Are native ads more successful & effective if they direct the user to the advertiser's landing page or to sponsored content on the same site?
In one scenario, clicking on a native ad takes you to sponsored content/advertorial on the same site (Like a Forbes BrandVoice). The other scenario is, a click on a native ad leads you to directly to the client's website/landing page (ads on Yahoo). Which is the more effective & more successful strategy to adapt as a digital publisher looking to adapt native ads on the site.
Mani's Answer
Great question, I think the best way to start is with some definitions:
- Content marketing - A type of marketing where advertisers create content that educates, entertains or otherwise engages a user, without the primary purpose being to sell. The goodwill generated by quality content is designed to build awareness and loyalty to a brand.
- Content - Can be anything that's consumed by users like videos, articles, or social media posts (status updates, tweets, vines, etc). For most publishers it will probably be articles or video. Content that is paid for by a brand and includes some hints to the brand name is called sponsored content.
- Native advertising - This is a format for ad units that allows them to look and feel like the other content on a page, blending in rather than disrupting the user. They should always have a disclaimer but the primary purpose is to be non-intrusive.
- Landing pages - Highly optimized pages designed to get a conversion (signup, purchase, etc). These are not considered content but rather pure sales messages. These are not recommended for use with native ads.
- "Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad." - Howard Gossage
So assuming branded content, should a native ad drive to the article hosted somewhere else or on the same site?
My company Instinctive syndicates sponsored content and runs both types of options. Our real results after billions of impressions shows that keeping the sponsored content on the same site is almost 2x as effective, with more clicks, less bounce rates, more time spent and more recall by users.
Reasons why:
- Users do not like jumping to different sites, it breaks their current experience, increases loading time with a new site, surprises them with more ads, and generally annoys them as something unexpected. Having the sponsored content on the same site avoids any bounce issues as it's treated like just another page.
- Most advertisers don't have great "sites" to send users to. Again landing pages are not "content" and shouldn't be used, and sending people to a corporate blog can turn people away. Even good content with gentle branding can look bad or lose value when shown on a corporate portal or site that is full of other marketing messages.
- Publishers don't like losing traffic and if the destination isn't good, users will blame the original site as low quality for sending them to a bad location. Instead of just losing a pageview, publishers might lose the user completely by sending them to a page out of their control.
- Content on the same site will load faster and reduce waiting times while potentially sharing in the reputation and voice of the publisher. Most sites should be careful about what ads they're running but with good moderation, this can lead to more trust and engagement by users.
Overall, data and results have always shown that sponsored content delivered to the user where they already are performs better in every way. Occasionally some advertisers just want traffic and clicks but more sophisticated marketers are learning that attention and engagement are what matter and will deliver far more ROI.
Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder/CEO of Instinctive - the leading content syndication platform. We power campaigns for Fortune 500 brands and help top publishers run native ads on their sites. Feel free to reach out if there's anything I can help with.
