Entrepreneur and founder of PurpleBlack, an international, award-winning native advertising agency.
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Native ads are ads that don’t look like ads. They’re typically found at the bottom of a news page. Today, this modern marketing strategy is a true blue ocean market, and businesses are beginning to discover its power.
Native ads are not equally suitable for every type of product. For example, because there isn’t a targeting function in German-speaking countries (like in Austria, where we’re based), the product has to be a fit for a large part of the population. For a very specific niche product with a small target audience, native ads aren’t recommended.
For anyone wanting to use native ads, native advertising platforms can help. They arrange publishers and work with companies that want ad space. Big players include Taboola and Outbrain.
In this article, based on my experience as the founder of a native ad agency, I’m going to share three reasons why native advertising brings untapped potential:
Native advertising doesn’t disrupt a user’s content experience.
In my opinion, the most distinctive feature that puts native ads at the forefront is they don’t disrupt the user. For instance, YouTube ads still use the same tactic as TV in the 1960s: When watching a certain video, an ad pops up and you’re forced to watch it, turn away or close your eyes. In any case, you’re disrupted in your experience.
With native ads, the opposite is the case. The reader is already in reading mode and simply clicks on an article they find interesting. Going through content and choosing the article, they will stumble across ads suited for them. Because the user is the active decision-maker, native ads don’t disrupt (this is also referred to as in-feed native advertising). And thanks to that, most times they don’t feel that they are consuming an ad.
Native ads aren’t dependent on consistently changing algorithms.
Most companies advertise on big social platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc. But many are getting more disappointed than ever. These platforms are losing slack by being inconsistent, changing up algorithms often and increasing their ad prices. If an ad platform is inconsistent, planning campaigns ahead of time is difficult. Because of that, businesses are more likely to leave the platform since it might weaken the scaling process.
And here is a big advantage of in-feed native advertising: Native ads are not tied to merely one advertising platform like Facebook or Google. Instead, natives are on the whole internet. There are different players and different traffic sources. This also makes it possible to reach people who have no Instagram, no Facebook or no Google account.
Lastly, with native advertising, there are fewer limits as to when and how you can advertise. This makes it easier to plan ad campaigns and to make the most out of an ad budget.
Scaling is easier with native advertising.
The third core advantage of native advertising is that scaling works well. It’s important to note that native ads are not the platform to test whether an offer works well or not. However, native ads can deliver fantastic results with an already functioning offer that has proven to work well on regular ad platforms. If you know that you have an added value, in-feed native advertising can transform a completely uninterested user into a buyer who wants more.
If you ran bigger campaigns in the past, especially on Facebook, you might have noticed that the CPA (cost per acquisition) increases alongside your spending. When trying to scale a Facebook campaign too aggressively, a winning campaign can turn into a losing one very fast. Quite frankly, the CPA will explode, and every price increases as well. And it’s unprofitable at this point.
On top of that, popular ad platforms such as Facebook or Instagram only make space for a certain number of ads to be displayed at a time to keep up the optimum experience for the user. This worsens if there’s an increasing demand for ad space. During busy times, such as Black Friday or Christmas, the ad space gets tighter. At some point, scaling is impossible even if you have millions in ad budget ready to spend.
With in-feed native advertising, it’s completely different. Here, you just add a zero to your daily budget, and it still works. So that’s a huge advantage of native ads—it enables you to scale very smoothly without any large price fluctuations. And the CPA will remain the same, no matter if you spend 1,000 euro per day or 10,000 euro per day.
Summary
Native advertising is fundamentally different from regular ad platforms. Distinctive benefits include:
• It’s a non-disruptive way of advertising—in-feed native advertising is dependent on the user.
• Native works as a proven alternative to Facebook, Google and other ad platforms.
• Scaling becomes much easier.
To sum it up, if you want to generate sales for your e-commerce or leads for your business, native ads might be the right choice for you.
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