How do you use native advertising
Native advertising: stand out not to stand out
The way we use the Internet in recent years has changed dramatically. Mobile use has become increasingly important, and the largest information flow is found through the social media sites. It is therefore logical that the way we advertise is also changing. Nevertheless, we still see quite a lot of ‘old school’ ads like banners on the net. Actually, everyone knows that banners are annoying. Thanks to neuroscientific research of researchcompany Nielsen, we now know that banners are not always effective. It is much smarter to bet on native advertising.
What is native advertising?
Native advertising is paid placement of content in a form and function which is equal to the natural content of the selected platform. Especially on the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr there is an extensive use of this form of advertising. The main native form of advertising is called “in-feed advertising ‘. These include for example the sponsored stories in your news feed on Facebook. These stories look exactly like the other posts in your news Feed. A click-through guides the user to an article or page on your company website.
A now well-known form of Native Advertising. Another form of native advertising that you encounter daily is natural sponsored search results. When you search for information using a search engine, often the top three results were purchased as advertising. There is a small indication that reveals that it is an advertisement, but otherwise they are indistinguishable from the “regular” search results. Also in the search results on YouTube you can find
promoted videos. Do not confuse this form of advertising with video ads that are automatically displayed prior to other videos (pre-roll). The main feature of native advertising is that the user himself chooses whether he wants to play the video from the search results or not.
How well does it work?
Nielsen used eye-tracking in order to compare the effectiveness of advertising to those of banners. This showed that banners are poorly viewed. Just ten years ago this was completly different. Banners were then viewed a lot and many people also clicked on it. But these days the user knows how to remove them and filter them out. According to the survey, native ads have up to 2x as much visual attention as banners.
This can be partly explained by the fact that these ads are totally absorbed in the layout of the platform and are read almost automatically. In addition, users on the platform are actively seeking content to read or to watch. This also ensures that native advertising is not usually regarded as a nuisance. That is a win-win situation for both the business and the public. It provides positive engagement because your content is appreciated by the user. In addition, there are also more likely to be more click-throughs to the ads than via native banners.
Tips for good native advertising
There are a few things to keep in mind when designing native ads. Your title and the first sentence that’s shown in the preview really plays a key role. You’re probably inclined to try and generate curiosity in order to get the user click-through.
But remember that the preview itself is the actual ad. There is much more room for information in here than you think. So make sure the heading is clear and choose the right words to generate a positive association with your product or brand. Even if a user does not click through, it will provide some customer loyalty.
Give your brand a clear role as the sender, for example using a logo, slogan or recognizable keywords. Of course, the underlying content has to be interesting and relevant. The user is not looking for a sales pitch, but for interesting information and background stories. This is true for both ads that lead to an article, and video material.
