How to make native ads work for you in 2018

Native is clearly taking over the digital advertising industry and it’s not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon. In fact, it doesn’t take a scientist to predict that this is where the advertising money will be going (although, we did find proof*, that by 2021 native advertising will be driving 74% of all ad revenue!). So to help you keep up, we’ve outlined three important points about how we feel it’s best to harness the power of native advertising for maximum impact in the year 2018!

1. User experience is what’s essentially at the heart the native ad format. Everything about native is unobtrusive and communicates value, which makes the users more likely to voluntarily engage with this type of ads. Interestingly, while native ads don’t aggressively jump out from the environment they are placed in, according to a survey done by Sharethrough, users are 52% more likely to notice native ads than banners. We suspect there’s a little bit of reverse psychology at work right there, which makes the audience more open to ads that are not so obviously trying to make them buy stuff.

2. Valuable content. But what makes the content of your ads so valuable and attractive to your intended audiences? Know what they are looking for! Well, at first glance it may not look very simple, of course. It helps to break your target group down to smaller segments, define their needs and characteristics and think about what they might be searching for online – what is the problem they are trying to find a solution for? Remember that it’s always about the audience, and less about the company and product that is being advertised. The benefit of sacrificing talking ABOUT YOURSELF and instead talking TO THE AUDIENCE? 82% increase in brand lift, according to Forbes.

3. Choose the technology that lets you be where your audience is. It’s a question of the technical capabilities of the advertising platform you choose to work with. The more effective and advanced the targeting options, the more in context your campaign is served. This can be achieved with solutions that employ machine learning and quality prediction algorithms that enable highly precise targeting. To simplify, if the platform has built its targeting solutions on bleeding edge tech, the more likely they are to reach segments of the intended audience that are already open to engaging with your product or content, based on their behaviour. Advertising that relies on machine learning basically makes the user, who sees the ad, feel like it’s meant personally for them, and that’s ultimately what every advertiser is looking for, isn’t it?

So, you might be wondering where Adcash factors into this magic recipe of advertising? We’re the secret sauce, of course! In all seriousness, though, we have the largest selection of targeting options currently available in the industry. Not to mention that we run highly refined prediction algorithms that allow us to place ads within context that makes sense.

We’ve also put together a handy table comparing the main native advertising platforms that currently lead the industry. Check it out and see who has the best features** to distribute your valuable content to the waiting audiences!

* Read more about this prediction as well as other interesting statistics in this blog post.
** There’s more information about the Adcash native technical specifications in this article.