Native advertising is a form of sponsored advertising, and it works in much the same way that newspaper advertorials have done for many years. Native adverts are designed and dressed up to look like the editorial content that surrounds them and can come in many different forms, and while native advertising is only really coming to the forefront and is only just becoming a much talked about phenomenon, content marketing has been around for a little longer. This blog post, which is the latest in a number of posts about native advertising from us content marketing gurus at Neil Walker Digital, will look to outline the difference between the two, and dispel any myths that have arisen which surround these two forms of online marketing.
Finding the right tactics to market your company can be a difficult task, and with so many new theories and practices appearing each year, how do you know if content marketing, or indeed native advertising, is the right option for you?
Here’s a look at the differences between the two:
Native advertising works because the content provided should give value to the watcher, reader or listener whilst also selling a product or service at the same time. Quite often, an advertorial might try to solve a problem that conveniently leads the reader to buying a product which helps them solve that particular problem. The main aim of native advertising is to make the reader become a customer, and aims to be much more than the ‘in your face’ banner adverts which have appeared on screens for over a decade, usually disrupting your browsing experience.
Native advertising will often have a salesy tone, or will appear to be friendly, looking to emulate the writing style of the website it appears within. In short, native advertising takes content and places it in the context of a publisher’s site. So, whether you think of it as an advertorial, a paid guest post, a sponsored tweet, or just an extensive advertisement; native adverts are basically paid for, engaging branded content which is positioned in a prominent, yet contextual, place on somebody else’s platform.
This link provides a number of interesting facts about native advertising. In fact there are thirty of them for you to get your teeth into, addressing many issues – admittedly the statistics are US focused, but it gives a great insight into native ads.
The goal of content marketing is to build trust with potential customers over the long term by providing relevant and useful information, all in the hope that the content is engaging enough as to generate sales or sales leads. The content should be valuable to the reader, watcher or listener and good content should be valuable in itself without being too salesy or saying ‘buy me’ in the face of the viewer, it’s a subtle marketing method which has really taken off recently.
Content marketing acts in a more authentic manner than native advertising, offering knowledge that doesn’t try to persuade the reader to buy, but looks to address any issues that they might have and then offers them solutions – feeling much more genuine, while engaging with the reader and building rapport.
How do you know when you’re looking at a native advertisement?
You sometimes might not actually be aware that you’re looking at a native advertisement as they are designed to blend in with the content they’re placed within. There have been plenty of discussions between advertising authorities and marketers who are still looking to outline policies which ensure that native adverts are clearly labelled so that the reader isn’t misled. On the one hand, designers might suggest that the longer you are looking at a native advert before actually realising that it is a native advert, the better, but those who draw up legislation might beg to differ.
How do you know when you’re bearing witness to content marketing?
If you’ve ever seen one of Red Bull’s extreme sport videos, watched a Nike Football video, read a blog like this, played one of these games, listened to a podcast like this one, viewed a webcast or browsed a photo gallery, you have been marketed to through content. While you might not have realised the tactics behind, and the reasons that the content was created in the first place, a content marketeer has certainly dreamt it up somewhere! If you find that you return to a brand website time after time to look after something that you have been impressed with in the past, you have found value in their content, which was their aim in the first place, next you just need to become a customer!
Why has native advertising taken off?
One of the main reasons native advertising has seemed to gain traction is because it is believed to be engaging whilst sitting in the context of a website, but it’s not a new concept in the slightest. Placement of content within the context of a consenting publisher or brand has been happening for years within print publications, but it is a relatively new concept in the world of online marketing. Online publishers and social networks are now offering space on their websites to allow advertisers to post their branded advertising content.
Editorial content sits clearly labelled (in most cases) within other websites, each publisher will have a deal with a creator of native advertisements. If you click here, you’ll see that if you scroll down the page, you will see a ‘promoted stories’ section with four different stories. In the bottom right hand section, it says ‘Recommended by Outbrain’, who are the publishers of the content – if you notice, it’s all relevant to that particular page of news.
As a content marketeer myself, it is important to choose the medium of advertising which best suits the audience, and it shouldn’t just be exclusive to one particular platform; you can use a mixture of content marketing and native advertising within your marketing mix, but which is the most effective route to take?
Are native ads working more effectively than content marketing?
With print and banner advertisements beginning to lag behind native advertising and content marketing, agencies are starting to change their models, adjusting to a new way of doing things. Several studies have confirmed native advertising’s effectiveness, research by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough compared native ads to banner ads and found that native ads drive higher brand awareness and visibility than banner ads.
It’s now certainly very clear that native ads are more effective than banner ads, but how do they compare when up against content marketing campaigns? Content marketing is pretty effective anyway, so what’s the need in even thinking, or switching your emphasis to native? A lot depends on the budget of your company, this study from Michael Gerard looks at the differences in tone, purpose and the benefits of content marketing vs native advertising and suggests that brands might want to stick with the former.
Will native advertising even survive?
Advertising regulatory bodies are looking to relegate how brands and the media handle native advertising, and if you believe what the Content Marketing Institute has to say, you’d be under the impression that it is dead already and is nothing more than a gimmick or a craze which has passed.
Whilst researching for this blog, I came across this superb article in Adweek; admittedly it was published in December 2013, but it gives an outline of how experts within the industry think native advertising will develop over this year, and during years to come. I was quite taken aback by the following quote, as its quite similar to my beliefs as a rather critical content marketer:
Demand for native content will outstrip the supply of creative talent. As a result, most native experiences will be unremarkable. Consumers will begin the inevitable process of learning to avoid native content the same way they’ve learned to avoid banners, email ads, radio and TV ads, and direct mail. Some intrepid advertisers will spend the money necessary to attract the right talent, and will create native experiences that are so entertaining, informative, or educational that they rival the quality of the world’s best journalism. Like all advertising, some native will be great, but most will be unremarkable.
Joe Mccamley of The Wonderfactory
When native advertising goes wrong
Seeing as though I have just looked at why native advertising might not ‘go the distance’, let’s look at why it might fail, here some hideously bad examples that you can point and laugh at:
The Atlantic placed a large piece of sponsored content from the much maligned Church of Scientology at the top of its website, and while it was quickly removed, we are able to view the ad thanks to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies who decided to permanently archive it. The Atlantic must have received lots of money for the placement of the advert for the church, which you just wouldn’t expect to appear within a respected national publication in the states.
The ad does display that it is ‘sponsored content’ and is highlighted within a yellow tag, even so, The Atlantic was widely mocked and this blunder has now become the ‘poster boy’ for bad native advertising across the world.
Is bad native advertising worse than banner advertising?
By now you’ll be well aware that I’m not a fan of banner advertising, and you’d have a hard time trying to find anyone who actually does like it. And while native advertising is seen as a step in the right direction, and a much needed move away from banners, could badly executed native ads be worse than banner adverts? The answer to that is yes, especially when you consider the example from The Atlantic which I looked at in the paragraph above.
Native has been touted as the saviour, saving us web users from garish and irrelevant banners, but what happens when the quality and the relevance of a native ad drops? If you’re not going to have relevant ads then you might as well just whack a banner on the website, and if you are thinking about tricking web users into clicking your native advert, essentially, you’re doing it wrong. There’s nothing clever about duping people, you’re not going to build trust that way.
Native advertising or content marketing?
Currently, native advertising doesn’t create results which are comparable to content marketing, with its educational and informational value. Native ads might be a great strategy for big brands, but it could be a little trickier for smaller ones who might not be able to afford to pay for media space.
The online marketing spectrum is continually shifting, and with traditional revenue streams drying up, publishers have moved towards things like branded content in order to continue making money. For native advertising to be a long-term success, publishers need to hold the moral high ground and start to (or continue to) create honest, high quality content. Brands also need to realise that investing in high-quality native content is also an investment in their own brand, in the same way that investing in, and creating their own, content is.
Marketing is all about the ROI that you get from creating campaigns, be it native or content marketing. Marketeers need to understand whether it is worth investing time in creating native ads which are relevant and engaging, because when it doesn’t work, it falls flat on its face.
What do you think about both native advertising and content marketing? Is there a particular avenue that you’re looking to pursue within your ‘marketing mix’. Or, have you been put off by the idea of native ads, and are still firmly in favour of building customer trust through the creation of high quality, valuable content for your brand?
Let us know by getting touch on Twitter via @theukseo.