Flite Blog

Project GutenbergAlthough native ads are indisputably one of the hottest trends in digital advertising, the concept is new enough that an agreed-upon definition has not been settled on yet. And some elements of the approach, specifically its focus on content and the way it is embedded in site content, has led some to confuse them with the much-maligned advertorial. Ambiguity around the term has led at least one prominent blogger to decry the approach, and even at the IAB Annual Leadership Summit, advertising execs, for the most part, claimed it represented nothing new.

But what really is the difference? There are some similarities, and also some clear points of difference.

Similarities

Both native advertising and advertorials are placed within the context of where site content is consumed. Instead of being relegated to the periphery of a Web page, such as within the navigation sidebars or above content, both native ads and advertorials appear within the natural flow of content consumption on the site.

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At Flite, we pride ourselves in embracing the marketing techniques that our Platform enables for our clients. Agile marketing, in which advertisers make small, timely bets to home in on responsive, optimized success, and paid media publishing, which melds the effectiveness of compelling, user-focused content and the scale of paid media, have been distilled into two ebooks authored by the Flite staff. Both ebooks detail the ways in which these approaches are revolutionizing display and mobile advertising.

The Ultimate Guide to Agile Marketing in Display Ads covers:

• agile marketing basics, and how they apply to the development of display campaigns
• how a digital advertising team needs to be structured for agility
• how news and changes present high-ROI opportunities to agile marketers
• real-world examples of start-ups' and Fortune 500 companies' successful use of agile techniques in their approach to display ads

The Essential Guide to Paid Media Publishing: Scaling Content Marketing into Display Advertising explores:

• what paid media publishing is, and how it extends your content marketing efforts
• how compelling content developed for owned media can be streamed into paid placements
• what kinds of content can be pulled into display advertising, and how new technology is enabling their real-time distribution
• case studies with performance details, as well as ad format examples

Both ebooks are available as PDFs for easy reading on your computer or mobile device.

Native advertising, which integrates the hosting site’s style, tone, and content focus into an ad format, stands in stark contrast to the traditional banner ad, which, if anything, tries very hard to stand out. Because of their touted ability to provide a congruent experience for users, native ads avoid the scourge of ad blindness and are more likely to create a more favorable impression on users. Are these assumptions true?

According to a study spearheaded by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough, native advertising outperforms banner advertising in all measured metrics...but one. However, the definitions of native and banner ads used for the purposes of the study might be up for contention: the native ad is contextually embedded, while the banner is relegated to the right rail of the page. It's unclear how much of an impact position alone had on the results.

Credit: SharethroughThe study, which polled 4,770 Web users, and also additionally eyeball-tracked 200 participants, compared users’ response to and interaction with native ads (contextually positioned, and with content) vs both banner ads (a medium rectangle positioned in the right rail) and site content. The difference in position raises questions about the results, at least in my mind. Would a banner placed in the flow of site content perform better than the study’s results indicate?

At any rate, here are the results:

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