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How can native complement your digital advertising campaigns?

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This post is sponsored by Xaxis.In my last post – “Time to speak the native (advertising) language in APAC” – I talked about the increasing relevance of native content in making advertising welcome. It is everywhere now; it turns up in your searches, Facebook feed, during online shopping and even in your favourite daily morning papers.According to a Business Insider Intelligence report, native ad spend was at US$4.7 billion in 2013, and is set to reach US$21 billion by 2018. As a marketer, you decide on the allocation of your marketing budget that will best serve your brand. But how do you integrate native advertising into your digitalspend in a way that is efficient, and most importantly, effective?How native advertising can be good?Native advertising can be seen as a medium that helps make advertising welcome. However, there are some negative perceptions of ‘native’ – it is often perceived as “cheating” and “misleading” because the ad is camouflaged within editorial content. Furthermore, there are even claims that native advertising iswhat’s killing journalism.Needless to say, some best practises should be adhered to to make sure that delivery is neither intrusive nor misleading:- Content must be relevant to your brandThat goes without saying but you still come across advertorials or sponsored posts that have left you scratching your head. Whatever the content or angle of it, there has to be a relevance that can be drawn to your brand. That relevance should definitely also be a positive AND appropriate one so thread carefully.- Appear on the right platform; Ensure brand safetyKnow where your target audience are, and what and how they consume their content. Making sure you appear on the right platform not only ensures that you reach the right audience, but also saves your brand a lot of embarrassment if it appears on a site that you would want to disassociate yourself from. Minimise damage.- Articles need to add value to the readerWhatever your content may be, it needs to make the reader feel good after reading it. It could be educational, informative or simply make them laugh or smile. If it does not make your reader/consumer feel any of that, then you need to relook into your content.- Do not be sneakyCall a spade a spade. If it is a sponsored content, make sure it is clearly stated. No one likes to be cheated. You might get the click, but it is not worth anything if your content was a ‘mistakenly’ clicked on and you made someone feel cheated.Can native work on its own?Every digital campaign cannot run on just one product or solution if you want to see performance. Meaning native advertising should be one tool within a comprehensive digital plan. For example: if you want to talk about healthy eating and how (your brand of) Extra Virgin Olive Oil helps to complement that lifestyle, an advertorial, sponsored post, or in-feed advertising would be suitable.If you intend to do a flash promotional sale for your Olive Oil too, a direct sales advertising would work better in getting a quicker response. It is important for brands to know their objectives, and most importantly, where they stand in terms of brand recognition to develop the best digital campaign.Measuring native resultsHow do you measure the effectiveness of your native campaign?A Business Insider Intelligence report from 2015 claimed that desktop native ads have an average click-through rate (CTR) of 0.15 percent. While according to Google, display ads average a CTR of 0.06%.By most counts, brands measure by the number of clicks. However, the downside is that there is a probability that some of the clicks were accidental- consumers clicking on the native ad thinking it was not an ad. So make sure your ads are clearly stated as being sponsored. This goes back to the best practices – don’t “be sneaky” with your native ads. But most importantly, this drives home the message to throw away the idea of measuring your campaigns through clicks not just due to inaccuracy but also through fraud.Other alternative useful metrics include social shares and time spent with a piece of content. Which metrics counts depends on your business objectives, and how it might eventually lead to conversions.Whatever the technology or digital solution available to us, there is a role for everyone to play in making sure that advertising will be welcome. A digital solution should not be another means to bombard consumers with irrelevant ads. It should be seen, evaluated and used as an outlet to target the right audience with the right message at the right time. Not just maintain the brand image for your product or services, but also the integrity of digital advertising itself.The writer is Michel de Rijk, CEO at Xaxis Asia Pacific.

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