Since the early 90’s users have been exposed to pop-ups, leader boards, skyscrapers, wallpapers, and all different types of banner ads across both desktop and now mobile devices. After their introduction the success rate of these placements for ads has declined over time. Users become blind to them as they scan a page for content. Although banner performance is tough to measure with Click-Through-Rates (CTRs) measuring in at 0.1% sometimes and conversions being counted off of post-click and post-“view” actions, it has been tough to find a new way to reach consumers at scale in the digital space. Native advertising may be that new way.
Native ads are becoming more popular, with large social players like Facebook and Twitter including Sponsored Posts and Promoted Tweets. And even publishers are creating ways to integrate into their content directly. The goal with units like these is to provide seamless ads within the stream of content the user is consuming. This has been hard to do in the past, but it seems larger players are coming aboard.
In the Mobile space, AdAdapted has built relationships with a network of apps to integrate native, relevant, and useful ads to consumers in a way that is not intrusive. This way the user’s experience is not put in jeopardy at the cost of a click/engagement with the ad. As you can see in the example, a task manager app has an integrated ad for Manilla, a bill organizer, with a unique call to action built into the user’s list of tasks.
Mashable writes on native ads, “native advertising not only represents a way for advertisers to reach an engaged audience, but also allows us to do work that our readers love.” As technology progresses, execution betters, and scale increases the banner will start to fade with the rise of native ads. So long are the days of working within the confines of a 300×250 box. It may take some more work to build custom ads, but dynamic native ads are on the horizon.
