A Guide About Native Advertising And Content Marketing

Though native advertising has many similarities with content marketing, it is not the same. Unlike content marketing, native advertising is a type of content that a company pays money to have created on another business’s website.

This integration is nearly-seamless, with perhaps no more than a few words (such as “sponsored by Abc brand”) separating advertising content from other content on the website.

The main goal of native advertising is to generate new leads for your company by working with a seo company that already attracts your target audience. For example, the same hypothetical wellness-focused tea company we discussed in the last section might choose to do native advertising on a site like BuzzFeed.

Which already attracts readers in their target age bracket — or on a wellness-based news site or blog, which wouldn’t be a direct competitor of the brand but would attract many of the same readers.

The results of native advertising are pretty extraordinary, with a study of over 900 consumers showing that customers find native ads 62% easier to understand than banner ads.

Consumers also trust native ads more than other forms of advertising: 44% of customers are more likely to trust ads on news sites over advertisements on social sites, and customers are 27% more trusting of native ads than traditional social media ads.

What Is an Example of Native Advertising?

An example of native advertising comes into existence when an influencer on YouTube posts a video and adds a brand-name item directly in his content. For example, this video by This Homeschool House seamlessly transitions into showing the family using KiwiCo products as part of their homeschool day.

If the above-mentioned video were paid for, in some case, by KiwiCo, it would count as a form of native advertising of the company.

Remember that native advertising in video content is different from contacting a YouTuber to directly talk about your service as an advertisement in his video content, as you see in this video by Ryan George.

The advertisement on the Ryan George video feels more like a traditional video advertisement, whereas — ideally — a native ad feels more like regular content that happens to be sponsored by a brand.

What Makes Content Marketing & Native Advertising Similar?

Business professionals often struggle with the difference between content marketing and native advertising because the two practices are similar in many ways.

Content marketing and native advertising focus on providing a tangible value to customers, not just directly promoting products. Both examples have, keyword research can help marketers develop topics and improve its searchability.

Moreover, content marketing and native advertising are practices and do not depend on one typical form of media. Video content, social media content, and blog posts can all be conduits for content marketing and native advertising.

Best Practices Relevant for Both Content Marketing & Native Advertising

Because there are so many similarities between content marketing and native advertising, there are certain best practices digital marketing experts do relevant to both forms of content creation.

The best practice you should keep in mind, whether you’re doing content marketing or native advertising, is to put your customer’s needs first. The goal is to be directly relevant to your customers and create content they are actively seeking or will find so compelling that they desire to consume it.

The second best practice is to follow through on what you promise. If your content promises to showcase ten great books, then it’s important to have ten books on your list for each of those books to be genuinely great.

Due to this reason, it would be best to avoid common clickbait statements, such as “this will change your life” or “you won’t believe this.” These promises are nearly not possible to keep, and the result is that, while you may receive clicks, consumers will be disappointed by what you deliver them for content and lose trust in your brand.

A third best practice is doing keyword research ahead of time and naturally integrating keywords into titles and descriptions without keyword stuffing. Using strong keywords helps search engines understand your content and provide that content to the right users.