Native advertising – is it worth our clients’ time and money?
Clients, agencies and publishers alike are pouring more and more money into native content, but Luke Maher asks if the industry might be fooling itself as well as consumers.
Native content is by no means a new thing. If you read the latest predictions, some suggest native will form upwards of 70% of the total revenue across publishers in only a few years’ time.
That’s a big number, especially when the format itself has been hotly debated to be somewhat of a deceit, with native content tricking consumers into viewing unwanted branded content. But the real question for me – is whether native content is tricking our clients too?
Within most publisher responses that we receive on behalf of our clients we will see some form of native come into the mix. It is now hailed as the holy grail – a new, innovative way for the brand to connect with the publisher’s audience.
This can sometimes ring true, however, I’ve seen many instances where native content misses the mark for clients. The content is either chock-full of branded mentions, opening up potential backlash from consumers, or the content is so ‘native’ it’s difficult to make any connection with the brand itself – resulting in a waste of time for all involved.
A good example is this native listicle ’15 Ways To Have An Epic Road Trip Without Going Broke’ – where the consumer is somehow meant to associate with Acuvue, a brand of contact lenses.
It’s a fine line, and this is a big issue given the amount of money that is about to be poured into the format. Don’t get me wrong, we have done some brilliant work with publishers and our clients who have really embraced the native concept.
But this has only been achieved by all parties coming to the table in the most collaborative way, and blurring the lines between native and branded content to produce something that works for both the publisher’s audience, and importantly, the paying client too.
Native content does open up a heap of questions that advertisers and publishers will need to deal with if this is going to work. Nobody wants the content to feel like its cheapened editorial – even worse, we don’t want the consumer to be tricked into reading something and then feel cheated and pissed off.
This helps nobody and, more than anything highlights the need for native to be transparent. This is probably the reason there doesn’t seem to be much flexibility from publishers, who want to protect their audience and their brand. I totally get that – but should the client bear the cost of this?
Another point of discussion is exactly what we should be measuring native content on. Currently most publishers rely on traditional editorial metrics, like page views and time on page, as well as sharing and social numbers to demonstrate effectiveness. How do we know this works for clients?
We need to ensure that native content goes beyond this and as agencies start looking at ROI and real metrics to show its true worth.
With ad-blocking on the rise in many markets, publishers are looking for new ways to fill the gaps – both audience and revenue wise.
Native quite logically sounds like the answer for them. The next step is for publishers and brands to connect and bring together native content pieces that are engaging for an audience, and can weave in the brand objectives seamlessly. A great example is Buzzfeed’s collaboration with Cancer Research UK.
Unfortunately this is harder said than done. Native content can be a labour-intensive experience for most involved, with many parties needed to create a good piece of native – from the creative, PR, media, and most importantly, the gatekeepers of content – the editorial team.
If native is going to be a big thing for our clients then publishers need to work more collaboratively to deliver great native content opportunities for their audiences and our clients.
Luke Maher is a digital client service manager for Initiative. He was one of the Yahoo7 digital stars that attended this year’s Mumbrella360 conference.
Here at Polar we work with most major publishers in the AU market and two things are very apparent:
1. Currently the success metric of a campaign is page views (of the actual content). However, add in viewability or engagement metrics you get a much better picture and can show value to the client. We believe the next stage in the evolution of sponsored content is to move the conversation to brand metrics
2. Disclosure, Disclosure, Disclosure – As long as something is marked as ‘sponsored content’ (or similar) then the audience isnt being duped. Our research shows a higher CTR and time spent when it is made clear that the content has been paid for in some way.
Those publishers sticking to these simple rules will continue to grow in this space
User ID not verified.
“We need to ensure that native content goes beyond this and as agencies start looking at ROI and real metrics to show its true worth.”
Publishers and agencies that we work with are able to measure and monitor the effectiveness of every individual piece of content ie. using a score out of 100. The score is statistically-calculated taking into account the objectives, targets and priorities unique to every campaign/brand.
Most importantly, it allows to see definite patterns and gain insight where content is resonating with audience.
In one example, we’re scoring native content where the objectives are made up of 7 different metrics across reach, engagement and conversion.
User ID not verified.
We are a very small niche publisher of a print and digital magazine and I find this whole discussion of native advertising very interesting.
Obviously, the pressure from potential advertisers for editorial space is significant and this is where native advertising is attempting to fill this gap.
Our publication strives for the journalistic ideal of the separation between independent editorial versus advertising, but the pressure has been intense to loosen this standard.
In response to this, we have developed a quarantined section of our publication that is all about sharing information direct from the market place. It is native advertising in the sense that is either paid or branded content and is formatted and laid out in exactly the same way as the rest of our magazine.
In creating this section, we have tried to work with businesses to ensure that what is provided benefits our readers as well as makes the connection with their brand. It’s all still a work in progress as we endeavour to determine the best formula, but I think our upcoming issue provides our best example to date, so it’s looking promising.
User ID not verified.
Lol.
Hey Luke, if you’d like to chat how BuzzFeed actually works feel free to email me.
edwin.hughan@BuzzFeed.com
User ID not verified.
Great article, couldn’t agree more. Waste of agency and client time.
Native advertising = fancy new name for contextual ad placement
User ID not verified.
Steps to be a successful digital content publication
1. Show client your viewership numbers for past month.
2. take the clients money.
3. Make branded content.
4. Promote branded content with client’s money.
5. Encourage the client to promote article with their money too.
6. See web traffic increase due to client’s media money.
7. Collect results. Say it’s a success despite traffic coming through paid promotion.
8. Now show their competitor your now bigger monthly viewership numbers.
9. take their money.
10. make branded content.
and so on.
User ID not verified.
“my fascination at how something can go from nothing to the such a great demand”
Newsflash, Pokemon was never “nothing”. If you were gaming back on the GB Color, N64 etc you’d know how huge Pokemon is. It’s just that now its on Android it’s reaching a new audience of gamers that might not have played Pokemon before but definitely know what it is.
User ID not verified.