An Insightful Approach To Native Advertising – It Isn’t Content Marketing
People are still confused about native advertising. The word is new to many and a few others, who are expert advertisers, still confused about what is it all about. Simply, native advertising is a new form of paid advertising in which the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience. Native ads sync into the visual design of the platform they live within and look and feel so natural.
The leading media companies effectively monetize their content feed with the help of in feed native advertising now. Media giants as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr etc. do it so effectively. You can see many of the leading publishers too as Forbes, New York Times, Time Inc, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today following the suit.
The native advertisers effectively integrate ads on their desktop and mobile pages to naturally match to the form of their editorial feeds. Generically referred to as advertorials, all leading publishers now maintain sponsored content studios to create effective content on behalf of the brands.
Some Stats
Here is some insight from the research reports reflecting the effectiveness and need for native advertising in the fast-changing media arena.
• People do see it – When compared to the traditional banner ads, 25% more viewers are found to look at the in-feed native ads. The banners were simply getting avoided 90% of times.
• As editorial – The consumers noted to view the native ads 2% more than content in the editorials and also seemed to come back at the same percentage for second viewing.
• Mobile branding – About 97% of the mobile media users reported that their native ads were much more effective in achieving the branding goals when compared to conventional advertisements.
• Purchase drivers – In comparison with banner ads, native ads showed 18% increase in purchase intent.
Native Ads from a Neuroscience Perspective
A study was conducted to identify the effectiveness of native advertising from a neuroscience and eye-tracking perspective. It was aimed at learning about how the consumers visually process native mobile ads. This was the first of its kind of research conducted, which delivered new insights on enhancing the visual attention to mobile feeds and maximizing the impression value from native ads.
It is not Content Marketing
Many people wrongly perceive native advertising as yet another content marketing technique, but it is not so. Content marketing is a strategic marketing technique to create ads which can distribute valuable, consistent, and relevant content to attract and convert the clearly targeted audience by initiating profitable customer action.
On the other hand, content marketing is an ongoing process which stands as a part of the overall marketing strategy of a company. The brands own the media in content marketing, but native advertising is more of a “pay to play” option where the brands pay out for the placement of their friendly content on various platforms outside their own media.
However, what is common in both is the importance for content. In native advertising, content is more information based, useful, engaging, interesting, and highly targeted to the specific audience. But in any sense, it is not the traditional promotional content which directly try to sell product or services.
To summarize, as its innate habit, native advertising never disrupt, but contribute to positive user experience and offers helpful information in the same format of the content surrounding it.