native advertisements will perform effectively to drive high ROI.
PointRoll’s benchmark report shows that 0.46% of content consumed through mobile is through in-stream video. Facebook Video is one of these. They are videos that automatically play as users scroll through their News Feed. YouTube’s pre-video and mid-stream content are also useful platforms, although they tend to take away a bit from the user experience. However, these are still counted as engagements and capable of using content to pique the viewer’s interest.
Quick Start
Even on a small budget, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) can launch their respective native ad campaigns. Positioning one’s brand through high-traffic news and magazine sites such as CNN, Bloomberg and business-oriented publications are expensive. However, native advertisement service providers make it easy. If you ever visited a magazine-style site, you might have seen a “promoted stories” section at the bottom of the screen.
The best part of using native ad services such as Nativo or Triplelift is you can get placement on top publications that accept promoted or sponsored content such as the ones mentioned earlier. It is also likely these quick-start and affordable services will continue to grow in number and drive down native advertising costs further in the future.
Non-Interruptive User Experience
Native advertising’s core idea is to introduce the brand in a flowing fashion by adopting the same style and format of usual content. For example, Facebook’s native ads look like the stories with links on any user’s usual feed. As with IBM’s post on The Atlantic, the post looks like an authentic periodical content without any changes.
Considering all these examples, native advertising is least likely to disrupt the viewer’s experience. However, disruption can still happen. One example is YouTube’s mid-stream advertisements can sometimes be disruptive (especially if content creators place them in awkward segments).
Content Relies on Native Advertising
Search engine optimization (SEO) has helped content marketing find its groove since users widely use these online services. If creators develop their site and content based on the search engine’s specifications, then the site is likely retrieved as the top search result for a certain keyword. Nowadays, search engine use is down but not out. Most mobile users are spending more time on social networks and site-specific applications.
In this light, a huge portion of content goes to advertising efforts. Facebook Video is one of the most-used platforms for content marketing. Its automatic-play feature, once users scroll past them on the News Feed, quickly piques the audience’s interest. Sponsored content even on Twitter has performed brilliantly over the last few years especially if the link leads to compelling content, according to ExpandedRamblings.
Extremely Great ROI
Digital Marketer launched a native advertising campaign featuring content from the founder Ryan Deiss himself. It is well-written and has an attention-grabbing headline, which follows the specifications of cornerstone content creation. According to their analytic data, they have made over 259% ROI through native advertising.
According to their data, they have spent about $2,063 on bought traffic through Facebook. The post generated more than $5,810 of sales. Next, they spent about $602 on their Twitter campaign. In turn, it generated $270.08. Adding the two together, they had $6080 in total sales, which is indeed an ROI of 259%.
