One way to break the clutter, avoid ad blocking and beat banner blindness is through native advertising. Native advertising is defined by sponsored content that fits the natural form, function, look and feel of a website. Native ads are not intrusive, but discoverable. According to eMarketer, native advertising is expected to make up roughly 58 percent or $28 billion dollars of digital display ad spend in 2018. This increase is attributed to the growth in native social (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and programmatic advertising.
Social platforms and demand side platforms (DSPs) have made it easy for brands to distribute content through the use of automation and UI access. Within the past two years, DSPs have ramped up their native capabilities by integrating with native marketplaces and legacy native partners like ShareThrough, Triplelift and Nativo. These integrations mean brands are able to buy native ads quickly using their own data sets, without IOs and minimum spends.
Additionally, publishers have redesigned sites to embrace the native change. The barrier to start exploring native is low. Just follow these two steps:
- Use social ads to test non-social programmatic native opportunities to expand reach. If you’ve already created social ads – imagery and copy, try testing them in DSP platforms.
- Use existing content to create native ads. If you already have a blog or website filled with rich content, use those same images and headlines to create native ads.
Not only is native easy to implement, but it’s also proving its sales value. In Q4 of 2017, an Empower client and large national retailer, saw twice the return on ad spend (ROAS) with native ad units over traditional standard display units. The retailer creates, changes and optimizes their native ads frequently to gain consumer attention – and it is working!
Making native part of your digital strategy is key to brand success. If done well, native advertising can lead to more meaningful relationships with consumers and ultimately increase revenue for brands.
