CNET finds the sweet spot between direct-sold strategy and operational ease with Native Ad Blueprints

Product Marketing Manager

Native ads in email have been growing in popularity for advertisers and publishers, and it’s no secret why. Native ads work with newsletters without interrupting their design, creating a better reading experience, and strengthening reader engagement. Not to mention they increase purchase intent by 18% and generate 9% higher brand affinity than standard banner ads. So, they’re clearly a win-win for everyone.

With the positive results for both reading experience and engagement, implementing native ads in email is a great way for publishers to expand their media offering and achieve their goals. CNET is one such company that sought out native ads for its email program.

CNET leverages its suite of newsletters — reaching more than 100 million unique users each month — to deepen its relationship with readers and cement itself as the destination to discover and research technology and consumer electronics. The company wanted to explore ways to complement its existing efforts for its email newsletter direct sales and increase the overall yield of its program.

CNET wanted to achieve two main goals:

  • Increase the yield of its direct-sold program.
  • Find a low-maintenance, scalable solution that wouldn’t overtax CNET’s existing resources.

CNET decided that the right move would be to expand its media kit to offer partners creative formats beyond display ads. With LiveIntent’s Native Ad Blueprints, CNET saw the perfect opportunity to make its dream of differentiated newsletter inventory a reality.

Let’s break down CNET’s process of setting up Native Ad Blueprints and the results:

  1. Design a blueprint with LiveIntent that would fit seamlessly into its newsletter.
  2. Place a Native LiveTag into its newsletter templates and link it to its blueprint.

(It was that easy!)

CNET was now ready to accept native demand, either through its sales team as a part of its direct-sold program or sourced through LiveIntent’s Native Curated Packages. Through the Native Curated Packages, CNET would have immediate access to vertically-aligned demand from LiveIntent’s roster of premium advertisers.

This flexible solution not only made it easy for CNET to sell its custom ad units, but their design could also be used across multiple templates without the operational drag of having to hardcode ads for each campaign.

Now for the results…

Through Native Ad Blueprints, CNET was able to:

  • Increase newsletter revenue by 67% in the first 60 days alone.
  • Minimize operational friction.
  • Find the sweet spot between augmenting its direct-sold strategy and upholding a reader-friendly experience.

To learn more about Native Ad Blueprints, visit our solution page to see how we can help you take your email program to the next level.