The Shift to Native Advertising in Marketing

Advertisers Go Native in the Search for Consumer Engagement

It’s a simple premise. If you want to engage online consumers, give them more of what they go online for in the first place. Advertisers are doing just that by shifting to paid content that’s similar in nature to and displayed in the same format as the editorial content surrounding it. The idea is to get consumers to click on and then share these “native ads” with others.

It’s a solution that benefits everyone involved, including publishers, brands, advertisers, and consumers. Advertisers and marketers gain a more relevant and engaging way to reach their target markets. Publishers make money from selling branded content to advertisers. And consumers get more of the kinds of content they’re searching for. Add in the rapid growth of social media and mobile technology usage, and native advertising holds vast potential.

A new infographic from MDG Advertising explains this new phenomenon and reveals some impressive statistics:

70% of consumers want to learn about products through content as opposed to traditional ad methods
75% of publishers currently offer some type of native advertising on their sites, and 90% say they either have considered or will consider using it
There are a number of motivating factors triggering the use of native advertising:

67% of brands use native advertising in an effort to provide more-relevant messaging
63% use native ads to increase consumer engagement
62% hope to generate awareness or buzz
There are a number of ways to measure the success of native ads:

70% of brands and 66% of publishers measure success by traffic
44% of brands and 49% of publishers measure success by social media sharing
62% of agencies’ brand clients measure the time spent engaging with content
Native ads perform better than traditional banner ads:

Purchase intent of those who click on native ads is 52% compared to only 34% for banners
People who click on native ads have higher brand loyalty (32%) than those who click on banners (23%)