6 Best Practices to Unveil the Power of Native Content in 2020
Native advertising inspires greater interest among users than regular display ads, as they are more creative, seamless, and valuable. If you’re looking to benefit from the power of native content in 2020, read on to know about:
- Insights from Verizon on the rise of native formats
- Six best practices to follow when creating native ads
Way back in 2015, we asked if native advertising will finally take over traditional marketing. At that time, native content was still in its nascent stage, and ad strategies were not mature enough. Things have changed dramatically since then. Last year, Verizon reported that “native isn’t just a format, it’s a philosophy.” Native content has now made its way into e-commerce platforms, video sites, major publications, and even email.
We have all seen ad content sent directly to our Gmail inboxes that look exactly like a regular email and can be saved or forwarded to others. Trends like this illustrate how popular native content has become. Verizon also noted that marketing investment in this area increased by 25% between 2018 and 2019.
“Native advertising continues to explode. Brands spent $44 billion on it this year – and that number will climb as emerging channels deliver more turnkey formats for buyers.”
~ Iván Markman, Chief Business Officer at Verizon Media
With so many marketers making in-roads into native advertising, what are some of the key best practices to get started? How can you ensure that your native content assets capture maximum customer attention? Let’s find out.
Learn More: Native is the New Rich Media
6 Best Practices to Create Native Ad Content in 2020
Native content can be defined as ads or any type of promotional content that appears on an external platform, without looking like an ad. The format blends in seamlessly with the surrounding aesthetic and content tonality, making it a less jarring experience for the customer. Native content comes with a variety of labels, such as paid content, ad, sponsored post, paid by XYZ, recommended for you, from the web, and others. To know more about this concept, read our 101 guide on what is native advertising.
If you’re investing in native content this year, here are six best practices to follow:
1. Outline a comprehensive content strategy, with a judicious mix of promotions and information
Native content comes in different shapes and sizes. You can use native ads to increase click rates for a promotional page, or you could direct the audience to content hosted on your website. Take a look at the following two ad types, both placed on the same HuffPost page:
The first native ad redirects to a paid article on HuffPost, which was published without any intervention from its editorial team. This is a great example of educational content that builds awareness about a brand or an organization.
The second ad, on the other hand, will take you straight to the Airbnb sign-up page. These two variants of native content are extremely useful, and we recommend investing in both.
Also, take a close look at the quality of your content. By investing in innovative formats such as video, podcasts, and infographics, you can obtain higher ROI from your native ads. Further, this establishes you as a credible thought leader in your domain, independent of the publisher you partner with. Customers are more likely to return to your website in the future, even without the mediation of a native ad platform.
2. Pay close attention to your image thumbnails
This is the first element a user sees when they come across a native ad. If the image thumbnail is of poor quality, improperly rendered, or simply not interesting, they are likely to scroll over. And, customers will view your native content on a variety of devices, making it difficult to specify the accurate aspect ratio and cropping dimensions.
An easy but essential best practice to remember is to provide margins outside your images so that important elements do not get cropped. Native advertising platform, Sharethrough, illustrated this brilliantly.
Example of an Image Thumbnail with Margins
3. Mention 4 to 5 headline options for every image thumbnail (but avoid clickbait)
Every piece of native content needs an accompanying image thumbnail to be displayed across mobile and desktop platforms. Along with the thumbnail, you need a creative copy that mimics the title of an article. One of the best practices to remember here is providing multiple headline options for each thumbnail. This allows the native ad engine to automatically select the best performing headline, improving your content’s reach.
A note on the headline: While it shouldn’t be too promotional, it is important to mention the band or your product within the content. It improves brand recall, and also clearly discloses to the consumer that they are clicking on an advertorial. This principle of transparency is essential when running a native ad.
As a follow up to this best practice, make sure to avoid clickbait when formulating titles. This makes the promotional nature of your native content stark and easy to spot. Instead of blending in with the publisher’s user experience, a clickbait interrupts the reader and alerts them to ads. That’s why an SEO-optimized, informative headline option (which accurately reflects the main content) is a smarter approach.
4. Make native ad placement smart and persistent
Unlike regular display ads, native content doesn’t appear as pop-ups, banners, and similar dynamic formats. Instead, they are embedded onto the web-page, much like any other content the publisher would produce through their editorial team.
It is advisable to make native ads as persistent as possible — the user should be able to scroll up and down the page, without losing sight of the thumbnail. It is also a good idea to have the same ad in place for several consecutive days so that viewers really interested in the content can come back to it. The persistent nature of native sets it apart from other digital ad techniques. The sheer quality of the content and its value to the customer makes them seek it out, even after they have navigated away from the page.
A good example of increasing persistency is native ads that arrive as emails and stay in your inbox for days, should you want to share it with your friends or acquaintances. The onus is on the marketer to make the content relevant enough to capture repeated attention.
To make native ads more persistent, some brands continue to rely on direct ad sales instead of opting for programmatic. In 2019, 13% of native spend happened via direct channels, according to the Verizon report.
5. Partner with premium content houses and ensure shareability
This one is a no-brainer. Premium publishers come with a huge base of potential customers and a loyal readership. They are also characterized by industry-wide credibility, making it more likely for customers to trust the ads they view on these publishing sites.
Interestingly, premium content houses select their native ads with a keen eye. Take a look at this example from the media & entertainment content site, IndieWire. Although the thumbnail is clearly an ad, IndieWire was careful to choose content related to its domain.
Example of a Relevant Native Ad
Identify your specific niche of operations and content dissemination. Next, zero-in on the publishers most closely related to your domain, with readers who would be interested in your product. Finally, create content that resembles the premium publisher’s quality and look-and-feel, but is engaging and builds brand recall. This best practice is at the heart of any successful native content strategy in 2020.
Next, make native content easy to share. There are several ways to achieve this:
- Consider a wider variety of social media platforms including Reddit and Flipboard
- Make native content shareable via email, with a social button that redirects to an email client
- Pepper the content with interesting, original images, each with its own Pinterest button
Native ads can be more expensive than regular display ads (especially if you partner with a premium content house), so you need to garner the maximum value from every content asset. Shareability makes a big difference here, generating multiple views and prospects from each ad click.
What Is Content Marketing? Definition, Types, Best Practices, Benefits, and Examples
6. Invest in a robust A/B testing strategy with a keen focus on mobile
There are many variables that go into the success of native content, from the publisher you choose to the ad design, from headlines to images, and ad positioning. Marketers must test every combination to select the most optimal route. A/B testing can help achieve this by incrementally refining each parameter and testing for uptick/decline in user engagement.
One best practice to remember here is the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to consider during A/B tests. Long-term results like conversion rates or revenues are difficult to measure. Instead, focus on real-time metrics like ad clicks, bounce rate, end-to-end views in case of video, and other variables that indicate some degree of engagement.
A robust A/B testing strategy will tell you exactly which ad configurations are working, the content types that resonate with your customer, and relatively redundant investment areas.
Rigorous testing is all the more important for native ads on mobile. Back in 2017, eMarketer revealed that mobile made up a staggering 88.3% of all native content consumption. The “absolute value” of mobile native spend doubled between 2015 and 2018, reported The Drum. This year, the trend is expected to continue, and marketers need a well-defined strategy for testing different mobile ad formats.
Some of the factors to test include different social media platforms on mobile, sponsored products on e-commerce apps, and in-map recommendations for local businesses, among others.
Learn More: Not all Native Ads are Created Equal
Getting Started with Native Advertising in 2020
Native content offers incredible opportunities for marketers to generate genuine interest in their brands. Essentially, it targets your top-of-the-funnel audience, increasing awareness before they are ready to convert.
These six best practices will help you hit the ground running in 2020, making sure that your strategy is perfectly geared for the best possible outcomes. By focusing on high-quality content and regular measurement of the traffic numbers, you can finetune the strategy going forward.
Which best practice would you recommend for marketers getting started with native content in 2020? Tell us in detail on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. We would love to hear from you!
