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Native Ads
We're big advocates of native advertising. Native is one of our three company pillars, alongside Programmatic and Mobile—we believe it's these three trends that are driving the future of the digital advertising landscape. Native ads are increasingly becoming the preferred standard for publishers, brands, and consumers. Findings show they lead to increased purchase intent and brand loyalty as compared to banner ads, while also improving the consumer ad experience.
We revealed last week our new responsive ads feature, and we’ve received a great reaction from you since.
This week, we’re hoping for the same. Today’s second post in our three-part series on Flite’s take on native is on Style Inheritance.
A couple weeks ago, we published The Five W’s of Responsive Web Design—a crash course on what you need to know about this key trend—and also promised an update on what Flite is doing in this space.
Well, I’m pleased to inform you that the day has come. We’ve focused a lot of time and energy into building responsive functionality for the Flite Design Studio, as part of our larger native advertising strategy—and now we’re excited to reveal what we’ve put together.
You’re on your cell phone, navigating through your favorite app, when a banner ad pops up. You try to click the *Close* icon in the corner, but you can’t quite make out where your fingertip lands on the screen. Instead, you seem to have launched your mobile browser as it loads the website for an online shoe store.
I was in the audience for a panel on the future of native ads a few weeks ago. It didn't take long for the panel, which was made up of ad tech executives, to find the first point to disagree on: What's the definition of a 'native ad'. After a little bickering, the moderator was able to get the group to agree on something like this:
Native ads are paid media units that take on the form of the environment they are displayed in.
That worked for me.
More debate followed about "what was the first example of a native ad?" and "do we need to consider print or just digital when thinking native?" For the context of this post, let's consider only online digital native ads while we dive into some examples to shed light on those questions. Along the way we will uncover some of the sources of controversy that drive the debates around native ad formats.
Native advertising is the biggest trend in online advertising this year — and one that will likely change how brands and publishers approach paid media forever.
To understand how the best early adopters are using native ads, we reviewed 9 prominent websites. We looked at what the native executions looked like, and why they work.
The results are compiled in this 27-page eBook.
This is a must-review resource for publishers looking to offer their own native ads, and for brands surveying what kinds of opportunities are available.
With an emerging concept like native advertising, sometimes it's difficult enough to come up with a consensus on a definition, much less explain at a more granular level. But that hasn't deterred several firms from taking a stab at explaining what native ads are, how much they're expected to grow, and how they'll continue to evolve. And, best of all, they've digested their perspectives into easy-to-scan infographics.
Let's have a look at what these infographics will answer:
Let's have a look:
Publishers have long felt the pain of selling audience against standard creative where it hurts most — in undervalued CPMs — because audience-based buying fails to capture the premium nature of the web’s top websites.
That's why today's top publishers are turning to directly sold premium advertising in the form of ad products, which allows them to realize the full value of their audience without seeing it commoditized and undervalued.
Instead of selling inventory simply as audience, ad product strategies deliver true value to advertisers — content, context, a premium experience...and an audience.
But as the market for premium advertising heats up, publishers are looking for ways to differentiate their inventory and win media buys. For those trying to get ahead, five key trends are heavily influencing ad product development this year.
As the traditional banner ad continues its fade into obscurity, native ads, which coexist more naturally and comfortably with both the flow of editorial content and users’ sensibilities and interests, continue to grow in prominence. The most well-publicized examples are Sponsored Stories in Facebook, Promoted Videos on YouTube, and Promoted Tweets on Twitter. Other editorial sites that trade in native ads include Gawker Media (Sponsored Posts), Reddit (Sponsored Links), and Huffington Post (Sponsor Generated Post).
But as the native ad phenomenon grows, it expands beyond advertorials and paid links. Technology is enabling publishers to stitch together content that appeals to their readership and that fits within the confines of an ad spot. The same technological tools also now allow a small design team to create native ads that match the look and feel of the site, and that even include the types of entertaining and informative content that can be consumed and engaged with within the ad itself.
While its forms vary and innovation continues unabated, there are four essential elements of a native ad format that performs well and fulfills publishers’ expectations:
Native ads work because they blend in. Photo Credit: Beezy
Native ads rose to popularity on social media, where ad products are shown as sponsored posts or as a feed of small ads that flow through the sidebar.
On the tails of the success of native social ads, publishers are going native with their premium ad products in display and video advertising. In fact, according to a recent study by Solve Media, 20% of publishers are expected to offer native ad products this year.
These native ad products have some common characteristics:
