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What are the Native Ads formats and when to use them? (1)

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Hey guys!

This time we decided to go a little bit deeper into the concept of native advertising.

The world of native mobile advertising is an unexplored path you should get to know as soon as possible, since it holds so much untapped potential for both advertisers and affiliate marketers.

When we speak about native, we mean all the advertising formats, that are normally blending into the website or an application, looking like a natural content of the page. So, instead of standing out like traditional banner ads, native ads seem more natural and are aesthetically and functionally both more appealing and effective.

More than that - those ads enhance the user experience of the platform where it's placed. These ads are of advanced design and content creation, and are normally existing within the following formats:

• In-Feed Social
• In-Feed Content
• In-Feed Commerce
• In-Map
• In-Game
• Paid Search

Let's see the first three options in more details.

[Disclaimer: This post was originally published on Mobidea Academy. All the missing information can be found in the full version. ]


1. In-Feed Social

As the social element grows in its all-around importance, the mobile marketing field stands to gain a lot from these ads. In short, these ads are meant to increase your exposure and engagement with the potential audience via various social platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweeter, Tumblr and so on.

Hubspot has found that out of around 1.4 billion of Facebook users, almost 1.2 billion use Facebook on their phones. Simply put, native mobile advertising on social media is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
Now, have in mind that these ads come with a number of advantages and flaws. First of all, these ads come with all the social functions that a normal post comes with – likes, shares, tweets, posts, and so on. These ads also benefit from social network data, such as friends that liked the post or a brand, and comments on the ad, which all serve as social proof.

In turn, this increases the audience engagement greatly and you can get much more bang for your buck, as your audience will do a part of your work if they like what they see.

However, you do need to be careful, unless you want to anger the same potential audience. People in general don’t like when they are misled by an add to think that it’s an ordinary post, so try to use an ethical approach to your native ads. It helps in the long run.




2. In-Feed Content

Unlike in-feed social, these ads promote actual content on a site. Obviously, they are a less direct form of native advertising, as they serve to engage your audience and have them visit your site via the links you would have embedded in the post or a video.

In addition, these types of ads can serve to grow awareness of your brand and engage your audience, instead of directly promoting a product or a service. They are typically found on various news websites and apps, and there is almost always a handy “sponsored content” moniker, which greatly reduces the potential risk of the said ad being labelled misleading.

Other than the fact that they are paid, which increases their visibility on the site and its feed, these ads have the same design and functionality as an ordinary post.

Again, these ads can backfire, as a Scientology example from a few years ago showed. In essence, you need to be sure that you pick a platform that agrees with your message, if you don’t want to run the risk of your ad being pulled.




3. In-Feed Commerce

These ads might be a bit sneakier than the previous ones, but they are extremely useful if you’re running some form of a store that sells either digital or physical products. Similar to the previous ads, they adopt the look and feel of the site (an App Store, Amazon, Etsy, or any other e-commerce site, for that matter) and use browsing data to serve their target audience special, tailor-made offers.

For example, if you were browsing for headphones on Amazon, a native ad could later pop up in your commerce feed which promotes a similar type of headphones you were looking at, or it could highlight some sort of a headphone sale from another company.

These ads use GPS and browsing data to better target the potential customer, and to show relevant results, like the nearby stores or restaurants.

How far this optimization can go is almost crazy.

A store can offer a discount to a previous customer that is triggered when that person is in a certain vicinity of a store. Say you’re a recurring customer at Starbucks, and you pass one by, and a little ad pops up during your browsing that offers you a discount on your favorite beverage.





As you already know, there is a lot of advertising channels, that you could use with astounding effectiveness when clad in the native garb. While some of these methods might seem a little bit sneaky, looking at a big picture their end goal is still a win-win situation for the user, as well as for the advertiser.

Of course, all of this stands only if you approach such advertising in an ethical and responsible manner. While it might seem very appealing and lucrative to lure people into clicking or interacting with your ads, these short gains will be paid dearly with the declining brand loyalty.

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