Maximizing publisher revenue with native ad monetization

Native advertisements have taken over the digital advertising industry across all genres and geographies. Leading marketers are of the opinion that the native advertising approach provides a win-win situation for all – publishers, advertisers, and users alike, making it easy to adopt and include in digital ad strategies.

For publishers, specifically, native ads provide several benefits because of which this approach has found widespread acceptance in the digital universe.

Native ads are never intrusive, unlike banner ads that interfere with the experience of the user trying to read or watch the content on the publisher’s website.
With native ads the advertiser’s message gets due attention from the users because it blends in with the context on the page, giving them a higher probability of consumption by the user.
Native ads generate higher clicks which have been proven through various studies over the last few years. This can primarily be attributed to the fact that readers find native ads more engaging and that they have higher relevance to the overall content on the website.
The new-age content consumers have shown a higher affinity towards this approach. For this reason, native ads are now being adopted across all content websites, apps, and even social media platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat.

While many advertisers are still catching up with the benefits of native advertising, there are some who have already progressed to the next innovation and approach, which is programmatic native advertising. Programmatic refers to the process of automatic ad placement making use of AI and real-time bidding. With the introduction of programmatic in the application of native ads, AdTech networks, publishers and advertisers have been able to include automation and increased sharpness in the decision-making process, taking it out from the hands of media buyers. With programmatic native ads, advertisers get an opportunity to exercise seamless targeting on various channels.

Apart from these reasons, there are several other factors that have made native ads more acceptable to publishers as a means to monetize their traffic.

Native Ads have higher engagement rate with users

It is believed that the reason behind the success of the native ad approach is how the ads communicate with the human brain. Banner ads are great at attracting attention, but since the message on the ad is limited the user quickly loses interest and moves on to the next thing on the web page. Interactions with banners are also less, as compared to native ads because users only spend a few seconds on the ad.

Native ads on the other hand require a user to read as they are placed inside the user’s content feed. They become a part of the user’s experience of consuming content, and since they actively read the ad, they demonstrate a higher degree of interaction as well. In quantifiable terms, native ads give twice as much visual focus to the user. Reading a native ad headline yields 308x more time of consumer attention as compared to the time taken by the same user to process a banner ad. There are quantifiable benefits that brands and advertisers also get from native ads. Over banner ads, native ads result in 9% uplift in brand affinity and 18% higher lift in purchase intent.

Higher CPMs and increased revenue

Native ads also play a critical role in increasing the publisher’s potential to earn higher revenues. Programmatic native advertising has found a lot of acceptance amongst publishers and this is an indication of the potential that native ads have as a form of revenue. AdTech networks offer a wide range of integration options to publishers to meet their monetization needs. Native formats such as content recommendation widgets are compatible with AMP and instant articles which also helps in boosting revenues by opening up new streams and platforms. As per BI Intelligence, native ads are expected to account for 63% of mobile ad revenue.

Greater control for publishers

Native ads put the control of the ad in the hands of the advertiser. Unlike standard banners where the message on the creative and overall behavior of the ad is decided by the advertiser, native ads mimic the style and format of the publisher’s website. This means publishers do not have to compromise on their standards in order to monetize their inventory.

Strategies to increase revenue with Native Ads

Ad revenue is one of the main sources of revenue generation for publishers. According to research done on publishers in the US, direct traffic generates 17% of revenue which accounts for 14% of ad impressions. This highlights the significant contribution that native ads can make in increasing publisher revenue and unlocking the potential of their inventory.

Below are some strategies that publishers can employ to increase native ad revenue.

Increasing ad viewability should be one of the first things that publishers focus on. Higher viewability means more impressions consumed by the advertiser and more revenue for the publisher. In order to increase viewability, the first step would be to optimize the ad placements and locations within each webpage. This can be done by placing ads above the fold or in-stream.

Another strategy to increase net revenue should be an optimal mix of ad widgets, experimenting and testing the response of users to this implementation, and finalizing the combination that works for the publisher’s platform.

Concluding Remarks

A successful native advertising strategy will help in boosting user experience, boosting revenue, and providing advertisers with the right platform to deliver their message. However, this is one of the fastest evolving areas in the digital marketing sphere, and publishers need to ensure that they are keeping up with the times so that they do not miss a revenue opportunity.

About the author:

Pankaj Sharma, Country Head, MGID India