Have you been thinking of Native Advertising or have they been thinking of you?

Have a look at our blog article on native ads so you can see what they are and what they can do…

What is Native Advertising?

Native advertising is simply paid advertising in a determined media format that is placed on another website, usually in a related field or where your own audience may be.  It is part of the editorial flow, so it sits naturally in the content of the website you are placing on.  Native Advertising is then non-intrusive or non-disruptive advertising.  

So what does the Ad look like?

The ad can come in many different formats but one of them is a simple advertorial style format however Outbrain, which is one of the platforms where you can run a Native Advertising campaign, demonstrates types of Native Ads and what they look like here…

You can see the different style of Native Advertising from this image from Outbrain…

Native Ads look like a regular piece of content

But normally have a feature to indicate to the user that they are an ad.   They are though different from a traditional online advertising and do have to be strategised accordingly.  

Let’s take a Google Ad campaign.  A Google Ad is still integrated into search so if I was selling “brogue shoes” and running a Google Ad campaign my ad would appear in Google once someone has typed in “brogue shoes”.   The user is looking for brogue shoes, that really enhances my chances of a sale.

With a native ad, the user isn’t looking for brogue shoes, it is simply some content that has led them to the website, therefore, I have to work harder to get the sale. This could be an offer on the website or another enticement.

Because of this you need to retarget

It’s pointless to get the traffic to your website from a Native Ad, have someone bounce off and then never see them again.  Instead, you need to retarget the user so they revisit your website again, so retargeting is vital when it comes to Native Advertising.

Branding

Native advertising is brilliant for branding, introducing people to your product or service, as the people who find your ad and go through to your website, have done so for the first time (more than likely).  Furthermore they have done so from a website that has authority in a related field to your website.   

This creates a form of trust and trust sells.

Using funnels

I strongly recommend that you use funnels on your website if you want to fully capture the traffic and turn it into sales.   This could be in the form of sign ups such as “leave your information here to get 10% off” or anything that can be remarket.  We already spoke about retargeting, you do need to consolidate and expand on the traffic you get because as always, when you advertise, it’s to make money.  

Copywriting

Not everyone is a conversion copy specialist but copywriting is vital for Native Advertising.  We do not want to go down the rabbit hole of click bait but your going to need some conversion as we have speculated, the traffic is new and was looking at an entirely different website previously.  

Using the power of you to the curiosity gap when appropriate is pretty important here, as you look to seduce the user to your website.  

Ultimately, if you have a unique story or a unique product or service, native advertising can and will work, especially if you get the copywriting right.  Furthermore, its affordable in terms of paid traffic as the cpc is cheaper then Social Media Ads and certainly Google Adwords.  However they work differently and should be in your arsenal of advertising rather than stand alone working in tandem with Social and Google Ads or SEO.

If you want to have a chat about Native Advertising it is as you can guess, if you have read this far, a service we offer and can talk you through the pros and cons at your leisure.