The focus for advertisers is always on generating higher revenues, but there are several other factors that they need to keep in mind as well. The digital universe today has a plethora of social media platforms, news websites and webpages where advertisers can run their ads, and brands need to ensure that their marketing goals are met across all, including brand safety. Some of the most common measures that advertisers have been turning to are whitelisting, keyword blocking and verification tools. However, such granular control measures alone are not enough to ensure brand safety.
The need of the hour is a wider and safer approach that gives advertisers flexibility to run their campaigns across multiple platforms while at the same time ensuring safety of the brand name. In addition to this, advertisers and networks alike also need to be able to manage all the KPIs of ongoing campaigns such as user engagement, clicks and visibility.All of these can be achieved through native advertising.
Why advertisers focus on brand safety?
Advertisers run their campaigns on different websites across the internet to reach out to as many people as possible. However, brands need to ensure that their ads are being perceived and received in a positive light. Brand safety has become a prime concern not just because of the need to manage the brand’s reputation or the fear or a social media backlash. According to a recent study conducted by GumGum[1], in association with Digiday Media, an alarming 75% of brands reported at least one brand un-safe exposure in a year.
The damage done by a brand unsafe campaign can lead to long term loss of revenue and permanent damage to the company’s image among buyers. In the same study, GumGum highlighted that among the respondents for the study, 70% said they or their clients have been exposed to some form of brand safety risk at least once, with 10% reporting “regular” or periodic exposure. Yet only 26% brands reported employing brand safety measures in the last two years whereas 13% reported no safety measures being used.
Why Native Advertising?
Native advertising helps maintain balance between impact, returns, engagement and brand trust. Here are some reasons why native ads are the best approach towards brand safety and content relevance.
User Experience
Since native ads are designed to blend seamlessly with the layout and interface of the website or platform, they do not disrupt the user experience. The ads that users see are relevant to the content on the website they are viewing, which delivers a more valuable experience for the user, thus reducing the probability of a brand safety incident. User experience has also emerged as a major focus factor for publishers and advertisers alike, and marketing strategies are now being designed keeping this as one of the main KPIs.
Contextual Relevance
Native advertising is a type of paid advertising that allows advertisers as well as networks to place ads on websites and social media platforms that match the context of the ads. Advanced AI-based contextual targeting tools go a step further to blunt keyword targeting, and factor in semantic analytics as well as natural language processing. Such techniques understand the meaning of the content on the page and then place ads resulting in a higher degree of contextual relevance.
Publisher Support with Native Advertising
As mentioned earlier, native advertising helps in not just maintaining contextual relevance for the ads but also in delivering a more valuable experience for the users. Publishers have also seen users respond positively to such ads and an increase in the rate of engagement with such ads. It is estimated by 2021, revenue from native advertising will increase by 46%, and a large chunk of it will be earned by publishers through content monetization.
There are some other advantages as well that advertisers and AdTech companies can leverage through native advertising such as effective targeting, deep personalization, and storytelling capability through the ads.
Over the years many formats and approaches to digital advertising have emerged and native ads have shown one of the highest potentials for success.This ad form delivers on user experience, brand safety, higher user engagement and better revenues for publishers and networks. It is a good way for brands to make meaningful connections with users, setting the stage for lasting credibility, relevance, and consistency.
Article is authored by Ievgen Kushnir, Regional Business Development Director – MGID Global.
