Content marketing is omnipresent and it’s getting increasingly difficult to turn prospects into full-time customers these days. A typical business can hardly achieve anything with paid promotion mechanisms, but it can successfully raise awareness and drive revenue using native advertising.
This is not a new concept in the online realm, but too many brands still fail to exploit it to the fullest extent. They are making a big mistake as native advertising proves to be one of the most profitable promotion tactics that almost guarantees to deliver the desired return on investment.
But how does it function? Can you make the right balance between native advertising and content marketing? If you are not really sure how to answer these two questions, keep reading to learn the fundamental principles of native advertising in content marketing.
It’s no secret that content marketing is dominating the digital universe, but how about native advertising? If you really want to know how it works, you must understand what it means and check out the basic stats in this field.
What is Native Advertising?
Native advertising is the use of paid ads that match the look, feel, and function of the media format in which they appear. You will often see native ads as parts of your social media newsfeed or on your favorite websites as article recommendations.
Native Advertising Statistics
Such content formats resemble the usual editorial selection of a given communication platform. This is exactly what makes native advertising so effective and trustworthy:
- Native display ads produce a click-through rate (CTR) 8.8 times higher than typical display ads.
- 70% of customers would rather learn about products through content than traditional ads.
- Two-thirds of users find suggested content to be the most useful form of native advertising.
- US advertisers spend almost $44 billion on native ads annually.
Benefits of Native Advertising in Content Marketing
Native advertising is obviously powerful, but you should know that it comes with a broad scope of practical advantages. Here are the major benefits of native advertising in content marketing:
- Native ads are not intrusive: Unlike other promo formats, native ads are user-friendly and non-intrusive. Just like the name suggests, such ads seem natural and organic, which makes them more likable than banner ads or popups.
- Native ads are trustworthy: People often consider native ads to be reliable and trustworthy. It’s not a surprise, particularly if you create a perfect mixture of advertising and content marketing. In this case, you can only impress the audience with insightful promo content.
- Higher CTR: Native ads have a much higher click-through rate (CTR) than standard advertising forms, which is the consequence of their credibility and trustworthiness. This type of advertising is not too pushy, so users don’t mind consuming the content and engaging with it eventually.
- Native ads suit everyone: A combination of native advertising and content creation perfectly suits everyone involved in the business. Consumers love it because it delivers quality content, while publishers like it because it doesn’t interfere with organic posts. Finally, advertisers love native advertising because it delivers targeted results.
- Native advertising fits all platforms: You can publish native ads on almost every channel of communication there is. From social media and websites to traditional magazines and brochures, native advertising is applicable to all mediums.
4 Ways to Improve Native Ads
Now that you understand the critical features of native advertising, the only thing left is to learn how to pair it with your content marketing effort. We prepare for you a list of four practical tips and tricks:
Tip #1: Do it with the audience on your mind
The first rule of native advertising is not to be brand-centric and to write with the target audience on your mind. Don’t forget that top-performing native ads are nothing more than superior pieces of content that inspire readers with sheer enthusiasm and quality.
Your job is to analyze the interests of your prospects and focus on topics that suit their expectations, hopes, needs, and beliefs.
Jake Gardner, an assignment provider at professional writing services, says it’s important to understand how consumers think about a given subject: “Try to figure out the problems they are dealing with. That way, you can prepare high-quality content that encourages people to take action upon reading.”
At the same time, you should think about the best distribution channels. Do you want to display ads through social networks or go with recommended pages? Our recommendation is to exploit the channel that you know can reach your target audience in particular.
Tip #2: Create standout copies
Most marketers consider the second tip to be crucial as it makes all the difference between successful campaigns and underperforming ads. Namely, you should do all it takes to prepare a standout copy for each native ad individually.
What does it mean?
First of all, the content needs to be highly informative, educational, and/or entertaining. Secondly, native ads are expected to be objective and non-biased. The point is to make data-driven conclusions and support your statements with evidence.
At the same time, your posts must be perfect in terms of spelling and grammar. A single mistake can ruin your reputation, so you better check each piece of the content twice before going live. If proofreading is not exactly your thing, we strongly encourage you to utilize digital platforms like Grammarly or Hemingway.
Tip #3: Optimize a landing page
The ultimate purpose of all native ads is to redirect users to the corresponding landing page. In such circumstances, you have to make sure that your landing page ideally fits the message of the content you’ve created.
It is important to use the same style and tone of copywriting in order to ensure the optimal level of branding consistency. Of course, the landing page must promote the product or service your prospects read about.
Finally, this page must contain a clear and highly visible call to action (CTA). A well-positioned CTA button gives visitors additional directions and shows them how to engage upon landing.
Tip #4: Measure to improve
The last tip on our list is to measure the results of your native advertising content because it’s the only way to improve future campaigns. This task is much easier if you set the right goals and determine key performance indicators (KPI).
Generally speaking, a lot of advertisers focus on two parameters – views and clicks. While the two KPIs are indeed significant, we suggest focusing on the third factor that directly reveals the success or failure of your campaign. We are talking about post-click engagement, a key parameter that clearly shows the performance of native advertising.
The Bottom Line
Content creation is one of the most influential marketing concepts of our era, but it’s not easy to find your place in the digital sun with so many competitors in every niche. This is where native advertising steps in to assist businesses in boosting user engagement.
In this post, we explained the concept of native advertising and showed you four ways to successfully combine it with content marketing. You should use these tips and tricks to design better native advertising campaigns, but make sure to write a comment if you need more suggestions from our side – we would be glad to answer!
