What makes native advertising a must for advertisers Share via

Native ads are advertisements designed to adapt to the surrounding content and context within which they are displayed, which enables them to integrate effortlessly into the user journey instead of interrupting it. In other words, native ads are ads that do not look like ads. Various surveys have shown that more than 80 percent of consumers prefer native ads to display ads even when they know that the former is still an advertisement. The soaring popularity of native ads can be gauged by the fact that it is expected to reach $400 billion by 2025.

Some popular examples of native ads are sponsored social media posts, recommended content, or sponsored product listings on the marketplaces that look like organic search results. What also works in favor of native ads is that consumers are increasingly tired of watching traditional ads, and most are using ad blockers to eliminate unwanted intrusion. Hence, brands across different industries are investing in native ads to reach customers at the right place and time. This blog will discuss the top advantages advertisers experience when they invest in native ads.

Does not disrupt the user experience

One of the most crucial advantages of native advertisements that puts it into the limelight is its non-intrusive characteristic. Since they are so seamlessly integrated with their environment and blend effortlessly with the content on the page, the user experience is not disrupted; a trait other forms of advertising fail to replicate and hence irritates the consumers. According to surveys, native ads perform 50 percent better than display ads because they don’t scream at their audience, “look at me, I am an ad.” As opposed to traditional advertising that survives on hard-selling, native ads provide value and logical options to the consumers and leave it up to them if they want to buy the product or not.

Boosts campaign performance

Another massive benefit of running native advertisements is that they outperform any other advertisement format and help advertisers to drive better conversion and revenue. With native ads, brands have a much better chance to connect with their audience, reach their target markets, and expand their followers in the long term. And since these ads look just like the organic content, users tend to engage more with them, generating better conversions and revenue for the advertisers by taking favorable actions. According to a survey by a leading media house, it was expected that native ads would account for more than 70 percent of the total display ads in the US by 2021.

Higher clickthrough rate

What sets native ads apart from display ads is their high clickthrough rates. While a display ad, on average, has a CTR of 0.09 percent, native ads boast of a CTR more than eight times at 0.80 on average. Why is there so much difference in the CTR, you ask? This can again be attributed to the non-intrusive nature of native advertisements, which encourages users to engage more with them than on the face ads. Surveys have revealed that most users know when they interact with a native ad but still prefer it more than display ads, thus increasing the overall CTR. But native ads don’t perform similarly for all the categories when it comes to CTR. While pets, food, and parenting record the highest CTR, sometimes over 1 percent, categories like technology, health, and sports see the lowest traction.

Builds consumers trust

By prioritizing the users’ online browsing experience over hard-selling the products, advertisers, and publishers improve their relationship with the customer and build a certain degree of trust that serves them well in the long run. According to various reports, advertisers who serve high-quality and highly relevant native ads to the consumers report a higher level of trust in brands. The content of the native ad should be able to form an emotional connection with the user, and the brand messaging should come across that they care for their needs. Since we are talking about trust, advertisers should clearly label their content as sponsored so that consumers have complete clarity on what they engage with.

Besides these benefits, native ads also help advertisers increase brand awareness, expand the brand’s reach, resonate with millennials, are ad-block friendly, and are easier to scale. Therefore, brands looking to improve sales or leads for their online business should start implementing native ads into their marketing mix.