Commentary
6 Challenges For Native Advertising In 2017
- by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, December 21, 2016
The Native Advertising Institute (NAI) outlined six challenges for native advertising in 2017 that bear noting. Tim Cain, founder of Digital First Media in the U.K, notes them here, and we'll elucidate them further:
1. Create good content: Cain says this is “easier said than done,” but it can be accomplished. Marketers and content studios need to identify “engaging and fresh ideas” and find the right partners in-house or externally to ensure the best possible content.
2. Collaborate and integrate with editorial teams: Why not cross the divide and collaborate with editorial teams? Smart publishers are breaking down the walls between editorial and branded content teams to collaborate on ideas that will resonate with target audiences. How can branded content teams respectfully tap into editorial teams for ideation and, in some cases, creation of native content?
3. Reach and target: “Ensure that content reaches its intended audience and is amplified effectively through social media.” Resources need to be allocated to content distribution as well as product.
4. Focus on strategic storytelling: Native shouldn’t be viewed as short-term. Use it to build an ongoing relationship that extends throughout the purchase funnel. What pieces of content do you need to tell the story at each stage of the customer “journey”?
5. Make it short, visual and sharable: Since everyone's attention span is about as short as a snap on Snapchat, think about creating short, bite-sized pieces of content that are snackable and shareable. Video and visuals are highly desirable.
6. Measure: Measuring the performance of native campaigns continues to be one of the hardest things to achieve, considering the lack of unified standards and metrics in this area. There should be a segue to an engagement model focused on interaction and action, with less emphasis on click-through rates.
Tobi Elkin is the Editor of MediaPost's Real-Time Daily and the RTBlog. You can reach Tobi at telkin@mediapost.com.
What is concerning is there is no mention to the user or need for transparency and disclosures. (See the independent audit OTA published in the fall https://otalliance.org/Native
While I realize native drives higher revenues in the short-term, If the industry continues to dismiss the user experience, we should only expect ad blocking to increase and calls for regulation to be amplified. Now is the time to address the elephant in the room. OTA is here to help. This is important to the long-term vitality of ad supported content and trust of publishers' brands.
Absolutely agree that transparency and disclosure is fundamental to effective Native Advertising. Many pieces of research that exist show the importance of labelling in retaining trust and responsiveness amongst consumers. It's a given amongst most serious publishers, certainly every major publishing company I'm aware of are dedicated to clarity on this issue and effectively self regulating pretty well. Clearly not everyone is doing it I agree. The evidence would suggest native advertising done well and clearly labelled actually provides a good user experience, and from a publisher point of view is not intended as short term revenue gain, but a significant long term revenue stream. Arguably a focus towards native advertising, and less emphasis on traditional online display, is improving the user experience and providing less incentive to apply ad blockers. In essence the creation of native advertising is all about the user, more so than display advertising, and it's ingrained in the approach to Native by most, if not all, of the major publishing companies in Europe, so certainly not omitted, just a part of the process.