Can Your Organization Benefit From Native Advertising?

Can Your Organization Benefit From Native Advertising?

A report from Shopify projects that global retail e-commerce sales will grow to $3.4 trillion by 2019. In 2015, this figure was a measly $1.548 trillion. This data means one very important thing for businesses: the opportunities for increased sales are waiting for you to seize them.

Eager customers won’t spend their money on a site just because it has an online store. The onus is on companies to think strategically about engaging new leads and existing shoppers to boost sales. To snag as many of those dollars and cents as possible, your business should employ a variety of tactics, from email marketing to native advertising.

What is Native Advertising?

The digital age redefined how marketers communicate brand messaging to target audiences. One of the newest methods for connecting with ideal shoppers is with the use of native advertising. You’ve certainly heard this term thrown away. Maybe you considered it another phrase to describe content marketing. While native advertising is a tactic used in a content marketing strategy, it is its own unique concept.

Simply put, native advertising is paid promotion, mostly digital, that aligns with the form and function of the platform where it lives. It’s an effective way to provide users with interesting information that subtly promotes a brand’s products and/or services.

A great example of this tactic is paid Facebook marketing. An organization pays to have ads delivered through the Facebook news feed to targeted audiences that looks like all the other content on the platform. As users scroll through pictures from families and friends, they also see targeted brand messaging.

The brilliance of native advertising is that it blends effortlessly into websites and social media networks so users don’t feel bombarded with ads.

How Do Content Marketing and Native Advertising Differ?

There are two distinctions that set native advertising apart from other content marketing methods. Unlike content marketing, native advertising is a directly paid opportunity delivered in-stream. As Joe Pulizzi from the Content Marketing Institute explained, “Native advertising is simply one way marketers can distribute content.”

Content marketing is all about the owned media and disrupting the conversation to increase brand awareness and build on ideal shopper behavior. It’s an ongoing strategy that evolves over time to best deliver content to end users. Native advertising works wonderfully when integrated into a content marketing strategy.

Does It Pay to Play with Native Advertising?

A business always has to invest in the creation of its marketing assets. Since a company not only has to pay for native advertising to be developed but also for it to be disseminated on a selected platform, is it really worth cost?

Data compiled by BI Intelligence shows that it does indeed pay to play. “By 2021, native display ad revenue in the US, which includes native in-feed ads on publisher properties and social platforms, will make up 74% of total US display ad revenue, up from a 56% share in 2016,” according to Margaret Boland from Business Insider.

Well executed native advertising is a game changer for a company but everything will remain the same if you opt out in favor of saving money instead. There might be some initial sticker shock as you explore these opportunities but working with content marketing experts will help you pinpoint the right methods for your organization. Book a consultation with our experts today to discover how native advertising and content marketing can transform your business.