RevContent’S
Native Advertising Guide
Welcome to RevContent’s guide on native advertising - use this guide to discover why and how industry leaders utilize native to grow audience, revenue and engagement for their brands.
What Is Native Advertising
Native advertising is the form of digital paid advertising that seamlessly integrates sponsored content into the user's online engagement experience, delivering value while subtly promoting a brand, product or cause. Unlike traditional banner and display ads that interrupt a user’s experience on a page, native ads harmoniously blend in into surrounding editorial content, creating seamless, engaging and enjoyable user experience.
Because native advertising performs well in environments with little to no behavioral signals, the value of the medium continues to increase as the open web ecosystem prepares for a future where third-party cookies will be treated differently than the standard practices of which the digital ad industry and consumers have become accustomed to. As such, native ads sales are projected to reach $650 billion by the end of 2032.
Where to find native advertising
As you scroll through your favorite news site, chances are, you'll likely encounter native advertising, delivered in the form of sponsored articles, promoted search listings, or content recommendations from platforms like RevContent. These examples of native advertising match the look and feel of other site content, but should contain consumer friendly disclosures to create a distinction between organic content and paid content.
Examples of these discolusers are icons and headers that include phrases like “From Around The Web”, “Recommended For You”, “Sponsored Articles”, “Sponsored By” and more…
Here are a few specific examples of most commonly used types of native advertising:
“Sponsored” results in search
Ads that appear on the results of search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. These sponsored search links typically appear at the top of your search results, but can also appear in the side bar or at the end of your search results
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In-feed ad units in social networks
These ad units are integrated directly into the content feeds of social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X.com and Threads as well as on content forum sites like Reddit, Quora and NextDoor.
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Content Recommendation platforms on media websites
Platforms like RevContent power content recommendations on popular publisher websites in the open web ecosystem. These ads typically appear at the end of article content but can also be found integrated as in-feed placements within article content or in the side bar of websites.
Learn MoreHow to Identify Native Advertising
Even though it is designed to blend in with organic content, native advertising is fairly easy to spot and distinguish from other types of online ads. In line with rules and regulations imposed by trade organizations such as the FTC and the IAB, all kinds of native advertising should include a clear disclosure allowing users to distinguish these ads from other content. Disclosure labels such as “Sponsored by,” “Partner content,” “Recommended by,” or simply “Ad,” are frequently used, which is why native advertising is also known as Sponsored Content, Partner Content, or Branded Content.
What Makes Native Advertising Work?
Because native ads are more seamless and effective than traditional banners and display ads, the popularity of the medium continues to grow across the digital ads ecosystem.
Studies have shown that native ads are a great hedge against banner blindness and receive higher click-through rates and longer engagement times compared to traditional display ads.
Consumers look at native ads 53% more than display ads and often times, visual engagement with native ads is higher than even the original editorial content a user is reading. Additionally, native ads offer the flexibility to target specific audiences on a granular level, based on contextual signals that indicate interests, and purchase intent, ensuring that your message reaches the right people at the right time.
Native Advertising Benefits Advertisers, Publishers AND Users
Why Native Advertising Is Good for Brands
Brands choose to redirect their marketing budgets from regular display and banner ads to native advertising because new data increasingly prove it to be more effective, less expensive and more honest towards consumers.
- Drive sales
Native ads allow advertisers to increase ROI by reaching highly motivated users.
- More space for creativity
With a wide selection of types and formats, native advertising provides brands with great flexibility when creating promo campaigns.
- Positive customer perception
Brands get a chance to gain customer loyalty by presenting users with high-quality relevant content.
- Most ethical form of online ads
Brands get a chance to gain customer loyalty by presenting users with high-quality relevant content.
- Most ethical form of online ads
Advertisers can deliver their brand messaging blended with organic content without compromising ethics and/ or regulatory compliance.
- Minimized costs
Emphasis on low-cost targeted native ads allows brands to be more efficient with marketing budgets.
Why Native Advertising Is Good for Publishers
Publishers prefer to monetize their audiences with native advertising placements because it allows them to maximize ad revenues without alienating users by showing them ads that are too intrusive or irrelevant.
- Seamless UX
Native ads don’t disrupt user experience and reduce ad fatigue.
- High CTR
Users are more likely to click on native ads compared to traditional banners.
- Better conversions
Customized targeted native ads boost conversion rate.
- User value
Audience sees and interacts with quality evergreen promo content.
- Best ad revenue / audience satisfaction balance
Native advertising allows publishers to maximize ad revenues without sacrificing audience satisfaction.
- Resistance to ad blockers
Native ad placements are less likely to be removed by ad blockers.
Why Native Advertising Is Good for Users
It is not hard to see why native advertising drives a more positive perception from audiences than traditional banner ads: native ads are much less disruptive, while also being ethically acceptable as users are always warned about the paid nature of such content.
- Personalized ads
Native ads offer users more relevant and engaging content.
- No annoying banners
Display ads don’t disrupt viewing sessions.
- High-quality content
Users get access to custom promos that deliver value.
- Obvious paid content disclosure
Native ads are always clearly labeled as paid sponsored content.
- No misleading product placements
Customers interact with less manipulative transparent form of promotion.
How to Succeed in Native Advertising
Use these ten tips to create a native advertising strategy that will delight and convert your audience.
Start your native advertising strategy by creating SMART goals. These are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound goals. These goals will give you direction for your native advertising strategy and provide benchmarks for success.
After deciding your overarching objective, use the SMART criteria to add a quantifiable target and timeframe for reaching that goal.
To create an effective native advertising campaign, you need to first identify who you are trying to reach with your ads. To do so, use your SMART goals to determine which segment of your audience fits your objectives. You should identify where those consumers are in the marketing funnel, what their needs are, how much they know about your business, and how you can help them.
When you create your native ads, use language that those buyers understand. Address potential buyers personally, and customize your content for their needs.
Your metrics tell you when you reach your goals. Without metrics, you will have no idea whether you are making smart advertising investments or achieving your target ROI. However, most marketers can’t rely on quantitative metrics alone for tracking their content’s success. Quantitative metrics are numbers, such as a dollar amount consumers spend, that you can insert into a formula to calculate a specific ROI.
It’s important to remember that the content marketing process is long, and a customer’s lifetime value is far greater than a single purchase. Therefore, a customer’s actual monetary value isn’t as easy to identify as tracking their purchases. It also includes positive feedback they leave, their touchpoints, and their loyalty, as all of these results can lead to more revenue over time. These are qualitative metrics and require different methods for tracking.
RevContent
for Publishers
RevContent helps publishers drive sustainable revenue through a lightweight, cookie less native advertising solution that doesn’t compromise user experience or page speed. With a vast range of device types and bandwidths in mind, RevContent publishers can rest assured knowing that we will deliver seamless user experience to every session, every time.
RevContent
for Advertisers
RevContent will ensure that your brand reaches engaged audiences at the right place and time with exclusive placements on the world’s leading publisher sites. Our vast network of direct publisher partnerships drives billions of ad views to hundreds of millions of unique users across the open web ecosystem.