Native advertising is one of the fastest-growing advertising segments. What differentiates a native ad from any other display ad is that it is a paid advertisement that is intended to look like the rest of the content displayed on the page. For instance, on Twitter, a native ad may look just like a tweet on your timeline, and a native ad may look just like regular post on a popular blog website. While these types of ads can have great benefits, they are also notorious for certain disadvantages as well.
Read these pros and cons to determine if you should implement native advertising into your business marketing campaigns.
Pros
Bypasses an Ad-Blind Audience
Native ads tend to be better received by their audiences. Studies show that they are viewed 53% more frequently than normal display ads. This is because people have started ignoring the ads that regularly clutter their online browsing experience. As native ads are essentially disguised as regular website or app content, they do not come across as traditional and pushy, so people are more likely to pay attention and consume the ad content. Not to mention it is much more difficult for web users to avoid engaging with or reading native ads.
Better Customer Targeting
Because native advertisements are run only where similar content is seen, you have the opportunity to create ads that are better targeted to a particular audience and will be more interesting, useful, and helpful than they would be to a broader audience.
Better Performance
Due to the native ad’s success in getting around ad-blindness, these types of campaigns result in higher views, click-rates, and conversions than the average display ad. Studies show that native ads register an 18% increase in purchase intent than banner ads. If your native ads are structured and delivered correctly, you will see an overall increase in the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Cons
May Come Across as Deceptive
While audiences do not want to be disrupted by constant ads, they also do not want to be tricked into thinking an ad is something that it is not. Native ads have the potential to be too discrete, causing the audience to lose trust in the business as a whole. For example, a native ad on a blog website may include a headline like “10 Secrets to Growing Your Business”, only to actually be an advertisement for some completely unrelated product. These deceptive native ad practices make it harder for honest advertisers to be trusted.
It is important that you only expose your audience to native ads that are fair, clear and engaging. To ensure that you are following all the standards of ethical native ad placement, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has created a Native Advertising Guide that instructs advertisers on when and how to utilize certain terminology and obvious labels in effort to avoid deceiving their audience.
Difficult to Measure Effectiveness
How do you know if native ads work for you? This is actually a tricky question because every native advertising system may have their own way of measuring success. Without a unified system, it can be very difficult to gauge metrics such as return on investment (ROI), impact and effectiveness, especially if you are running multiple native ad campaigns at a time.
Greater Time, Labor and Cost Investment
The actual process of creating an effective and transparent ad campaign is a costly, multistep process. It involves the collaboration of several parties, multiple rounds of review and may even take quite a bit of time to perfect. It is important to not only A/B test different types of native ads but also try out various native ad platforms before making a decision.
When it comes to native advertising, it is important to remember to not be tricky with headlines, to be straightforward about what is going to be in the content, and to provide informative content that is helpful to your audience. Generally speaking, people tend to have an aversion to all advertising. However, it must be done. How else will people find out about products and services that may help them? That is where you come in by providing your audience with a great source of information that will lead them to the solutions they need.
Read more about developing a digital ad strategy for your business in our guide on advertising.