Native Advertising

Native advertising places sponsored messages in a non-disruptive way. Most native ads don’t even look like ads at all! The most common examples of native advertising are certain types of social media ads and recommended content on a website. Native ads match the look and feel of the content that surrounds them unlike traditional display ads which tend to be constrained to a standard ad format.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau breaks down native advertising into four common ad units: Story Ads, Video Ads, Product ads, and App Install ads. While typical web ads will appear alongside content, native can be placed into the content itself or outside of the content in a sidebar.

By The Numbers

Mobile native spend doubled from 2018 – 2020
Native ads are 27% more trusted than social
44% of viewers trust native ads on news sites
Purchase intent increases 18% for native ads
Engagement rates on native are 20-60% higher than display
CPC drops by 36% for native campaigns that run at least 6 months

Stats sources from Outbrain.

Benefits of Native

Top Reasons For Advertisers To Consider Native

Increased Visibility

Since Native ads blend into their surrounding content, consumers are less likely to gloss over them. This leads to higher purchase intent. From a strictly visual engagement standpoint, native ads perform at least as well as the editorial content that surrounds it.

Reaches New Users

Marketers are drawn to native mainly to fight ad fatigue. We know that a certain segment of consumers are conditioned to ignore traditional digital ads. Native gives us a chance to engage those users, and is most effective when paired WITH other types of digital advertising.

Relevancy

Native advertising is not designed to trick consumers into thinking that it is organic content. On the contrary, research shows that most consumers are quite aware that native ads are paid content. It's not a trick, but consumers are just more likely to feel relaxed when they view native ads.

Is It Right For Your Client?

Native advertising works great for certain types of products and businesses, but is definitely not a one-size-fits all formula. Industries that tend to produce the best results from native are banking, education, healthcare, education, non-profits.

Local brick and mortar businesses typically struggle with native because it is inherently not optimized for branding. In fact, often times native ads do not even mention the name of the business that is being promoted. This tends to push most of our client’s businesses to take advantage of the powerful branding capabilities of display advertising or social media marketing.