Native advertising refers to branded promotional content that matches the visual design, user experience and overall format of the media channel it is hosted on. By conforming paid ads or sponsorships to the native user flows where they appear, native ads blend in more seamlessly by avoiding abruptly interruptive placements seen in banner ads allowing for superior engagement.
This comprehensive guide covers fundamentals of native advertising and its increasing value for modern brands, formats it takes, guidelines for success, performance analytics approaches, leading native ad platforms and impactful examples of companies seeing stellar returns from aligning paid strategies with user behaviors rather than disruption.
What Is Native Advertising?
Native advertising displays paid promotions in the natural content, style and user flow of whatever site, app, messaging platform or connected device environment it is featured within so audiences engage with messaging voluntarily rather than avoiding interruptive sales pitches that look and feel out of place.
For example, promoted tweets in Twitter feeds, “suggested post” ads within Instagram feeds, paid product listing ads on Amazon search results pages, pre-roll videos on YouTube, podcast sponsor spotlights and sponsored content articles blended with stories users actively click through on news sites all represent native advertising formats.
Benefits of Native Advertising
Here are the major advantages native delivers compared to disruptive ads:
● Higher Engagement – Blends with content seamlessly providing helpful information users want.
● Increased Trust – Matches the formats and publisher voice readers already follow.
● Better Click-Through-Rates – Grabs attention without interruption increasing motivation.
● Brand Suitability – Some brands uncomfortable aligning creatively with certain publishers in the past now have more flexibility showcasing values, purpose and personality with custom article and video styles.
● Multimedia Capabilities – Within feeds and recommendation widgets, formats like interactive carousels and video demonstrate capabilities better.
Best Practices For Success
To boost native advertising outcomes apply these proven strategies:
● Match Platform Style Guidelines – Ensure colors, content density, layout and functionality mirror what’s commonly seen by users of the channel.
● Provide Value, Not Pitches – Lead with intriguing value focused headlines optimized for specific audiences rather than overly self promotional copy.
● Utilize Multimedia – Videos, gifs and interactive elements perform better in feeds than basic images or text by being more eye-catching.
● Resize For Mobile – Expandability allows flexible real estate while collapsed formats shrink for scroll efficiency accounting for majority mobile usage already.
● Referral Links To Landing Pages – Send visitors who engage further to customized landing pages with related content.
● Retarget Engaged Visitors – Building in pixels lets you create higher converting remarketing ad audiences off of natives.
Native Ad Formats
Common native styles aligning organically to platform experiences include:
• Promoted Social Media Posts – Brand status updates boosted for wider reach matching user feeds.
• Suggested Videos – YouTube, Facebook and streaming TV platforms.
• In-Feed Article Links – Pay to insert custom sponsored content in relevant publisher feeds.
• Search Result Product Listings – Shopping comparison engines.
• Recommended Product Widgets – Showcases dynamically targeted to on-site behaviors.
• Podcast Mid-roll Ad Segments – Aligning sponsored spots reflecting listener preferences.
• Interactive Display Ads – Expandable ad units with dynamic components like assessments, contests and games.
Leading Native Advertising Platforms
Top native ad networks offering wide access to highly engaged native placements include:
● Taboola – The web’s leading discovery platform serving 425 billion recommendations monthly across premium publishers.
● Outbrain – Serving over 5 billion monthly content discovery recommendations globally.
● TripleLift – Innovative ad formats displayed prominently on premium media sites.
● Sharethrough – Creative ad tools for aligning sponsorships to enrich user experience.
● Polar – Owned by Apple, native advertising leader leveraging mobile application traffic.
● Nativo – Content formats that mirror page design and function for seamless integration.
Measuring Native Ad Effectiveness
Essential metrics revealing native success include:
● Impressions – Total appearances to quantify exposure scale.
● Click-through-rates – Percent tapping for engagement gauge content relevance.
● Engagement Rates – Interactions beyond clicks signal deeper involvement.
● Conversions – Site actions taken post-click representing user intent and interest.
● Brand Lift – Surveys uncover brand awareness, consideration and preference gains.
Standout Native Campaign Examples Driving Results
● Wireless provider Mint Mobile leaned into irreverent humor across platforms with Ryan Reynolds to disrupt competitor self-seriousness – resonating with younger demographics.
● D2C oral care disruptor Quip educates audiences on proper habits through clever social and video content aligning to viewer passions.
● Streaming app Spotify promotes new artists, albums and playlists relevant to listeners through their music player recommendations.
Bringing It All Together
Native opportunities better match dynamic digital environments user now expect and prefer rather than outdated interruptive models that perform progressively worse. The cluttered landscape demands stories worth recommending rather than commoditized pitches blindly scattered and avoided.
With native creative conformity and value-centric messaging layered into routes audiences already follow daily from social feeds to search engine result expansions and more, brands meet consumers where they are. This earns attention without disruption by aligning sponsorships to enrich experiences.