8 Examples of Native Ads (And Why They Work)

Native advertisement is a type of advertisement in which the sponsored content is not blatantly highlighted in the text or browser window, but it is embedded into the web page and keeps consistent with the flow of the text or search results.

According to the 2014 research survey, almost 50% of questioned people did not know or hear about the native advertising.

Even though some of you may not know what it is by definition, if you surfed the Internet in the past few days, you have definitely encountered a native advertisement.

With the increase of social media platform popularity, so did the need for a new type of advertisement increase.

The developers aimed for one that will not be intrusive, but make the user want to take a look at the advertised content.

With its origin on social media platforms, the native advertisement approach later broadened itself on internet sites other than those for social purposes.

Simple article websites, blogs, Youtube videos, and many more agencies use native ads.

In further writing of the text, you will read a few examples of native ads, and see how are they helping the target audience, and why do they work.

SPONSORED POSTS ON “FACEBOOK”

Let us start with the biggest social media platforms before numbering the other native advertisements.

With Facebook, the algorithm is actually putting the sponsored post between the posts that have been made by your friends.

The only way you can see what is sponsored is by the typing of the word “sponsored” right below the name of the product’s page.

This type of native advertisement is preferred by the people because it does not take control of what you are doing.

It gives you an ad in a stealthy and subtle way instead. It gives you something that you can just scroll past if you are not interested in.

This type of advertisement is an excellent way to attract the attention of the viewers and actually provoke their curiosity and the desire to click the content.

It is basically a guarantee that the user will see the advertisement, the picture of the product, the short quip, the motto or some catchy rhyme.

It is also the most popular way to do native advertisement because of the almost three billion users that Facebook has.

That means that the target audience can be adjusted easily because most people use their real information in creating a Facebook account.

Source: adespresso.com

PROMOTED TWEETS ON TWITTER

Twitter is a social media platform similar to Facebook. Their biggest difference is that Twitter usually comes down to writing posts.

The biggest downsides being that posts have character limits, and people mostly avoid using real information.

Promoted tweets, or posts, work the same way as on Facebook: the user is browsing through the posts on their page, and a special post gets between the posts with a yellow square and the text “promoted”.

Again, for the user, this is appropriate and non-intrusive, the user will definitely see the promoted post, and may or may not click on it.

The biggest disadvantage of this type of native ad is that the post is limited by the 140 character mark, so a good and short hook must be thought of.

In addition, it is difficult to control the target audience on Twitter like you can on Facebook.

The majority of people on Twitter are using made-up information, so it is more difficult to control which eyes will look at your promoted post.

Source: marketingland.com

ADVERTISEMENT IN GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS

This is the type of advertisement which pops up on the search results.

It is inconspicuous as it pops up as the first result with a little “ad” mark beneath it and users are used to clicking the first result of their search query.

That habit results in users visiting the advertised page and staying if anything catches their interest. This type of native advertisement is the best there is and here is why.

The vast majority of people use Google products. They make a Google e-mail address, which is linked to their Google Chrome browser, which is still one of the most popular ones around, and then Google uses their AdSense program to cater for their needs.

Google does it by selectively providing users with the advertisement for the items they have searched for.

For example, if you used Google to look for a set of speakers for your personal computer, Google will use the AdSense program and put the speaker advertisers on the top results page.

And not just that, but it will also advertise those speakers to you via additional means of native advertisement which we will cover later.

It is basically one huge connected web with Google in the center of it. If they know what a user wants, then the user will see the advertisement for the item on every platform owned by Google.

This native advertisement works simply because Google is the largest and most widely used search engine in the world.

The difference between the first placed Google and second-placed Bing has an amazing 33 percent of user searches.

Being the most popular, users search via Google for something daily, and that is where Google steps in with their native advertisement.

It works because Google links the desired items to the users and the advertiser that can offer that particular item to the user.

It is brilliant in a way that the user is not aware that they are looking at the advertised link because it is precisely what they need and that is why it works.

Source: wordstream.com

PAID ARTICLES

These are common on article sites. An article is paid for by a particular brand to be written and focused around the main topic of the article coupled with the brand somehow.

In this example, the company “Dell” is writing about millennials and their distaste for offices, under the “Dell” brand seal pasted all around the web page.

Paid articles are popular because you know which article site a certain target audience you need visits.

Although it is more of a hassle to hire someone to pick a topic that will catch the eye of the beholder, to write the article, proofread it and finally put it out on the site, it is certainly one of the more interesting ways of native advertisement.

This one usually works but it all depends on the written text. It also depends on the intensity of interest that the topic garners for the reader.

There is also an interesting native advertisement technique that usually comes at the end of articles or texts, at the near end of the web pages and it is called:

IN-FEED ADVERTISEMENTS

These are the “recommended” articles from “around the web” that might interest you.

They are basically put near the end of an article, usually not related at all with the article in question, and just there, in case someone clicks it.

This way of native advertisement works only if the user is really interested in the topic at hand.

It does not cater to your users’ needs, it is not in a visible place, but sometimes it just works if it catches the curiosity of the user.

It is a huge gamble to advertise your products in this way as it does not guarantee that it will be seen by either your target audience or anyone at all.

Source: www.pcgamer.com

YOUTUBE VIDEO ADVERTISEMENT

Youtube is one of the largest video hosting sites in the world and the most popular one. It is intuitive and easy to use.

It has around 2 billion monthly active users, and around 23 million different channels that upload videos frequently.

Those numbers are alluring to anybody that wishes to advertise their product on the site.

The way the advertisements are shown on Youtube depends on the Youtube channel that puts the advertisement on the video.

The procedure is as follows: a popular Youtube channel ticks the box that enables advertisement videos on their channel, and the channel owner puts the number of advertisement videos they want to show on their original video.

When you click to watch the video on that channel, then usually a short, 10-second advertisement plays before the original video.

The users are provided with the option of skipping the advertisement after a 3-second period.

This is a popular way of advertising on Youtube, although, there is one that is becoming more popular, and which will be covered later in the text.

Again, this kind of native advertising works because you know which channel is followed by which audience.

You know how many eyes you can get, and how many clicks, due to information provided by the Youtube users.

Youtube is owned by Google, and using a Google account to make a Youtube account is mandatory.

It works because it is a short advertisement catered to the user.

User has total control over the advertisement video and the option to watch the advertisement until the end or skip it altogether.

The biggest problem that might break the flow is if a channel owner ticks that they want a great number of advertisement videos on their video.

That is when a user gets bombarded by the longer and bigger number of video advertisements on a shorter video.

For example, a channel uploads a video that lasts 10 minutes, puts 4 or 5 advertisements on that short video, and users end up watching advertisements more than the video itself.

That is when the user might leave the video and stop coming to the channel altogether.

If you opt for the advertising of this type, one must be aware that there are Youtube channels that would misuse the advertisement number on their videos. In the end, that would do you more harm than good.

IN-VIDEO ADVERTISEMENT

In-video advertisement is similar to the previous one, although much safer and better in the long run.

In-video advertisements are advertisements that are filmed by the channel owners and uploaded on their channels.

Let us take the example of Youtube channels. Many channels on Youtube have information about their subscribers and viewers, and analytics concerning their viewer retention quality and viewer to channel interaction.

Channel owners can provide these pieces of information to any company that might be interested in sponsoring the channels content.

The company has insight into what age, cultural background, etc. are the majority of the viewers that watch that particular channel, and choose to pay the channel to mention their product.

Imagine that you watch a video about a guy reviewing a new movie. That means the viewers are usually younger, frequently go to the movies and love comfort, for example.

The guy would talk about the movie and at some point in the video, he would take time to talk about the sponsored content, before finishing the review.

At the end of the video, he would briefly repeat the main points of the sponsored content before fading to black.

This is the most popular way to advertise on Youtube or similar sites because there is no middle man, the deal is being made by the channel owner and the company.

The company can send and preordain the main talking points, what to emphasize, what to focus on, what to repeat more, what to say fewer times.

A good relationship between the channel and the company representative is of utmost importance here.

It’s important to note that research into the channel and its host or hosts is important before you do any business with any channel.

This type of native advertisement works because the channel hosts are charismatic and they usually flow perfectly into the sponsored content, making a great segue and making viewers chuckle and pay attention to the advertisement.

WEBSITE BANNERS

The banners are pictures that pop up on web pages. When clicked on, they bring the user to the advertised site.

They do not need to be on the web page, they can also pop up on the web page video player.

The advertisement banners are the most common type of native advertisement and it can be found on virtually every web page on the internet.

The way they work is when a user enters a web site, a vertical banner loads up on either one or both the left and right side of the web page. In some cases, a horizontal banner loads up at the top of the web page.

Going with the banner approach to the advertisement is a bit tricky. First of all, you need to know what site best complements your banner advertisement.

In order to make it look native and non-intrusive, the banner advertisement must not look out of place.

Secondly, you have to design the picture which will capture the essence of your advertised product.

Banner pictures are usually not that large, so a picture has to contain the product and the information about the advertised product.

Finally, you have to research the site and see whether it is suitable for your product and whether the website attracts your target audience.

It is a lot of work for something that might not be noticed, either due to the target audience being wrong, web site owners being unprofessional, or simply your banner design being unsatisfactory.

In the majority of cases where it works, it works because of all three checkmarks being hit: banner design is the most eye-catching and satisfactory.

The site and the advertisement banner are in perfect synchronization, and the audience is falling into the groups that are most likely to be interested in your product.

CONCLUSION

Native advertisement is not something that consumers have heard of.

It is something that comes up as a response to an increasing number of advertisements on the Internet.

Native ads tend to be non-intrusive but at the same time, compacted with enough information to catch the curiosity and interest of the audience.

When done correctly, it can be a fun experience and can open up further business opportunities. You just need to know exactly what you’re doing and you’re bound to make a profit.

There’s bunch of tutorials on how to utilize native ads so kickstart your business.

Check out this one for example:

Many companies nowadays go with the Youtube channel video advertisement and cooperation lasts for months.

The viewers like the channel enough that they will support it in every way, and that means buying the advertised items.

Some companies pay for the articles to be written by professionals and enjoy the benefits that way.

The native advertisement is something that is up and coming and many new original ways of native advertisement are being found and experimented on the Internet.

The possibilities are endless, as long as you have enough time and enough energy to invest and open yourself to the whole new world of native advertisement.