Native advertising is definitely something that has great potential. However, there are its drawbacks too. We discussed some of these in a previous article, making clear that it can be quite misleading to the web user, as well as with the penalty of negative SEO.
However, native advertising is still used by all the main players, such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and many other websites, especially those in the news industry. Why is native advertising still so appealing? Here are some benefits to the form of advertising.
 

Subtle Advertising Web Users Like

The great thing about native advertising is that the vast majority of web users will be oblivious to the fact that they are being natively advertised on. This is because native advertising is purposefully subtle, camouflaged into the structure and content of the website. It is not screaming for attention, like typical adverts or pop up adverts are. Instead, it is contextual and relates to what your interests are in: the only difference is how the information is presented to you.
 

High Engagement Level

One of the biggest reasons to choose native advertising is simply for the results it produces. Due to the camouflage nature of it, it is very easy to get a high engagement level with native adverts.
Standard adverts have a notorious reputation with web users, to the extent that web users actively try to block adverts, both psychologically and with plugins such as Ad Blocker.
Native adverts complement the websites so well that this is never the case. Instead, web users engage, click onto the adverts and convert much more than the standard banner advert.
 

More Control

As a publisher it is nice to know that native advertising is completely tailored to your website and its content. You are not just adding a << script >> to certain areas of your website and letting banner adverts show. You are making the native adverts adopt the same structure as your content. This does mean that you have far more control over how the native advert is shown, how big it is, what content is inside it and more. Having more control with advertising means your website is more likely to have a greater user experience than if it used banner advertising.
 

Utilize Space

When it comes to banner advertising, it goes without saying that certain areas of the website will generally gain a higher CTR than others. This includes the top of the website, above and below content and also within the content itself.
Native advertising can work a little different. Since it does not need to ‘grab the web user’s attention’ by placing adverts where eyes are likely to wonder, areas of a website can be monetized that would not be possible with banner advertising. For example, native adverts work particularly well inside the sidebar and content. This also means other areas are freed up to promote other things, such as sharing buttons above/below the content.