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Native Advertising: The Extraordinary Potential of Native Advertising

Native-Advertising

Is there a way to overcome boredom, anonymity and discomfort caused by traditional banner ads on the internet? It’s called Native Advertising and is a small latent revolution in the web world.

The first banner ad of web history dates back to 1994, when it appeared on Wired’s website, astounding and surprising the nerd who then wandered around the network. That advertising, futuristic and unpublished, got something like 30% of clicks from visitors of the website on which it was housed, almost one in three.

Since then, it was only decline. Each web space has been saturated, interrupted, and annoyed users. This, over time, brought down the click of the banner at 0.1-0.5%. Of which, by the way, half comes from robots (click fraud), or mistakes by users … (it will happen to you to click by mistake on an annoying banner). It is clear that today the model of advertising with banner ads on the internet, which tries to mimic so unwisely traditional forms of printing, inevitably suffer from old age and general malfunction. Do you think that in the US 47% of the users of internet advertising uses a locking system. The forty-seven percent.

Native-Advertising
Image Source: Google Image

Second observation… For several months, maybe a year (at least judging from the data of our web projects, which reflect long-established worldwide trends), the navigation from mobile devices has surpassed that computer. From smartphones, the banner is even more annoying, irritating and prone to erroneous clicks. Navigation is increasingly interrupted by pop-up that prevent proper use of the content and provoke a backlash from both advertisers that host websites. It is clear that the model of advertising banners, with regard to the mobile, is dead.

The solution: A native advertising

Is there a way to get through this and to transform the advertising model on the websites? Some call it Native Advertising, because it comes to advertising native ecosystem in which they are inserted. Make it an integral and do not interrupt, annoy, do not click it by mistake. You know the Carousel RAI 60’s? In that case, it was skillfully created a native form of advertising to the television system, which amuses and entertains no bother or abruptly stop the broadcasts. Exactly the opposite of what happens today.

The contents that are offered to users of the network reflect these characteristics. They have the exact same cut of the “container” (the site / blog / social host), the same tone, the same editorial forms. They are attractive to users and are part of the normal navigation flow, explicitly declaring their promotional information. In this sense, virtually every website can propose their own native form of advertising, different and tailored to its shape.

Being the Native Advertising completely customized and adapted to the medium, there is no real types. However, I want to introduce a few examples, so as to make you all as clear as possible.

Sponsored post on websites

Maybe you know Buzzfeed a US website that collects charts and viral content. Things like “Ten jokes about Halloween that you will definitely laugh.” Advertisements containing an offer are fully native. Within the flow of editorial content, they are inserted sponsored articles, which have the cut and the tone identical to those of Buzzfeed. Declaring the whole thing as advertising, can bring a nice content to users, monetizing by advertisers. This is an example of a promoted post of the Call of Duty video game, which offers the “eleven bars that can understand only the true fans of Call of Duty.” Guaranteed success.

Newspaper articles sponsored

The same thing can be done by online newspapers, promoting events or press releases with a journalistic style, while explicitly stating that it comes to advertising. In this way, the content is added to an ordinary flow of publication, not abruptly interrupting the user’s navigation and annoy it.

Promoted videos

Surely you know YouTube, the third most visited site in the world. In this space, many channels have achieved a great reputation by offering organic and engaging content (real TV channels 2.0). These channels sometimes realize video sponsored by brands or companies, while maintaining the same cut and tone of their ordinary publication.

Social Advertising

Well, you might have guessed that the ads that are on social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn, are perfect examples of Native Advertising. Interfering with the flow of publication (the “dashboard” user), do not interrupt the use of the website, but they provide the suitable and personalized content to visitors, exploiting the big data accumulated in the platform (our tastes and our preferences). Think about it: how many times have you happened to buy something after seeing an advertisement on Facebook? And how many after a traditional banner? According to statistics, the first beats the second 7 to 1! An example that I particularly like is that of Twitter , which offers a native advertising “trend” in the left column by one of the trends that are quoted to users … is actually a promotion (declared)!

Sponsored Spotify Playlist

I could go on and on, as you may have guessed. But I will limit myself to a latest example of Native Advertising, that of enjoyment of music platform Spotify. In this space, some brands promote their own playlists (again, content adapted to the medium!) To potentially interested users, as they did for the launch of the movie Star Wars.

How Do Native Advertising

Obviously, not everything is rosy … If for a banner, just realize one or more graphic patterns and “shoot them” with a professional platform (Google AdWords, Criteo, AdRoll …), the native advertising requires many more skills:

  1. Creativity (you have to be a little mad and brilliant to find the right content in the right medium);
  2. Internet and knowledge of its readers (for example, you must know how to write “to Buzzfeed” if we want to promote a content on Buzzfeed);
  3. Editorial expertise and copywriting (writing well and in the right way).

To realize a strategy of Native Advertising, it is essential to have in mind the goal of starting (brand awareness, lead generation, online sales …), identify your target audience and channels on which are traveling more frequently. At this point, you choose native forms of advertising that can be pleasant and useful for the target, you contact the publisher (the Buzzfeed on duty), negotiating time, costs and visibility and is accomplished an appropriate editorial content, with the difficulties highlighted just above. The KPIs to monitor will be the same of traditional display advertising, depending on your business objective. Obviously, with the focus on an adequate return on investment.

BONUS: The platforms of the advertising block, which I mentioned in the introduction will, in most cases do not block the Native, or because they fail to recognize the perfection, or because they feel ethically (for example, AdBlock does) that whether in the form of advertising votes for the end user.

In this article, I introduced you a small mirror the reality of online advertising today, and one of the most interesting forms to regain a competitive edge. The Native Advertising proposed to be included explicitly sponsored content within an ordinary publishing workflow, keeping the same tone, formats and languages of the host container. Even if it requires more editorial skills, native advertising presents the revolutionary potential in the world of web advertising.

Are you intrigued by the new trends of online advertising?

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