Native Advertising for Better ROI: Proven Strategies and Examples

If you’re interested in a new type of digital ad that has higher engagement rates than traditional advertising methods, it’s crucial to learn about the different types of native ads.

The term native ad is an umbrella term used to refer to various advertising formats that align with another medium’s style and tone. Popular native ad formats include:

In-feed ads

In-feed ads are the ads you’ll find on social media that appear in a user’s feed and look like just another post.

With these types of native ads, you don’t have to use the social media platform’s color scheme or branding guidelines; instead, these ads are designed to look like posts in users’ feeds that may come from family or friends.

Search ads

After entering your query in a search engine, you’ll see the search engine results page (SERP), which lists the various pages that relate to your query.

However, many of your queries will come back with ads throughout the page. These ads are designed to look just like any other search result; only they’re identified as ads if you look closely above them.

Currently, Google marks any paid ads as “Sponsored.” That said, they look like nothing more than your average search result to the untrained eye.

In-content ads on websites

In-content ads on websites are ads that appear throughout the content of a page. So, for instance, if you’re reading an article, you might see a native ad under a paragraph that looks like it pertains to the same topic you’re reading about.

Content recommendation blocks

Several websites have content recommendations on pages depending on the topics you seem most interested in. These articles or content recommendations may be from the publication’s team of writers or native ads that take users off the site.

On most websites, the content recommendation advertisements are labeled as sponsored.

Promoted listings

Promoted listings are ads you might see on Amazon or eBay. Advertisers purchase these ad placements that help show their product listings based on various criteria. For example, when searching for just about anything on Amazon, you’ll see promoted listings that are made to look exactly like organic listings.

Native advertising strategies

Native advertising is oftentimes more effective than display advertising because it allows users to continue to enjoy their experience on a specific medium without distractions.

Almost half of global marketers (47%) are confident in the effectiveness of native advertising.

Source: Neilsen/eMarketer

As we’ve mentioned, display ads are considered disruptive, and most consumers simply don’t like them. Both display and native ads serve the same purpose — to increase your brand awareness and attract customers.

With your goals in mind, it’s crucial to understand the various native advertising strategies to help you make your campaigns as effective as possible. Here are a few native ad tips and best practices to help you get started:

Understanding the target audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial when developing an advertising strategy. For native ads, you must determine where your audience spends their time. For instance, if you market primarily to millennials and Gen Zers, you might have better luck creating native Instagram and TikTok ads.

Conducting market research on your target audience can help you learn more about them, including their hobbies and which platforms they use the most.

In addition, market research can tell you which websites and publications they frequently visit so that you can fine-tune your targeting and retargeting ad efforts to reach more potential customers.

Creating effective content

Content is the foundation of every successful native advertising strategy. Ultimately, without content, you can’t create native ads. You can create native ads with articles, videos, infographics, and various other types of content, depending on your ultimate goals and what’s available to you.

Regardless of the type of content you use, it must serve two purposes: being relevant and useful while fitting into the webpage or app your target audience is using without being disruptive.

With native ads, you have to consider the user. They don’t want their experience interrupted by distracting ads; instead, you must design your ads as if they’re an extension of the medium they appear on.

The creatives you use in your native ads shouldn’t be distracting, but they should capture the user’s attention and make them want to click on them. Native ads need clear headlines and visual elements to grab a reader’s attention. However, they should also align with the chosen medium’s user experience.

The native advertising market is set to skyrocket, with projections of reaching $100 billion by the end of 2022, and $650 billion by 2032, with a CAGR of 375%.

Source: MEETANSHI

Choosing the right platform

Native advertising offers flexibility and variety, with several platforms available to choose from. For instance, you can use social media ad platforms directly to create in-feed native ads.

However, if you want to create a wide-scale native ad campaign, you’ll need the help of software designed to help you find publishers to work with. Native ad networks and sponsored content platforms give you access to thousands of publishers and their websites running these campaigns.

Instead of reaching out directly to publishers, these platforms allow you to create and publish your native advertising campaigns from one easy-to-use dashboard. They work similarly to how you might use Google Ads to create search or display ads, connecting you to thousands of publishers based on your unique set of criteria and doing the hard work for you.

You can review specific publishers, target specific niches, or target your ads based on your particular audience. These platforms will also have information about a website, including its demographics, to help you decide where to place your ads.

When looking for a native advertising platform, you should consider the quality and size of its network. To get the largest reach possible, you must determine what kinds of page placements they have available.

Successful native advertising examples

The most successful examples of native advertising have one thing in common: you wouldn’t know they’re paid ads without seeing the “Sponsored” or “Paid Post” section calling it out. Instead, they blend seamlessly into a publisher’s content design and provide users with the ultimate experience when using various apps and websites.

Let’s take a look at a few of the best native advertising examples to help you choose which format and type is right for your business:

New York Times — Cole Haan

A sponsored post from Cole Haan, a lifestyle brand focused on footwear and accessories, was featured in the New York Times. It looks like any other feature article the publication would cover; only it’s written with a specific purpose in mind: to create content that educates, informs, and sells without being too salesy.

TikTok — Pepsi

TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, and many brands are using it to reach younger audiences, build awareness, and increase conversions. For example, Pepsi recently created a native advertising campaign on the platform that appears in users’ feeds like any other post.

Snapchat — Taco Bell

Source: The Business Journals

In 2016, Taco Bell took native advertising to the next level with their Cinco De Mayo Snapchat filter, making it look like you were a talking taco. What makes this a native advertisement? It appeared in any user’s filter options just like any other filter.

Merck — The Weather Channel

The Weather Channel is one of many publishers that welcome native advertisements.

Can you tell which of the articles under “Recommended” is the native ad? As you can see in the video linked above, this is a prime example of content recommendation blocks because it blends in with other content published by the weather channel.

However, when you click the link to the article “One Woman’s Journey With Chronic Cough,” you’re taken to an article on the publisher's site that’s sponsored by Merck.

Wall Street Journal — Netflix

The Wall Street Journal's partnership with Netflix resulted in an impressive interactive piece called "Cocainenomics." This in-depth sponsored content explored the rise and fall of the Medellín drug cartel, tying into Netflix's show "Narcos."

With infographics, videos, and scrolling features that matched WSJ's premium digital experience, this campaign demonstrated how native advertising can deliver substantial journalistic value while promoting entertainment content.

Spotify — Playlist Sponsorships

Spotify offers brands the opportunity to sponsor playlists that align with their target audience. These sponsored playlists appear in users' recommended sections just like any other playlist. A notable example is Kia's sponsorship of the "New Music Friday" playlist, where the Kia logo appears on the playlist cover and occasionally in audio messages between songs.

The native ad works because it doesn't interrupt the core music streaming experience while creating brand awareness in a contextually relevant setting.

Measurement and optimization of native advertising ROI

For native advertising to be effective, you have to measure your results and optimize them for improved performance. Here are a few things to keep in mind when developing your native ads and measuring their performance.

There are several metrics you can track to help you determine whether your native ads are effective.

First, of course, before you started developing or publishing your ads, you should have created a strategy that outlined your goals. A few metrics to track throughout your campaign include the following:

Impressions and reach

Native ads are ideal for brand awareness campaigns because they can help you reach new and wider audiences by leveraging a publisher’s audience.

Native advertising is designed to look like something the publisher would create, which can help introduce new customers to your business and improve demand generation efforts.

Click-through rates (CTR)

While brand awareness is crucial, it’s not enough for customers to just see your ads. Since native ads often don’t have your company’s logo and don’t directly promote your products and services, you must ensure that people are actually clicking on them to learn about your business.

For instance, if you’re using content recommendation block native ads, you want visitors to click on them to access your content.

A low CTR signals that your ad isn’t effective at grabbing a user’s attention, so you may have to make changes to ensure it’s getting clicks.

Other types of native ads are less conspicuous, but the whole point of them is that users click on them to learn more about your brand and its offerings. If you aren’t getting clicks, you should revisit your advertisement.

Conversion rates

The ultimate goal of your native advertising strategy is to increase conversions on your website. Individuals click your native ad, read your content, and decide to take action. While your native ad may or may not have callouts directly to your business, they may have a call-to-action telling individuals exactly what you want them to do.

You can measure conversions, such as form submissions, sales, and clicks on your website, to determine the effectiveness of your marketing funnel for this particular campaign.

Optimization strategies

Unfortunately, like all types of advertising, native advertising may require some trial and error. If this is your first time using native ads, you should always consider optimization strategies to give you the best opportunities.

For instance, you can use A/B testing to measure the performance of different ad variations. With A/B tests, you can determine which copy and visual elements are most effective for achieving your goals. Other optimization strategies include:

Refining the target audience

You already know your target audience, but the more precise you can target them, the better your results will be. When you target your audience, your reach won’t be as wide.

However, targeting enables you to reach customers most likely to purchase your products and services and avoid spending money serving ads to those unlikely to purchase them.

Analyzing performance metrics

What separates digital marketing from traditional marketing is that you can make real-time changes based on data. By analyzing your campaign performance metrics, you can determine whether a native ad is performing well and make changes to help it perform better.

Common pitfalls to avoid in native advertising

While native advertising offers many advantages, marketers often stumble into several common traps that diminish campaign effectiveness. Understanding these pitfalls before launching your campaign can save you time and money and help you avoid damaging your brand reputation.

Let's explore the most frequent mistakes marketers make with native advertising and how to avoid them.

Failing to align content with audience interests

One of the biggest mistakes in native advertising is creating content that fails to resonate with the target audience.

Engagement drops dramatically when your content doesn't address topics your audience cares about, regardless of how seamlessly it blends with the publisher's platform. Many brands focus solely on their messaging without considering whether readers will find genuine value in the content.

To avoid this pitfall, conduct a thorough research about your audience's interests, pain points, and content consumption habits before developing your native ad. Review the platform's existing popular content to understand what resonates with their audience.

Remember that native ads perform best when they provide information or entertainment that users would seek out naturally, with brand messaging as a secondary element.

Overly promotional content

Nothing drives readers away faster than content that feels like a thinly-veiled sales pitch. Many marketers make the mistake of creating native content that's too promotional, focusing heavily on product features rather than delivering valuable information.

Users who click on what appears to be editorial content only to find a promotional piece feel misled and develop negative associations with your brand.

Successful native advertising maintains a careful balance between brand messaging and valuable content. The 80/20 rule often works well here: dedicate 80% of your content to providing genuine value and limit promotional elements to 20%.

Focus on telling stories, solving problems, or entertaining readers while subtly weaving your brand message where relevant.

Ignoring mobile optimization

With most digital content now consumed on mobile devices, failing to optimize native ads for mobile viewing is a significant oversight.

Many marketers design their native content for desktop viewing, leading to poor user experiences when accessed on smartphones or tablets. Text may be too small, images might not display properly, or interactive elements could function incorrectly.

Ensure your native advertising content looks and functions flawlessly across all devices by employing responsive design principles.

Test your content on multiple device types before launch, paying special attention to load times, readability, and navigation. Remember that mobile users often have less patience for slow-loading content, so optimize images and minimize unnecessary elements that could impact performance.

Not measuring performance effectively

Many native advertising campaigns fall short because marketers don't establish clear goals or track the right metrics to measure success. Without proper measurement, it's impossible to understand what's working, what isn't, and how to optimize future campaigns. Some marketers focus exclusively on basic metrics like clicks or impressions without digging deeper into how native content influences brand perception or conversion behaviors.

Develop a comprehensive measurement framework that aligns with your specific campaign objectives. Look beyond surface-level engagement metrics to analyze metrics like time spent with content, scroll depth, social shares, and conversion path behaviors.

A/B test different content approaches to identify what resonates best with your audience. Most importantly, use these insights to continuously refine your native advertising strategy for better results.

How native advertising compares to other advertising formats

Understanding how native advertising stacks up against other paid advertising formats helps you determine where it fits in your overall strategy.

Each advertising approach has distinct advantages and challenges depending on your campaign objectives, audience, and budget constraints. Let's examine how native advertising compares to other popular formats to help you make informed decisions about your marketing mix.

Display advertising

Display advertising, which includes banner ads, pop-ups, and sidebar advertisements, differs significantly from native advertising in both appearance and user experience.

While native ads blend seamlessly with surrounding content, display ads are clearly separate and immediately recognizable as advertising. This distinction leads to important differences in performance and user perception.

Display ads typically generate higher immediate visibility but suffer from "banner blindness," where users unconsciously ignore ad content. They generally have lower engagement rates and click-through rates compared to native ads.

However, display advertising offers advantages in brand awareness campaigns, retargeting opportunities, and more straightforward performance measurement through standardized metrics.

The cost structure also differs, with display ads typically purchased on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis. At the same time, native advertising may use various pricing models, including cost-per-click, cost-per-engagement, or flat sponsorship fees.

Social media advertising

Social media advertising shares some characteristics with native advertising since both aim to integrate promotional content into users' natural content consumption.

However, social media advertising is limited to specific platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, while native advertising extends across various publishers and websites.

Social media ads benefit from powerful targeting capabilities based on detailed user demographics, interests, and behaviors. They typically provide more immediate and direct engagement opportunities through likes, comments, and shares. Native advertising, in contrast, often focuses on deeper engagement with content rather than social interactions.

The format and content requirements differ as well. Social media advertising must conform to each platform's specific ad formats and character limitations, while native advertising offers more flexibility in content length and format.

Both require adapting to the platform's tone and style to be effective, but native advertising generally demands more substantial, value-driven content to engage users effectively.

Programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising uses automated technology to buy and optimize digital advertising, including both display and native formats. The main difference is that programmatic refers to the purchasing method rather than the format itself. Native advertising can be bought programmatically, but not all native advertising is purchased this way.

Programmatic platforms offer efficiency advantages through automation, real-time bidding, and advanced targeting capabilities. This approach allows for scaling campaigns across multiple publishers simultaneously while optimizing for performance in real-time. Traditional native advertising arrangements often involve direct negotiations with publishers and more customized content creation.

The level of customization and integration with publisher content also differs. Programmatically purchased native ads may use more templated approaches with limited customization, while direct publisher partnerships often create more deeply integrated, bespoke content experiences.

Programmatic native typically costs less but may not achieve the same level of content integration and authenticity as premium publisher partnerships.

The future of native advertising

Native advertising is changing quickly as new technology emerges and consumer habits shift. Here's what to expect in the coming years.

Trends shaping the future of native ads

More ads are being designed for voice search as smart speakers become common in homes. Advertisers are returning to context-based targeting instead of tracking user behavior, especially as privacy concerns grow.

Many brands now prefer long-term partnerships with publishers rather than one-time campaigns to build stronger connections with readers.

Impact of AI and automation on native advertising

AI is making it easier to create native ads that match a publisher's style and tone. Smart algorithms now help find the right audience and place ads where they'll perform best. Personalization is improving, too, with content that changes based on who's viewing it, making ads more relevant to each person.

Video and interactive content in native advertising

Short videos that look like regular content work well on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Interactive features like quizzes and calculators keep people engaged longer because they require active participation. AR experiences, like virtual try-on filters, are becoming popular since they're fun to use and don't feel like traditional ads.

Always look to improve your native advertising strategy

Your native advertising strategy should include goals and serve as your action plan for developing effective content. Many of the native ads you see online today blend in seamlessly with publishers’ websites, making it difficult to distinguish between an ad and regular content.

The examples we’ve given you are just a few of the best native ads from some of the top brands in their niches. First, however, you should determine which strategy is right for you and continue testing your content to increase clicks and conversions.

Start designing your native ads in Mailchimp and create A/B tests for social media ads to improve their performance and help you reach your marketing goals.

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Key Takeaways

• Native advertising blends seamlessly with the platforms they appear on, creating non-disruptive experiences that typically generate higher engagement than traditional display ads.
• Successful native ad strategies require understanding your target audience, creating valuable content that aligns with the platform, and choosing the right publishers for your campaigns.
• Measuring performance through metrics like CTR, conversion rates, and audience engagement is essential for optimizing native ad effectiveness.
• The future of native advertising includes trends like AI-driven personalization, interactive content, and context-based targeting as privacy concerns grow.

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