Beginner’s Guide To Native Advertising: What Are The Benefits

The user experience. The more we perfect it, the more it needs perfecting. You as a customer: ‘When I’m online, I want things to be smooth and easy. And no distractions!’ You as a marketer: ‘How can we tell people about our product without annoying them?’ One of the best answers we have to this slippery question? Native advertising. Done well, native advertising is as inconspicuous as the keyboard on your office desk. It doesn’t look out of place, so you give it no thought. Whether you’re a marketing manager at a big-time New York agency or a student in an online MBA program in Michigan, you need to know how to use native advertising effectively.

But what is the benefit of hiding advertising in plain sight? Let’s explore this topic in more detail.

What is Native Advertising?

Imagine yourself watering your backyard garden. You notice a flower that looks just like the bloodroot it grows beside. Almost identical. You stop, bend down for a closer look. Its white petals are tinged pink; a small detail, but one that gives away its disguise. You smile, water both plants, and continue on.

Like the floral imposter in your garden, native advertising is paid advertising that looks and feels like the media format where it appears. If you’re lying in bed, scrolling through Instagram, the native ads will appear like regular posts. You’ll recognise its intentions but it won’t spoil your evening.

Types of Native Advertising

Native ads are chameleons. They don’t work unless they resemble the branch they’re clutching; the branch, in this case, being the media format. The only rule with native ads: context rules. Here are four of the most common native ads.

In-feed ads

Back to your Instagram session. Wedged between your best friend’s post from the Amalfi Coast and your favorite chef’s latest reel will be an in-feed ad. It might be from a travel company, promoting a sale on flights to Europe. Or it might be a cookware brand, showcasing the same skillet your chef is using in their reel. Either way, the ad is unlikely to disrupt your user experience because it makes contextual sense to appear among these organic posts.

Paid search ads

Now you find yourself searching for places to visit on the Amalfi Coast. Above your organic results will be paid search results, another type of native ad. Large, well-established brands often dominate these results, and with good reason. Think about it: how often do you find yourself scrolling through Google’s page two results? Probably not often — this is why companies want to be in the first few results.

Sponsored content

One of the links you click is an article that promises to reveal the five best-kept secret beaches on the Amalfi Coast. Jackpot! If the article opens with a disclaimer, then it’s sponsored content, which means a company has paid to be included in the article. Along with getting your attention, sponsored content is a great strategy for aligning a brand with a popular and respected online publication.

A simple barometer measures this type of native ad: the more engaging the content, the more likely you are to engage with the ad.

Recommendation widgets

You’ve booked the flights and now you’re reading sponsored content about luggage. The ads that start appearing around this content will likely showcase luggage brands. These are recommendation widgets, ads that rely on network data to target you with relevant ads while you’re online. Like sponsored content, these are effective because they catch you at the right time.

What’s the benefit of using native advertising?

The main benefit native advertising offers is the chance to engage with a customer when they’re in the mood to engage with you. By appearing in the right context, you stand the best chance of capturing their attention and convincing them to buy your product or service.

Aside from that, native ads offer a whole lot more. They help increase your brand credibility, with a recent study finding 75% of consumers trust content and recommendations in editorial contexts. Native ads also give you the chance to access pre-existing customer bases, instead of building these bases from scratch. The consensus is, the wider your reach with native ads, the more successful your efforts will be.

Let’s circle back to the user experience, and the question of balance. As a marketer, you have to strike the right balance; your advertising must gain enough of the customer’s attention (for your sake), without derailing their online experience (for their sake). It’s a tight rope act.

Keep at it, though. When you strike that balance, the results should flow. Sales will likely increase; customer satisfaction may do so too. The best thing: the better you get at marketing your brand without compromising user experience, the bigger and brighter your brand will become.