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Native ad research ‘looks too good’ admits Sound Alliance MD

Richards

Richards

The Sound Alliance’s managing director has said he is reluctant to show research into the effectiveness to native advertising to clients as “they’ll think I made it up” because the results “look too good”.

Speaking on a panel at last week’s Publish conference looking at whether native ads would be the saviour of publishing Stig Richards said the reason so many brands were turning to them was how they track against traditional digital ads, according to their research.

“Quality content is able to change people’s minds about a brand far quicker and more efficiently than an equal value display schedule of digital advertising”, he told the Publish conference.

Richards said that digital publisher Sound Alliance’s clients have particularly appreciated survey metrics to gauge the impressions from native content.

Some Sound Alliance audiences receive a browser cookie and are later presented with a survey. Results are compared between two equal groups who did and did not consume native content.

“We are then marrying up all our Net Promotor Score; likelihood to recommend to a friend; awareness of exposure to brand advertising through any channel. We’re measuring scientifically and independently what exposure to (native) content is doing to your perception of brand and your intent to purchase.”

“The biggest problem I’ve got with the research so far is that it looks too good. From a native point of view – especially the high quality stuff – it’s almost like I don’t want to present it to clients because they’ll think I made it up.”

When challenged on when consumers could expect to be served the big Qantas ad when clicking through links on Sound Alliance’s new partnership with Qantas, youth travel site AWOL, Richards said: “It’s just content after content. That’s what it’s for – it’s a long game.

“The idea with AWOL is that we’re trying to build the best travel title for young people that display brilliantly on mobile and is highly active on social media. Consistently high quality content that you want to share with your friends and inspires you to get on a place and go somewhere.

“Hopefully through the amount of content that you consume and the regularity of consumption, over a period of time it’ll mean that at the point where you purchase a ticket you’re really going to think about Qantas, where in the past you might not.”

Fairfax Media’s Felix Kreuger told the audience that publishers are discovering they have a unique advantage in providing marketing solutions.

“The reason why it’s so attractive for publishers is that’s where their skills lie. That’s what publishers do: engage audiences. If they can let advertisers benefit from this expertise, then I think everybody wins.”

The panel, which also included Storyation’s Lauren Quaintance and Newsmodo’s Rakhal Ebeli, agreed that well-produced – even long form – native advertising gets the best engagement.

For those advertisers thinking of giving native a shot, Richards said that it’s a case of take it or leave it when Sound Alliance do native content.

“They can say they don’t like something and then it won’t run, and then we might do something else,” he said.

“But we don’t tend to give them the opportunity to tweak things, because they’ll compromise it. We are the experts in our audience.”

Jack Fisher

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