With the average Internet user’s attention span ever dwindling, you have to continually find new ways to reach your target market.
In today’s article I’m going to discuss native ads, where you can serve them and a few best practice tips.
What is a native advert?
Native advertising is a type of marketing that blends in with its surroundings, making it feel less like an advert. They are typically less direct and tend to come across as actual content than advertisements. You can run native ads on several platforms including Google, Bing,
Yahoo and Twitter.
Here’s how a native advert looks on Yahoo (boxed in red):
If you didn’t know about native ads, you would most likely think that the link is an actual article. But upon closer inspection you’ll see several affiliate links redirecting users to
Amazon:
Native ads are an extremely effective way to connect with your target market, and here’s how you should be using them.
1. Label native adverts as adverts
You must label all your adverts as adverts.
You don’t want to generate business by misleading customers or earn a bad reputation for using ‘shady marketing tactics’. Only some ad platforms require you to mark your native adverts as ‘ads’ or ‘sponsored content’, some sites don’t require you to do this, but I still advise you do it anyway.
For example, if you want to run native ads on Twitter, you must insert somewhere into your ad copy that the native content is paid for:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also checking up on native ads to ensure businesses have disclosed their content is sponsored as to not mislead their audience. You can learn more about this here.
2. Provide value over directresponse
Native ads are becoming ever more popular because they aren’t as aggressive in winning leads and customers.
If the primary goal of your native ad is to promote a product, you’re defeating the purpose of using them. Native ads should be setup with the objective of engaging your target audience, they are created for engagement and they should provide value.
Value can come in the form of highquality blog content (see the BGR listing Amazon’s best offers of the day), howto videos, infographics or any other content that serves your target market’s need.
There’s nothing wrong with putting a calltoaction in your ads or getting them to buy or take some sort of action, but the ad itself must focus on serving the reader and not your business.
3. Use native ads at the upperlevel of your sales funnel
Native ads work best when you combine them with highvalue content.
Customers don’t need to be convinced about your product or service, they’ve already spent money and their mind has been made up, you’d be better off sending them direct-response marketing material.
Prospects on the other hand haven’t take action.
An awesome way to introduce them to your business is through the use of native ads.
Consider serving blog posts, videos or infographics and insert a retargeting pixel on that page to later serve them direct-response ads.
Consider it a two-step ad funnel.
The native ad focuses on introducing prospects to your business by showing them high- quality content they value, branding your business. Everyone who has landed on that page can then be served more directresponse ads that push them through the next step of your sales funnel.
4. Choose your ad networks carefully
Outbrain and Taboola are two of the biggest content networks in the world that promote native advertising. They serve your content on partner websites and you pay each time your ad is clicked.
This seems like a great idea at first as you drive lots of traffic to your site, but you won’t be able to target your audience accurately. I strongly recommend running native ads on networks that give you control on who sees your media (Google, Bing, Yahoo) over content networks.
Wrapping up
As more online media is pumped onto our computer screen and mobiles, you’ll need to diversify the way you promote and native advertising is a great way to spread your bets. It’s still a fairly new concept but early stats show that native ads receive higher engagement and clicks than traditional online adverts.
Nick Bridges
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