Native ads are one of the fastest growing types of digital advertising. With the rising costs of Facebook & Google ads, more advertisers are experimenting with Native advertising and generating huge ROI’s.
However, the goal of native advertising is to make the ads appear so that they match the website and current content. This is why you can often find them in social media feeds or recommended content on most websites or blogs.
Those who are not successful in it (both Advertisers and publishers) are typically because they are trying to force content onto the users, instead of making it look natural. We will get into the different types of ads that we can do below (in feed, search or promoted, and content recommendations) but main thing relevancy.
Just as some tips. I am currently running my own Taboola ads for a pet niche. Some of these native advertising best practices I recommend come from years of experience.
Now Let's dive into those factors.
Best practices to go about native advertising
1. Determining Your Business Model
There are so many different products and services you see marketed with native advertising. We have come a long way from the early days of native ads where all you saw were spammy weight loss pills and dating ads.
Not that there's anything wrong with this! They still are very popular products to sell and market with today. With mass competing and offers though, we see many big and small brands who have entered this space.
If you are not marketing your own brand, then are you selling products for someone else? What is the end goal of your campaign?
Normally with my campaigns I run native ads focused solely on generating email subscribers and building my remarketing lists. This way I can sell products later. Most people that click on your ad, most likely will not pull out their credit cards and buy your offer (immediately). Well depending on the price I am guessing.
I suggest for a business model focusing solely on lead generating and increasing brand awareness versus anything else.
2. Choosing The Right Network
Trust me when I say that not all Ad Networks are equal. We have done significant testing (especially when it comes to invalid traffic) and my go to is always taboola. Outbrain, MGID, Adup are always options as well. However, some may offer clicks that do not result in sales. Testing is key to growing and scaling your native ad buys.
3. Creating An Amazing Image
What is going to make a user click on your advertisement versus the thousands they see every day? It is all in the image! I like to use a real person (or pet) that really embodies human emotion. One of my friends said it best was it was all in the eyes.
They actually split test running an ad campaign where they had really focused on a broad range of emotions, but focusing on eyes had the biggest impact. The popping colours really stood out.
This was not adult content or a dating ad, where I think they may want to focus on something else 😉
I use Deposit Photos for most of my images, versus using a free network like Pexels or Pixabay with images that most people may have already seen.
I mean if you were selling a pet product, how likely would it be that you click on this image?
4. Writing The Effective Headline
With the limited text we have available for writing an effective headline, it is so important to write a catchy headline that users will not be able to ignore. Many people are used to ignoring many of these ads, sometimes referred to as banner blindness, so makes it harder than ever to catch the attention and therefore clicks of the users. So what works?
Think of it from the customer and ask the following questions: what is in it for me? Adding urgency oor scarcity, using powerful words, enticing curiosity.
One of the best resources I have seen for headline generating techniques is over at Native Ad Buzz.
5. Most Important - Never Stop Testing
I can almost guarantee that you will not be profitable on your fast campaign. You may not even be profitable by your 10th campaign. It takes time testing images, headlines, offers, geos, sites, and CPC. I have not even mentioned AB testing landing pages yet.
Bottom line with Native Ads
As advertisers are looking for more ways to reach their customers, the adoption of native ads will keep growing. Right now, I am running Taboola ads for $5 / click in the USA (and cheaper elsewhere) when the similar Facebook ads cost more than $1 / click.
However, it is a very specialized type of advertising that is not the same as the traditional Google AdWords approach. With Adwords, customers are already specifically interested in this exact search, versus Native ads that are far more general. Instead of being laser focused, it is better to be broad and focus on engagement campaigns.
Regardless of what you do or try, there are tonnes of other resources and strategies to get profitable campaigns. Plus it is a great way to try new advertising that is not nearly as strict or controlled with the offerings compared to FB or Google.
Please make sure to comment below with some of your strategies, tips, and tools you have used.