3 Tips for a Successful Native Ad Campaign | The Mail Online- Daily News, Affiliate Marketing News, Advice and Tutorials

April 30th, 2014
3 Tips for a Successful Native Ad Campaign

3 Tips, Adiant, Ash Nashed, Campaign, Content Marketing, Marketing, Native Ads, Native Advertising

If you’re a digital marketer then you’ve probably heard a lot about native advertising lately. The reason being is that native advertising is not only improving the online experience for users, but it’s also improving the online ad industry as a whole. So to help you get more familiar with native advertising we’re sitting down with Adiant CEO Ash Nashed to learn about what native advertising is, where it’s going, and how to use it successfully. For all of this and more, read the full interview below.

Your company Adiant just launched an RTB exchange for native ads. Can you tell us how that works?

For the first time, advertisers and DSP’s can now purchase billions of native ad impressions per month programmatically, utilizing first and third party data, across hundreds of premium news and information sites. Adiant also provides a white-label bidder and Data Management Platform for those advertisers who do not want to utilize a separate DSP.

A lot of people expect native advertising to replace traditional display ads in the year to come. How do you think that will impact the online experience for advertisers, publishers, and users?

We’ve been serving native-style ad units on the web’s top sites since early 2008. The units work great for advertisers because consumers actually read the creative, as opposed to banners, which are generally ignored. We have seen up to three times the engagement rates with our native ads compared to standard banner ads. They are a non-intrusive way for publishers to earn significant revenues. We pay many of our publishers six figures monthly. It’s imperative that these units are properly marked as advertising, however, in order to maintain an appropriate user experience and long term consumer trust.

Since native advertising is a relatively new trend, there is an obvious learning curve. What do you think is the most important thing that people need to know about native advertising?

It’s a very powerful way to message consumers in both desktop and mobile environments. Because these units primarily appear in news and information sites where users are actively seeking information, they are far more likely to be seen and read. These native-style ad units work great not only for promoting content, but for brands and agencies looking to promote a brand-building message or acquire new customers. Because their engagement is so much higher than traditional IAB banners, users actually read the message and make an informed decision on whether or not they want to proceed through to the advertiser’s landing page. In effect, this drives a more qualified audience to brand sites, that is more likely to take action.

With so much hype around it, a lot of advertisers and publishers are looking to implement native advertising into their online ad strategies. What are your top three tips for a successful native advertising campaign?

Create great content that people want to read and that provides value to them. Remember to include key messages in the text creative, because, unlike banners, the ads will be read by a significant percentage of users.
Use compelling, real life imagery and text in order to increase click rates. Avoid corporate logos which dramatically lower CTRs. When creating your offer promo, use text that asks a question or makes a statement that specially impacts the life of your target audience.
Leverage as much data as possible to appropriately target the ads. Networks like Adblade allow advertisers to leverage first and third party data to target their ads. Retargeting is a must-have component of any campaign.

We are also particularly excited about the opportunities for mobile in-browser native advertising. It’s generally cheaper than desktop advertising but can be just as effective in terms of engagement and messaging.

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