How to Do Advertorial and Native Advertising

Content is considered the core of advertising today. However, it’s not easy to determine the best way to advertise that content. Advertorials and native advertising both serve an entirely distinct purpose. Still, both advertisers and advertising sales managers struggle to differentiate the two. Therefore, let’s first understand the basic concept behind advertorial and native advertising. 

What is an advertorial?

Advertorials are advertisements that are turned into a form of editorial content. They’re different from traditional advertisements since they’re designed to seem like articles that appear in publications. Advertorials vary according to the publication platform. For instance, in writing (magazines, blogs, newspapers, etc.), they’re articles based on the service or product being advertised. It can be a discussion about a specific service or product on the radio. Similarly, on television, they appear in the form of segments on talk shows and infomercials explaining the service or product. 

What is native advertising?

Native advertisement takes on the editorial style of the website or publication in which they appear. It features valuable and interesting content from which the audience can derive information. Unlike advertorials, where the audience immediately knows that broadcast infomercials and print advertorials are promotions that’ll try to persuade them to buy something, the native ads’ low-key nature makes the audience feels like they’re getting valuable knowledge. 

Moreover, native advertising isn’t an advertorial and isn’t inherently deceiving or trying to be disguised as editorial. It doesn’t contain the description of the branded product or a product offer. It isn’t a placement that highlights “40% off all purchases this week.” It doesn’t have a huge product image. It’s just sponsored content that seamlessly blends with the tone of the publication’s website. 

How to create the best advertorial?

To create the best advertorial, don’t write just to promote but provide value. Create a captivating title and stick to it till the end. Delight the readers with exceptional content and add compelling call-to-action.  

What are the top advertorial examples?

Forbes

BrandVoice is a series Forbes run on their website, which is devoted to expert advice from marketers. If you want an advertorial to be low-key, but include an ad for your post somewhere on the website’s page, consider adding a paid ad, like Cole Hann’s. 

BuzzFeed

This advertorial on BuzzFeed is for an alcohol company, Captain Morgan. The advertorial’s structure is making it engaging even though it has mentioned the product more than once. 

The New York Times

The prime focus of the company Love Beauty Planet is sustainability. Therefore, the emphasis on going green is the focus of the company’s advertorial featured in The New York Times. This advertorial is interactive, which quizzes the reader’s knowledge first about recycling and reducing waste. After that, the post shares effective tips for readers to minimize their carbon footprint. 

How to do native advertising?

For effective native advertising, the first step is to set the campaign’s goals. The goals can include getting more sales, generating leads, acquiring site members or newsletter subscribers, increasing brand visibility, boosting website traffic, etc. After that, define the target audience and choose the right publishers. It’s essential to build appealing creatives to grab readers’ attention. Lastly, track, test, and tweak your campaign to get the best results.  

What are the top native advertisement examples?

New York Times’ T Brand Studio

This well-written piece is Adobe’s native advertisement on New York Times’ T Brand Studio, which provides valuable statistics and insights about shopping trends in the VR-centric future without appearing too salesy.  

The Onion

The Onion is one of the funniest satirical websites with a strong grasp of native advertising, as exemplified by this example. The Onion created this post especially for H&R Block rather than H&R Block publishing its content on the website. The content of this post was framed by several horizontal and vertical banner ads. Even if readers didn’t click on these banners, the result was drastically increased brand awareness. 

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair has been publishing lifestyle journaling for a long time, making it ideal for native advertising. This native advertisement combines written content and video. Besides that, the content’s product placement is handled well, and it does not feel tenuously positioned alongside the subject matter.  

Who are the best vendors that place native advertisements?

1. Outbrain

One of the leading native ad platforms is Outbrain which is ideal for curating and publishing content across a variety of media spaces and channels containing analytics for judging impact, editorial controls, and related features. 

2. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is the best work-oriented platform for reaching audiences. It includes modules like Sponsored Updates, Lead Accelerator, which support segmentations features to maximize conversion, and much more. Besides that, LinkedIn allows both organic and paid marketing options for businesses of all sizes.  

3. Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products 

Amazon Advertising, including its Sponsored Brand Products and Sponsored Products, offers native advertisement solutions to marketers and brands to find and engage Amazon customers. One of its biggest advantages is that it’s cost-effective since you only have to pay for clicks instead of impressions. 

4. Taboola

Taboola is a reliable native advertising platform ideal for bringing in page views and traffic. It allows advertisers to select campaigns according to their objectives – be it generating leads, driving sales, creating brand awareness, or increasing traffic.  

5. Yahoo Gemini 

Yahoo Gemini is one of the top native ad platforms that offers a wide range of ad formats such as app install ads, image ads, carousel ads, video ads, Moments ads, and Yahoo Mail ads. It’s also possible to import an ad campaign from Google Ads.  

How to measure the effectiveness and performance of native ads?

The most common metric used by advertisers and publishers to measure the native ad’s effectiveness and performance is engagement, which may include click-through rates, page views, or time spent on the page.  

Why shouldn’t marketers depend entirely on publishers?

Whether it’s sponsored content or in-stream ads, publishers provide metrics to show the ads’ performance, such as total page views, number of people who saw it, or time spent with the ad. However, they’re not enough for marketers to measure the performance. Therefore, it’s crucial for marketers to get trackable links back to the website for every native ad campaign. This will help the brand get the prospective audience to click through away from the publisher’s website and onto the company’s landing page or site. 

Moreover, marketers will also be able to track which sales prospects are coming from which ad to gain control over gaining new users into the sales pipeline instead of relying on the publisher’s statistics or metrics.  

Advertorial and native advertising – What are the key takeaways?

Both native advertising and advertorials have their place. Advertorials are ideal for situations where brands know that the potential audience is expecting a sales pitch. However, if brand awareness needs to be increased or a product or service needs to be introduced, native advertisement is a more sensible approach. 

Furthermore, brands interested in native ads must find editorial partners with similar audience personas to make the content seem natural and unobtrusive. Finally, the effectiveness and performance of native ad campaigns need to be tracked through benchmarks and metrics provided by the publisher, such as click-through rates, social shares, time on page, and the company’s website, such as average session duration, and bounce rates, and conversions.  

Milestone increases acquisition by enhancing digital experience and increasing content visibility. Contact us at sales@milestoneinternet.com or call us at 408-200-2211.