Anna McNellen

by Anna McNellen | Digital Strategy

What is Native Advertising and How Does It Work?

What is one of the best methods to get in front of your target audience in a content-relative environment at a cost-efficient rate? If you guessed Native advertising, you would be right! This strategy has grown and matured over the last several years and has become an efficient way for advertisers to leverage highly relevant and engaging content in a way that is unintrusive and effective. We are continuing to see Native advertising become more advanced with expansion into more ad formats such as Native video.
Graph of native advertising spend over time

Native Advertising is Continuing to Evolve

The popularity of Native advertising is continuing to rise. As per eMarketer, we are seeing Native advertising spend increase YoY with its biggest jump from 2020 to 2021. That consistent year over year growth of brand media budgets toward Native advertising is impressive and demonstrates how accessible this tactic is for big and small brands alike. It can be used for upper funnel, brand awareness for a new or lesser-known brand in the market, or leveraged for lead generation to gather high valuable user contact information in exchange for assets. It is successful for B2C and B2B brands because of the precision targeting capabilities to 1st party, B2B targeting segments, look-a-likes and much more.

How Creative Can You Get with Native Advertising?

There is also creative diversity within the formats that are available across the various Native advertising platforms. These are creative formats that grab the user’s attention and encourage further engagement and interaction from users. What makes this advertising tactic so effective is the way that it showcases content and seamlessly integrates it within relevant site content that increases brand recognition and thought leadership. There are countless reasons from performance to scalability with premier publishers to custom creative executions as reasons to why brands should be looking to incorporate Native advertising into their media mix.

How Do You Incorporate Native Advertising into Your Next Campaign?

There are now many Native advertising vendors that you can explore to dip your foot into the Native ad space. Vendors like StackAdapt, Taboola, Outbrain and Nativo offer a plethora of custom creative options to leverage so your content can match the look and feel of each publication that your target audience is engaging with for a truly seamless interaction. Native advertising is becoming an essential tool in the marketer’s toolbox so now is your time to enhance that toolkit!

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