The term native advertising has been thrown around a lot lately, so if you’re keeping up with marketing strategies for your business it helps to know what it means. Since native advertising is a relatively new experience for many marketers and consumers, it makes sense that many people might not fully understand how it could work for their business. However, with social media marketing always on the rise, native advertising could be exactly what marketers are looking for to boost their sales.
Native advertising is a method of marketing where ads are part of the content on a page and built into the visual design. Since this is something that has been done in magazines and newspapers for many years, native advertising is really only new to digital advertising. It’s important to remember that native advertising is not meant to trick consumers—it’s only meant to enhance the content that they’re reading by offering them advertisements related to their experience. This has helped marketers bring in more business for their companies, by targeting consumers who are most likely to be already interested in their products and services.
In a world where nearly everyone uses the internet, native advertising is a great way to promote your company through the sites that people frequently visit, without being obtrusive. Some examples of native advertising include:
-Promoted Tweets on Twitter
-Sponsored stories on Facebook
-Promoted Pins on Pinterest
It also helps to remember that there are two different kinds of native advertising: closed and open. Closed native advertising is when brands create profiles or content within an existing platform. These brands promote their own content by utilizing the same look and feel as the platform they’re using. A couple examples of closed native advertisements are video advertisements on YouTube and a Promoted Pin on Pinterest. Open native advertising, on the other hand, is content created by a brand outside of an existing platform. Many companies offer services that distribute this content across multiple platforms. These companies adapt the content to fit the visual look of whatever site these advertisements are on.
Both closed and open native advertisements share certain characteristics that are useful to understand if you wish to try out these marketing tactics for your own business. These types of advertisements are always built into the visual design of the site. If you look at the right side of Facebook, there should be a bunch of ads that have been chosen for you based on your browsing history. Those are ads that have been integrated into your Facebook platform in order to appeal to you directly. It’s important that native advertisements take advantage of whatever platform they exist on, and try to emulate the look and feel of said platform.
As you can probably tell, there has been a rise in native advertising due to the popularity of social media sites and the marketing opportunities presented. Native advertising allows your ads to become part of the site without disrupting a user’s experience. If they decide to click on the ad, it will take them right to your site or offer, so the whole process is user-initiated. Native advertising also allows you to target who is shown your ads and there’s a greater chance that they will find people interested in your products and services.
Native advertising allows you to get creative with your own marketing efforts and build a better targeted marketing campaign. Utilizing these marketing tactics might just help you improve your campaigns and bring in more business.
Has your company worked with native advertising? What were your experiences? Share with us!