As consumer demands for engaging content increase, so do their potential frustrations with irrelevant and uninspiring advertising content. With the huge budgets spent on advertising with a view to generating positive consumer relationships, understandably, advertisers have been desperate to find a solution.
Native advertising has rapidly established as a contender as it takes into consideration the way in which the content is presented on a publisher’s platform and syncs adverts more appropriately.
Already, the market is exploding, with Purch, an online publishing company, forecasting a growth of 300% from 2013-2015. This growth has been accelerated by the backing of big platform publishers such as Twitter following their recent acquisition of native advertising firm Nano in June this year, which will improve their owning offering and also improve opportunities more broadly for all mobile app developers.
The gap between content and advertising
By providing a missing link between content and advertising, native advertising enables brands to engage consumers with promoted content in a non-invasive fashion, presented in a way that is as close to editorial content as possible. Synced into a website’s regular material, placements stand out far less than other forms of display advertising.
The benefits for advertisers have also been objectively researched with 2-5x higher conversion rates broadly accepted compared with standard units. With 90% of publishers recorded as saying they are considering adding native advertising to their sites, it is clear the market won’t slow down anytime soon.
Making the most of the native opportunity
With the market keen to take advantage there are a number of examples that demonstrate native advertising’s potential. Buzzfeed is a perfect example of this given the nature of its highly engaging, short form content. Buzzfeed is entirely dependent on native advertising for its revenues, showing just how powerful and cost-effective this tool can be when used successfully. By applying the same principle to its native ads as it does to its editorial content, the site has been able to engage consumers with tailored content and ensure the content produced is shared.
The Buzzfeed example also demonstrates the power of carefully integrating content that is shareable. Having its consumers endorse a brand’s content by sharing can be the most powerful way of building relationships. In fact, most campaigns that go viral now do so through native advertising amplification using channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
Another key benefit delivered by native advertising is the enhanced opportunity for creativity. By being placed in more prominent areas of publisher sites than traditional display advertising, brands have more to gain from developing more engaging content. They are no longer constrained by limited text and graphic requirements as they are given the freedom to produce richer and more innovative communications to engage consumers in a way that display advertising cannot offer.
Innovation with programmatic advertising
Perhaps one of the most exciting developments resulting from native advertising is the way it can be integrated in combination with programmatic advertising. Programmatic advertising uses publisher information and third party data to assess each advertising impression automatically as it loads. Through an open bidding process advertisers identify how much they are willing to pay for that impression.
This technology therefore enables advertisers to personalise content communications to a particular individual based on their preferences. Programmatic advertising can also take advantage of the latest ad formats such as in-app videos. Clearly, integrating these adverts with the synced look and feel of a website provides huge opportunities for advertisers. Native advertising is very much an amplifier in this process.
Moving quickly to gain a competitive edge
Following the explosion of mobile and social media advertisers that are able to fully understand the ways to reach consumers can gain a significant competitive advantage. Those that are quick to distribute relevant and exciting content through native advertising will gain the upper hand. By adding value to the consumer experience, native content enables brands to build customer relationships across multiple platforms.