How Native Advertising Can Improve Your Performance Marketing Strategies

Native advertising has a key role to play in digital marketing. It can enhance your performance marketing tactics. In this blog, we will learn how to leverage native advertising and Marketing Strategies to give the best to our digital marketing efforts.

But before moving ahead, let us first understand what actually native advertising is.

Decoding Native Advertising – What are Native Ads and what are its Different Formats?

Native advertising is a form of paid advertising mostly done online that matches the look and feel of the publisher format where the ad is displayed. Native ads can usually be seen in social media feeds or as suggestive content on a portal. Native ads are different from other ad formats such as display ads or banner ads since they appear as part of the main content. And that is why it is considered as an effective form of online advertising that does not disturb the visual flow of the reader.

In many cases, native ads feel like part of the advertorial content and can contain videos, articles or static posts. Native advertising utilizes the basic technique of embedded marketing where brand references are included in another work with an intent to promote the brand. In native marketing, the product and content are merged.

Coherence with the visual design of the main content or the publishing platform is very important in native marketing. The native ad should have a relevant positioning with the content that the audience is normally anticipating to see from the publisher. In this advertising format the ad completely mixes with the style and form of the non-paid content, so the user gets the feeling that it is part of the main content and hence does not gets disconnected.

The native ad market is a buzzing trend in the digital marketing space that continues to grow organically. Google initially started showing this new type of ad in search results. Since then it has gained high acceptance among digital advertisers and many more publishers have started lending their platforms for this purpose.

The most common formats of native ads are in-feed ads and recommended content.

In-feed ads are mostly visible on social media and labelled under disclosures such as “advertisement”, “AD”, “sponsored” or “Suggested post” on various social media platforms.

Recommended content is the second most common native ad format. It appears as an authentic suggestion from a website. Native ads are a good source of income generation for publishers.

Native ads come in different types such as AdWords ads displayed in the organic search results, Promoted / Search listings and Sponsored content. Such ads help in building brand awareness, however, you can embed a call to action as well for lead capturing.

Why is Native Advertising Dominating Digital Ad Space?

Native ads are currently the buzz word in digital advertising space. Nowadays, all prominent brands are using this ad format to increase outreach. Many websites including social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are developing space selling strategies around native. Because of their non-disruptive look and feel, native ads generate better CTR results than traditional display advertisements. Native ads are any marketer’s hot favourite today since they are more engaging and perform better conversions.

There’s no better time for marketers of educational products and services to include native advertising in their overall marketing strategy. The early adopters are likely to gain the most from it.

Native ads have become popular in quick time because of challenges and limitations in traditional digital ads. When searching for specific information on a website, users focus only on the parts of the page where they assume the relevant information will be available and hence tend to ignore banner-like information. Whereas a native ad, on the other hand, blends with the style and form of the organic content. The user’s browsing experience does not get affected in native advertising.

Future of Native Ad Space

In spite of its relatively new entry the digital ad publishing industry, native advertising has become an important component of marketing in quick time. The number of native advertising platforms is growing.

A sizeable number of ad revenue is attributed to native advertising. Facebook and Twitter are good examples of native advertising success.

In mobile advertising, native ads have propelled monetization growth for the mobile media industry. In addition to this, native ads provide more insightful analysis and ad-specific information about every single user.

Native advertising may be one of the most challenging and interesting parts of online advertising but least understood in existence.

The digital ad industry is purely speculative. Nobody really knows what drives traffic and how it can be turned into profits. Marketers invest a lot of time and resources to try to optimize their ad inventory, but more often than not, it seems difficult to predict trends.

In the current scenario, the native becomes more relevant and important. Online banners no longer help in branding campaigns. Besides, banner blindness affects the performance of these campaigns. Lack of performance eventually affects KPIs.

Over the next 2-3 years, the native advertising industry is expected to mature.

Native advertising is usually better received by their target audiences because they don’t feel like advertisements. That is why there is a greater likelihood that it gets consumed by the target audience faster.

Native ads offer marketers a way to circumvent unwanted advertising and get their messages noticed by their audience without forcing them to.

While native advertising certainly has its advantages, it’s not meant to replace content marketing. Just like other digital marketing channels, you can measure native advertising’s effectiveness in terms of data analytics. You can measure impressions, click through rate, clicks, etc.

Most academic brands can benefit from using native advertising as a smart tactic in the online marketing world. Anything that allows you to get your content placed in front of the right target audience is worth considering. Hence it will be interesting to see how native advertising influences the way we consume content in the future.

No doubt native advertising is here to stay. . .

Further Readings:

Do You Know How Often to Post on Social Media

Noteworthy Digital Initiatives that are Redefining Rural Education in India

A Look at Key Indian Educational Policy Reforms and Initiatives in this Decade