Consumers are all hemmed by ads. It makes them as mad as a bear.
Most of them hit the Adblocking button At a drop of a dime. Hitting the SKIP button to get quickly to the relevant content has certainly become the easy way.
For advertisers, this has come up as a real road blocker.
This phenomenon of Automatically avoiding ads is called “ banner blindness.” Ads, when presented consumers prefer to become blind. They are too prevalent all over the internet to pay heed to these millions of ads.
How about hundreds of billboards on your way? Are you going to focus on your drive or the billboards if they are obtrusive on your way? Unquestionably on the drive!
Similarly, consumers, when at the end of their rope, just hit the SKIP button. This is daunting for advertisers. It identifies two worrisome issues.
- Adblocking — Actively avoiding ads.
- Banner blindness — Automatically avoiding ads.
These are serious issues for advertisers. There has to be some alternative. Advertisers cannot afford to band-Aid on a bullet wound. You have two options to get this resolved.
- Creating Invasive ads.
- Creating only highly relevant ads.
However, both of these solutions may sound technically feasible, but they are not as effective in getting through the worrisome problems like Adblocking & banner blindness.
So, what is the solution? Native ads?
YES.
The most ideal solution to the problem is blending ads into the content. This will make them not appear like ads, and therefore, not annoying consumers.
Over the last few years, Native ads have become omnipresent.
Native ads, to a large extent, can help eliminate the problems of banner blindness and Adblocking, when used correctly.
Let’s find out in a little detail about Native ads.
What are Native Ads?
Ads that do not actually look like Ads are Native Ads. That is the idea to keep the consumer hooked.
Whereas most Ads come in the form of a box on different sides of the website or as a banner, a native ad is part of the content itself.
These are not obtrusive.
Native Ads match with the form, function, and appearance of the environment where the user is looking for something he is interested in. Native Ads look absolutely different from the traditional pre-roll video ads, banner ads, or display ads.
They do not look like Ads at all.
See this example.
Here’s how AdMedia does it.
Sponsored content widgets are ubiquitous on a number of online platforms.
It matches the overall design of the page. But, there is a disclosure “Sponsored Content.” To differentiate the ad from regular AdMedia content, it adds a call-to-action button in blue.
AdMedia Native Advertising.
Native ads are non-obtrusive, helpful, and subtle.
The idea is to design ads that match the environment where the consumer is. He merely notices that any of these ads they are seeing are even paid ads. Native Ads are so designed that even if the user notices that it’s a sponsored Advertisement, they won’t feel good about not hitting the button.
Evolution of Native Ads
It was in 2012 when the concept of “native ads” began taking roots in 2012. And, that is when a less intrusive form of advertising evolved.
There’s no need to say that Native Ads, in the years to come, are going to be one of the most relevant forms of advertising.
According to a report, by 2021, Native Ads are going to be drawing 74% of the total revenue generated.
Where Native ads can be shown up?
- Recommendation Widgets: You’ll see a widget displaying a heading “you may also like” or “recommendation for you.” This is what we call Recommendation Widgets.
- Promoted Listings: These Native ads are used by e-commerce sites. It features sponsored products along with the other products present on the website. These sponsored products are so designed to look identical to the site’s original products.
- Paid Search Ads: These differ from promoted listings only for the fact that you see them on top of the user’s search results. Paid search ads can be used both to market search engines and individual domains within the search results.
- In-Feed Units: These ads, within the natural environment of a publication, promote sponsored content. The ad content is marked as sponsored content to differentiate it from other content. This sponsored content is shown in a similar function & format as that of the website.
- Custom Ads: These are contextual ads that do not fit in any specific format.
- In-Ad with Native Element Units: These ads have amazing contextual usefulness with the publisher, and they look more like the usual ads.
Why Native Ads are better?
Over the last two decades, brands, and businesses have seen quite a shift in how consumers want to know about their products and services. While in 2000, the click-through rate for banner Ads was nine percent, they have come to less than one percent, today.
Consequently, more and more brands and companies are turning their attention to native advertising. It looks like native ads are going to be the future of digital marketing and shall replace the traditional form of online advertising.
Let’s dive a little deeper into the stats of native ads to support the fact. Here we go:
According to various researches, it has been found that:
- Only 30% of users like traditional advertising. Rest 70% of people on the internet want to discover about the products they are looking for using content.
- Native ads are viewed 53% more than that of the banner ads.
- While there were only 19% of users who showed interest in sharing banner ads with their friends, 32% of the consumers said YES to native ads.
- With native ads, the intent of purchasing a product is 53% more than that of other ads.
- There were no major complaints from consumers/readers for showing native ads, in the case of around 71% of publishers.
- Most readers spend almost the same amount of time reading native ads and tutorials, which goes to 1 second & 12 seconds.
- Native ads are estimated to boost brand value by about 82%.
- Native ads enhance the conversion rate by around 60%.
Wrapping Up.
Within your sales funnel, Native advertising boosts conversion rate. This is an extremely targeted form of advertising. Native Advertising delivers contextually relevant sponsored content that fits the look and feel of your site. Advertisers can expect better results because the ad is merged to look like the part of the page and is no longer intrusive for the reader. Native ads match the form and function of your website, and the consumer does not even know that it’s an advertisement. One important thing to know here is that you cannot spend many dollars on native advertising without knowing about your target audience. You have to first have enough data to understand where your consumer is shopping, what articles they are interested in, and what pages appeal to them. Then you can create your ads in a similar format, where your consumers you think are most interested.