Native Advertising
There has been a lot of talk already this year about Native advertising but at Pulse, we have noticed there is a real lack of clarity around what it actually means.
What is native?
Native basically uses content of the page or website to make the advert look like it was written by the editorial staff of the website. Think of it like a digital version of an advertorial.
Benefits of native
In the main, benefits centre on the fact that the ads often look nothing like normal ads. Of course we have all seen plenty of native ads... pills to loose weight, get your sex drive back and a number of other seemingly disconnected, hyped up stories. However, when done well, native ads will slot into the website's content and won't look out of place or interrupt the users' experience.
Often native ads are found on newspaper websites which means they are high traffic and therefore high views.
Planning a native ad campaign?
A few things to think through first:
- Plan to test, learn, refine and test again. I can't stress how much this principle is at the heart of any new venture in digital
- Audience - go through the usual steps of defining your audience, what do you want them to think, to feel and what do you want them to do?
- Creative - you are usually pretty limited with space on typical native formats so carefully think through your content, creative and messaging. Goes without saying, test multiple versions of messaging and creative.
- Look for inspiration from some of the native advertising distribution partners. If you have a decent pot of money to spend on native, contact the platform providers for help and support around best practice sharing. Given there are quite a few platforms, do check their reach and scale for your audience profile: Here are a few of the more common ones:
- Outbrain
- Taboola
- Nativo
