Do you know what native advertising is? Are you sure? There is not a clear consensus yet, but there are some aspects that most would probably agree about regarding native advertising:
- appears within the stream of the content
- conforms to the norms of the particular location
- seeks to be virally interesting rather than interruptive
How Native Advertising is Different
At one extreme, native advertising seeks to be part of the content and not advertising at all. Entertaining videos, beautiful photography, cute puppies and kittens – anything to get engagement.
There is no question that posting only feel-good content will get you more comments, interaction, and shares. But how do you turn those actions into income?That is the challenge.
Before we go any further, getting a strong understanding of what native advertising is and is not is essential. Gary Vaynerchuk’s agency specializes in this and his latest book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is what turned on the light bulb for me.
This video keynote from the Native Advertising Summit in 2013 has many strong examples, [Contains some use of adult language some may find offensive.]
Video highlights:- bring value
- storytelling
- escapism
- not intrusive
- give people what they want – not what they don’t want
- problem solve around content
- indirect (Guiness creating the Guiness Book of World Records or tire maker Michelin promoting travel)
So the premise of native advertising is to give people what they want in an entertaining manner. The question many businesses have is how does that increase your leads or sales?
Landing Pages Are Key
While the native portion must provide what the viewer wants and needs in a way that doesn’t bore them to tears, what that piece of content links to is where the conversions occur.
Learning to create, optimize and test landing pages is one of the greatest deficiencies in talent and greatest weakness I see today. Nothing is more important, yet few are proficient.
There are many solutions specifically for creating landing pages either as part of an email marketing solution, a marketing solution, or specifically just landing pages. If you do not have experience with any of them, you need to make a choice and start working.
I’ve been doing a lot of research recently, and GetResponse is at the top of the list of solutions I’ve been looking at since Tom Drake wrote Why Create Hype Switched from AWeber to GetResponse.
You need a fast, easy way to create mobile responsive landing pages. GetResponse recently upgraded and simplified their landing page creator. Find out more on SiteProNews in Convert Traffic to Sales Using Easier Landing Page Creator.
Without a separate custom landing page created for each native ad you run, you native advertising will not convert and you will not be able to measure results to find out why it isn’t working.
Native Advertising in Detail
Content creators, small businesses, and brands are all moving toward a major sea change where what used to be advertising is now native advertising. Those on the cutting edge have been focused on this long enough that they have developed more conclusive definitions of native advertising such as this [Report] Defining and Mapping the Native Advertising Landscape, by Rebecca Lieb:
Expertise Required
We have our work cut out for us. If your agency or business can support it, you need these skills:
- native advertising creators
- landing page creators
- copywriters who can increase conversions
- content optimization expertise (A/B and split testing)
- analytics analysis to gain actionable insights
Call to Join Us
There is too much for any one person to learn and stay on top of because everything changes quickly today. Eventually after decades one person may acquire all these skills. The short path to success is to collaborate. If you have any of these skills and are interested in collaborating, contact me by leaving a comment or using the contact tab at the top of this site.
Small business needs a group who can be the Neil Patel for very small businesses. If you want to be world class or believe you already are we want to hear from you.
Gail Gardner
I’m completely agree with you, without as specific landing page native advertising campaign will be failed. No one wants to see an ad of cricket news on fifa blog.
Thanks for sharing your post.
Yes, we need a better fast, simple mobile responsive landing pages. But, I don’t know previously about Native Advertising incorporate Specific landing pages. Thanks for en-lighting us 😉
It isn’t just native advertising that needs good landing pages. Every type of ad depends on a great landing page in a big way. This is especially true of Adwords. Budgets often succeed or fail based on the landing page.
Greg Marshall would love you to read ..Hello world!
Hi Greg,
I totally agree. Landing someone on the wrong page especially in an ecommerce site is a big waste of money. The reason AdWords works well is that you can customize your ads to match your product pages.
Great to see an organic feed mill and egg production in my old stomping grounds. Raising your own chickens helps, but ideally they really need to be free range eating organic non-gmo feed. I suspect many don’t realize that.
I’m a huge proponent of eating local and organic and encouraging people to understand we really are what we eat. I see you have a new blog. I’m happy to provide mentoring and show you how to increase your reach. You can comment here or use the contact form, or add me on Skype (username growmap) or contact me via the live chat at SocialImplications.com.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses with Gail Gardner @Growmap #VCBuzz
This is a very interesting approach Gail!
I’ve not heard any of these individual processes describe as native advertising, before now. And also having separate landing pages for each native ad campaign you run, just seems to make a lot of marketing sense intuitively.
This is definitely a process I need learn more of. Thanks for sharing!
Mark would love you to read ..Why These Examples Of Target Marketing Really Work!
Hi Mark,
Landing pages should be specific to the offer that leads to them for maximum conversions. That also makes it possible to better measure results as each ad, sign, or content placement will use a different landing page and have separate traffic and conversion statistics. For offline to online measurement, use what Jim Bannon calls Call-to-action symbols.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Top 5 Benefits of LinkedIn for Bloggers [Recording of Google Hangout] #smm
Yes! the professional are needed in this area. We cannot totally rely on the content moderators to do that! I totally agree with this post! and yes,we need a fast way to create mobile landing pages.Thanks,selva.
Learning to create exceptional content is a different skill from learning to build landing pages and test them for conversions. Few are experts at all three, so small teams are the faster way to implement these important tasks.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..eBay ProStores Users Migration Tips to Minimize Impact on Sales #ecommerce
Great post. thank you for posting. Keep going as I really appreciate your blog.
Lynnea David would love you to read ..Alcoa Signs $1.1 Billion Deal With Pratt and Whitney To Supply Jet Engine Parts
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great article and great tips!
i will use these….i hope i get better results.
Meghan would love you to read ..Pixelworks Surges On Apple TV Rumors
This is one of the most thorough marketing articles I have read in a long time. Awesome examples!
Richard Benson would love you to read ..Pixelworks Surges On Apple TV Rumors