Native Advertising In Content Marketing: 4 Tips And Tricks

Content marketing is omnipresent, and turning prospects into full-time customers is becoming increasingly difficult. 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, almost guaranteeing 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 unsure 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? 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 a form of online advertising that seamlessly blends with the platform it appears on. It’s designed to look and feel like natural content, whether it’s an article, social media post, or video. This makes it less intrusive than traditional banner ads or pop-ups, and more likely to be engaged with by users. Essentially, native ads aim to provide value to the user by offering relevant and interesting content that matches their interests and the platform’s style.

Because native ads mimic the form and function of the surrounding content, they don’t disrupt the user experience. They flow naturally within the user’s browsing experience, appearing in their social media feeds, recommended content widgets, or even as promoted search results. This subtle approach helps advertisers reach their target audience without interrupting their online activities. By providing valuable and engaging content, native ads can capture user attention and encourage them to learn more about the advertised product or service.

However, native ads must be transparent. They should be clearly labeled as sponsored content so users understand they are viewing an advertisement. This maintains trust with the audience and ensures ethical advertising practices. When done correctly, native advertising can be a powerful tool for reaching a large audience and generating interest in a product or service while respecting the user experience.

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 the most helpful form of native advertising.
• US advertisers spend almost $44 billion on native ads annually. 

Benefits of Native Advertising in Content Marketing

Native advertising is powerful, but you should know that it comes with a broad scope of practical advantages. Here are the significant benefits of native advertising in content marketing:

• Native ads are not intrusive: Unlike other promo formats, native ads are user-friendly and non-intrusive. As the name suggests, such ads seem natural and organic, making 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 advertising and content marketing mixture. In this case, you can only impress the audience with insightful promo content.
• Higher Engagement: Native ads have a much higher click-through rate (CTR) than standard advertising forms due to their credibility and trustworthiness. This type of advertising is not too pushy, so users don’t mind consuming the content and eventually engaging with it. 
• 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, from social media and websites to traditional magazines and brochures. 

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 in mind

The first rule of native advertising is not to be brand-centric and to write with the target audience in mind. Don’t forget that top-performing native ads are superior content that inspires readers with sheer enthusiasm and quality. 

Your job is to analyze your prospects’ interests and focus on topics that suit their expectations, hopes, needs, and beliefs. 

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.

Jake Gardner

At the same time, you should consider the best distribution channels. Do you want to display ads through social networks or use recommended pages? We recommend exploiting the channel you know can reach your target audience in particular. 

Tip #2: Create standout copies

Most marketers consider the second tip crucial, as it makes all the difference between successful campaigns and underperforming ads. Namely, you should do everything necessary to prepare a standout copy for each native ad individually. 

What does it mean? 

First, the content needs to be highly informative, educational, and/or entertaining. Second, 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 mistake can ruin your reputation, so you better check each piece of the content twice before going live. If proofreading is not 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 must ensure 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 to ensure optimal branding consistency. Of course, the landing page must promote the product or service your prospects read about. 

Finally, this page must contain a clear, obvious 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, many 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 our era’s most influential marketing concepts, 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 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!