Native Advertising: Its Pros and Cons, Its Types and Benefits
Ordinary "point blank" advertising has bored the audience. It is much more effective to arouse users' natural interest with content. That is why brands strive to apply unobtrusive and interesting advertising that is difficult to recognize. One of these solutions is native advertising, which is content that is useful to customers, though created with the support of a specific organization. It attracts customers with content that is as informative and media-friendly as possible. This way of promotion is not aimed at sale, it does not use direct and indirect calls to purchase, it demonstrates the benefits of the product and brand capabilities in a loyal and careful way. The main task of native ads is to convince the audience of the brand's ability to properly meet their needs.
Native material comes in the form of articles, posts, and videos on all sorts of topics, making it harder for companies to draw attention. Compared to banners and direct advertising, users see native ads 53% more often and are much more interested in the product. Thus, native advertising has a number of key features: relevance to the interest of the audience, unobtrusiveness, the presence of useful and informative content, the lack of interactivity.
Why using native ads is profitable
Users often fail to recognize native ads, resulting in a more loyal customer experience. According to IPG & Sharethrough analysis, 32% of the audience is willing to share sponsored content with family or friends.
According to Deloitte statistics, in 2021 customers have become more loyal to advertising, especially if it does not violate personal privacy. Research shows the benefits of company nativeness in advertising. In 2021, for example, brands were increasingly turning to media to attract attention using a variety of formats. Checking 335 placements on various sites, it turned out that materials were represented in seven different forms: promotional articles, cards, tests, games, special projects, videos and podcasts.
Another advantage is the certainty that readers read the branded content as well as the content of the edition.
What are pros and contras of native advertising
Advantages
It's hard to recognize that it's advertising. Native ads are customized to the platform on which they are placed. Potential buyers can see it just as they see other articles. Therefore, the likelihood that your message will reach the buyer is very high.
It doesn't annoy potential customers. The native ads don't not urge customers to buy or immediately order products. It informs about something useful. There's a good chance the customer will like it or send it to a friend. This promotes your product.
The loyalty to the brand increases. When readers see the article with natively integrated brand among the topics that are interesting to them, they subconsciously keep it in mind and can come back to it or become your buyer in the future.
Disadvantages
Hard to be implemented. Creating original and high-quality content is a must for providing efficiency of native ads, and to do it experts are required. Thus, extra resources should be spent as it is quite hard to create and promote native ads.
High cost. Advertising of this type on third-party resources is quite expensive, so that small businesses or start-ups can hardly afford such a budget.
Hard to be scaled. Each native ad is created for a specific content and style. It cannot be just transferred from one resource to another, as it may be very odd and irrelevant for a different platform.
Types of native ads and its examples
The secret of the efficiency of native advertising is that much attention is paid to the usefulness of the content and the needs of consumers. To understand it better, we suggest considering the main types of native advertising: Native integration with bloggers. For example, on TikTok there’s a video blog of an influencer @huddy with more than 31 million of followers mostly under 25. There’s a video where he eats junk food Canes tagging it #raisingcanes.
An example of native ad integration with youth influencer on TikTok
Sponsored content. This is one of the most expensive types of advertising. The product has its main sponsor and is published on information and entertainment resources of any format, that can be a blog, social networks, TV series, etc. For example, one of the most famous references to Nike sneakers is the movie Forrest Gump featuring Tom Hanks, where the protagonist dreamed of Nike "Cortez" sneakers.
Nike Cortez advertising in Forrest Gump movie
Content as a recommendation. This can include compilations, ratings and reviews that are smoothly integrated into the content. This format is excellent for mobile applications or games. It is considered one of the most effective ways of advertising.
Native advertising in social networks. The main advantage of this method is the combination of targeted and native advertising: you create what your target audience needs in their favorite communities, pages, and blogs. For example, a potential customer browses your feed in the social net and sees sponsored posts related to the topic they want. It is interesting and worth reading for them, and also the popularity of the company increases in this way.
Examples of native ads in a social network
Where to place native ads
Nowadays, native content is shown in the digital space, but sometimes magazines, banners, and television become platforms for ad placement. Let's take a look at some of the sites where native content can be placed online.
Social networks. This includes advertising on the largest social networks of the world: Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram* , Facebook* and others. And everywhere it takes different forms. These are posts, paid publications, sponsored videos etc.
Ad on Instagram*
Advertising platforms, expert articles and blogs specializing in a certain sphere. This advertising is interesting for the user because the content which is posted is helpful and informative for the audience. For example, you can record a podcast on the topic "How to make your morning more productive" and at the same time unobtrusively promote a new coffee drink.
Search engines. Google uses native ads in the form of contextual ads that appear alongside your search results. Users may not even notice where the ads are and where the natural results are.
Examples of native ads on Google search engine
How to create effective native advertising:
Get in touch with your audience's interests (what sites they prefer).
Find out if you can create the content yourself or if you need to involve partners.
Choose the right content and adapt it to the format of the platform.
Calculate how much it costs to create and host it.
Choose ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising.
Note the important tips:
Native integration should be appealing for the audience, fit the format of the site, and should not be annoying. At the same time, it should be indicated as advertising content.
This type of advertising is unobtrusive.
Native advertising is viral, which should circulate among readers as word of mouth.
How to check the effectiveness of native ads
Native advertising, like other types of promotion, needs to be assessed for effectiveness. If the published material contains a link to the brand site, such indicators as CTR and leads are used. If the ad is affiliate content without a link, then it is evaluated through the engagement and audience coverage, the number of likes, comments and reposts. When evaluating effectiveness, the following criteria are used:
CTR (Click Through Rate/clickability of ads) is the transition from the ad to the site, that is, the number of clicks on the link;
view rate the number of people who viewed the ad;
scroll-down rate this metric shows what proportion of visitors have scrolled to the end of the page;
engagement rate is the way subscribers interact with content;
conversion is the number of users who performed a targeted action after viewing the content.
How to increase the effectiveness of native advertising
The effectiveness of this type of advertising depends on many factors: the relevance of the information or the choice of promotion method. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the following aspects:
Use the platforms that your customers prefer
For example, your target audience mainly uses social networks, and they are not particularly interested in expert blogs and portals. So you need to focus your attention on those platforms, research your competitors there, and then choose an advertising format.
Determine the interests of your audience and the format
There are many formats for native sales. Which one to choose depends on the platforms where you're going to advertise and on the preferences of your audience. You can experiment with the types of content: useful articles, tests or games with a focus on a certain topic. And then you can analyze and understand which information is better and more effectively perceived by the audience.
Don't overdo it with clickbait
Using headlines that are too eye-catching and unrelated to the topic of the article will not lead to a positive result. The users first get interested in the title, then they read the material that they don't appreciate. This often leads to disappointment with the brand.
Use prelending
Unlike a landing page, prelending gently gets the customer prepared and interested. It doesn't have a direct and obvious willingness to sell the product as quickly as possible. Therefore, the potential buyer gets warmed up before the possible purchase and does not treat the advertisement negatively.
Conclusion
Native advertising is a type of product advertising where the brand attracts attention in the context of the site and user interests. Such content is appreciated by users because they get useful information. Therefore, for the audience it is good advertising without being intrusive.
There are several types of native ads: promotion with bloggers or in social networks, sponsored content, and recommendations. It is placed on absolutely different platforms, from blogs to search engines.
To increase the effectiveness of native content, it is important to place it on the platforms used by the company's target audience, to select the right format and to provide high-quality material.
*Meta and its products are considered to be extremist in the Russian Federation