Native Advertising is a sponsored content promoted and displayed within the content offered to readers and whose goal is to immerse such sponsored content within the context, unlike traditional advertising that has the goal of „distracting” the reader from the content so as to communicate the message.
The aim is to create a real engagement but also to attract the user’s attention.
The fundamental characteristic is that this type of advertising assumes the same features of the content becoming an integral part of it and the advertiser makes explicit the sponsorship of the content.
In a similar way to content marketing, the user is at the center of the scene, the contents of advertising are directed to his needs and do not leave the context in which they are inserted.
The main forms of Native Advertising that we are used to seeing every day are, for example, YouTube True View, sponsored Tweets, Facebook and Instagram sponsored posts.
As for search engine sponsored ads, these are typically found at the beginning of the results page – SERP- after a user has typed a search key.
These ads are considered „native” because they look the same as the search results, with the only difference that is specified by a small label that is a sponsor adv.
This technique is obviously also popular on social media, in particular, Facebook and Instagram which offer companies a great opportunity to spread their brand.
This type of ads on social media is almost indistinguishable from the other contents of the News section, only the word „Sponsored” denotes the advertising character.
According to this principle also Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat offer the possibility to create native listings in the news.
BANNER BLINDNESS
The need for this new type of non-interruptive advertising arose from the growing phenomenon of banner blindness.
Over time, users have gained a greater awareness of Internet by becoming more and more able to identify the advertising spaces contained in web pages and to become indifferent towards them, making banners ineffective.
This phenomenon has led advertisers to look for new forms of advertising that can actually stimulate the interest of their target customers.
A solution that proved to be effective to stem this problem is the native advertising: brands are starting to divert their investments from the classic Pay-Per-Click ads to the promotion within the content streams more prestigious where engagement is more favorable.
An interesting study, in this field, is the one conducted by Pitch Sajjacholapunt and Linden J. Ball „The influence of the banner advertisements on attention and memory”.
The authors demonstrate how facial images with averted gaze that are embedded within online banner advertisements provide powerful orienting cues that can increase web users’ attention to advertising information that is incidental to their current, goal-directed search task.
Here are the search results:
“…this increased attentional engagement with advertising information manifests itself in an enhanced ability to remember advertising contents such as brand information and words linked to advertising messages. The study also demonstrates that the converse results arise when banner advertisements include embedded faces with mutual gaze. In this latter case although web users are attracted to attend to the banner advertisement, they engage disproportionately with the face itself at the expense of attending to advertising information, which generally limits any memory benefits that arise for brand information or adverting details. This detrimental impact of mutual gaze on attention to advertising products is particularly marked for vertical banners located at the bottom-right of webpages, whereas averted gaze cues in such banners have a positive impact on attention to product information”.
What the study authors suggest is to take advantage of the inclusion of looking away from online advertisements to improve people’s engagement with advertisements, brand information, and product details. Suggestion followed precisely with Native Advertising.
NATIVE ADVERTISING VS CONTENT MARKETING
One small aspect to consider is that Native Advertising is often associated and exchanged with Content Marketing; although the terms are used interchangeably, they are not the same thing.
Thanks to Outbrian.com we can see what the main differences between these two techniques are.
| Native Advertising | Content Marketing | |
| Definition | Any paid content that is “in-feed” and inherently non-disruptive | Any piece of content that communicates with customers in a way that adds value, without the sales pitch |
| Why Use it? | In its marriage of form and function, native is playing a growing part in publisher’s monetization strategies, quickly becoming a best practice for marketers online |
On the list of trusted mediums, editorial content outranked ads on TV, radio, and billboards, as well as in newspapers and magazines |
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HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NATIVE ADVERTISING FOR YOUR ONLINE STORE
- QUALITY CONTENT
If the page on which you want to place the content denotes a high quality, then your Native ads must also prove to be in line with the same quality.
Native advertising does not work without content, so like a content marketing strategy, you must accurately consider the target, create valuable and creative content and make sure that the brand or the product remains in the background.
- TEXT AND IMAGES
The native ads are not just advertising texts, you have to bring out the usefulness of the product, and how user can consume it. Giving this added value and responding to the needs of users, it is easy for them to share your content.
Two basic rules:
- use evocative images, of impact, capable of arousing an emotion;
- Limit the text as much as possible.
In fact, more and more users use a mobile device and for this reason, the advert that you create must be suitable for mobile devices. Too much text could be difficult to read and may divert attention.
- PLATFORMS
Next, you have to show the content on the appropriate platforms.
Choosing the right channel for your online store depends on the technology you choose for your business and product you sell.
If you sell clothing, accessories, vintage or products that have a great visual impact, surely Instagram is the main platform to promote your content.
With the introduction of business accounts, the way of sponsoring their contents on Instagram has also changed. Before the second half of 2016, the only way to promote a post on Instagram was to go through Facebook ADS but with the introduction of Instagram business, it is possible to sponsor without going through Facebook. It is possible to promote not only photographs and single images but also videos and set of images, called carousels.
- LOOK AND FEEL:
At the same time, there are many suppliers, which place the content of the customers through the so-called Ad Servers for Native Ads that have the task of automatically displaying and scaling the post.
These providers provide specific advertising networks for Native Marketing and offer advertisers suitable editorial websites.
Since the Native Ads are inserted in the context of the page, your advice needs to imitate the visual and other characteristics typical of the partner page in order to place Native ads in the best possible way avoiding to develop automatically a negative attitude towards advertising messages.
- OPTIMIZATION:
The tracking of a single campaign is the key point to optimize your campaign and use the budget in the best possible way.
This includes the optimization of individual content, including teasers and titles. There are several methods for quality control: A / B testing, heat map, maps that count clicks etc. allow to analyze the content in a specific way and measure the performances.
CONCLUSION
Like any type of advertising or marketing, native advertising is very effective for some people and ineffective for others. Only by experimenting, modifying and evaluating the results you can find what fits for your customers.
What you need before you start is being aware of what you want to achieve concretely and being able to measure it.
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