Native advertising is advertising that demonstrates the value of a product without extolling its benefits with purchase appeals, is often perceived by users as a recommendation, so it does not cause rejection.
Native advertising can be informational, entertaining, educational materials, how-to guides, picks, or reviews. Everything except blatant advertising in the form of banners, contextual ads on search engine homepages and advertising in the RSS/CMS. Anything that doesn’t contain open calls to “Buy now, or the discount will burn off” or “Buy 2 T-shirts, get the third one free.”
Native advertising materials do not always focus only on the product that needs to be promoted. Study of native advertising market in 2020 showed that in 46% of publications the text of the advertiser takes 1-2 paragraphs, 20% of publications contain just a mention of the product or company, and only 33% of materials are fully dedicated to the object of advertising. That doesn’t stop native advertising from being an effective promotional tool – both today and 150 years ago, when everything was just beginning.
Examples of native advertising
The progenitor of native advertising is considered to be American businessman John Deere (1804-1886), the founder of Deere & Company. The company produced agricultural implements, but business was not going too well. To revitalize the business, Deere began publishing advice for farmers in The Furrow magazine.
The first article was about how to plow marshy soil with minimum effort, and it mentioned the company’s product, a special plow for marshy soils. The results exceeded Deere’s expectations: the plows sold out at record speed. Thus Deere continued to promote the products through informational articles, without directly encouraging anyone to buy anything, and his brand grew into a major concern. It still exists today.
Around the 1970s, native advertising appeared in feature films – they gave maximum audience reach and helped boost sales.
Bondiana was particularly noted for its love of native advertising – Agent 007 organically advertised luxury cars, branded watches and expensive cognac.
In print media, native advertising was also present under the name “denim,” that is, material that advertised something but was not labeled “Advertising.”
How to recognize native ads
The more difficult it is for the user to understand that there is advertising material in front of him, the higher the quality of native advertising. As a rule, the content contains a link to the product, but at the same time:
Fully coincides with the theme and format of the site. Text ads are placed on information sites, video ads – in video services. On the site, dedicated to SEO, does not appear advertising decorative cosmetics and cars, and the blog of young mothers do not advertise technical audit services and site promotion.
It mimics regular content. In contrast to the bright and noticeable banner ads, native ads do not stand out from the usual content for the site – neither in color design, nor fonts, nor in the presentation of the material.
It’s not marked with the “Advertisement” sign, but with more neutral options. This can be “Special Project”, “Partner Material”, “Sponsored Material”, “Paid Material”, or simply “Promo”. In social networks, native advertising is often not labeled in any way.
Has its own value. For example, a copywriter needs to advertise the accounting service “2+2”. He makes a selection with a review of 10 different accounting services, describes each of them, gives a link to each, and the description of the service “2+2” is as loyal as possible, with an emphasis on the pros. But even if you remove this description from the selection, it will still be of value to users and help them decide on a service.
The main types of native advertising.
Posts on social networks. Native advertising in social networks appears in bloggers with a large audience, at least from 1000 subscribers. The larger the audience, the more expensive the native advertising. This is a very promising format, because opinion leaders bloggers often actively influence their audience, they are listened to and their recommendations are followed. As a rule, the more expensive the product, the more promoted bloggers are trusted to advertise it.
Sponsored content. Most often these are informational articles that naturally and without too much emphasis mention a particular brand or product. Or information is provided that leads readers to the conclusion that THIS product fulfills all the criteria described in the article.
Special projects. One of the most expensive types of native advertising, can be represented by a series of publications, games, tests.
Video advertising. Most often these are video reviews of goods or their unpacking – on YouTube, Instagram. The product is described in detail, reviews are often watched before choosing a particular product, so this is one of the most effective types of native advertising.
Recommendations. These are blocks on information portals or blogs: “Read also”, “You may be interested. On video services, these are recommended videos – they appear after the user has watched the video that originally interested him.
Infographics. This variant of native advertising content allows visualizing complex or voluminous information.
Testimonials. This is a variant mainly for social networks. A person tells about his successes and breakthroughs, and says that so-and-so product of such-and-such a brand helped him to achieve the desired results. About the product in such content can be devoted almost the entire volume – this is a testimonial, so everything looks natural. In addition to social networks, native reviews are posted on special review sites. And you will never know for sure if it was a review out of the goodness of your heart or paid native advertising – this is the main advantage of this format.
Why to use native advertising
Native ads are not blocked by adblockers. These are programs that allow the user to block contextual ads, banners, teasers and targeting ads. Native ads are the only format that adblockers cannot detect (and users are not always able to).
Native advertising bypasses “banner blindness”. This is a condition where the human brain does not want to see ads and the person does not notice them, they become “white noise” to him. Native useful material is not identified by the brain as advertising; a person reads it carefully.
Native advertising builds trust in the advertiser. This is due to the absence of direct appeals to buy anything and the benefits contained in the native advertising material.
Native advertising is less tiring. Interesting and soft presentation of the material causes less resistance than direct advertising – the Internet community is already tired of it.
Native advertising can trigger “word of mouth”. The blogger recommends a product – the user buys it and likes it – the user himself, without requests or financial incentives, recommends the product to his subscribers. When dozens, hundreds or thousands of people do this, the effect can be impressive. And also native advertising in the form of picks, games, and tests is willingly shared by people, and the “word of mouth” effect can go viral.
Good luck with your advertising campaigns!
