Earlier this week, Harry shared the questions to ask about native advertising giving us a great overview of how it works. Today, I want to talk about the individual elements that will really make your campaign shine. So let’s take a look at the key areas you need to consider when formulating a native advertising strategy.
As with any form of pay per click advertising, it is easy to waste budgets by not choosing the right kind of content, or targeting the wrong audience. A failed campaign can even come down to choosing the wrong type of tool. So let’s take a look:
Content
I’m not going to mention that overused statement about content – I promise.
What I will say that is that creating the right content for your campaign is crucial. Even if a page where your content is placed receives millions of page views a day, if the content is dry, those click-throughs will be a complete drought.
So how do you ensure that your content is ‘clickable’?
With the rise in click-bait (whether you love it or hate it), there is a fine line between an intriguing title that delivers, and one that misleads. The key is to pick an interesting title that serves your target audience (more on this a little later), and really packs a punch once they click through.
Consider using:
- Lists – this content is easy to digest e.g. Top Ten Ways You Are Losing Money On Your PPC Campaigns
- Buzzwords – ‘surprising’, ‘bizarre’, ‘unique’ (just be sure that the content lives up to the hype!) e.g. Surprising PPC Campaigns That Have Smashed Targets
- Statistics – particular data can be really interesting e.g. 89% Of Marketers Love PPC
Don’t go overboard with these tactics – audiences are savvy and will ignore content which looks deceptive.
Make sure that when users do click through, your content is credible. Otherwise, your Bounce Rate is going to go through the roof.
In order to truly measure the value of native ad content, add calls to action into your content. This can be measured by setting up Goals in Google Analytics.
Audience
Prior to setting up your campaign, you need to think carefully about the audience with who you are aiming to engage and the types of sites they will frequent.
For example, if you are reaching out to marketing managers, you will obviously want your content to be placed on marketing blogs and news sites.
Make a list of the demographics and site categories so that you have a clear idea before you begin approaching providers.
Budget
The way in which native advertising works is that you are charged based on clicks through to your content. You are able to set a budget per click, usually around $0.16 – $0.20, and a daily cap (this will depend on your overall budget and the length of your campaign).
As an example, you might set your CPC as $0.16, with a daily cap of $10. Once that cap has been met, your content will no longer appear for that day. Your spending limit for a month long campaign might be $300, and once that amount is met your campaign will end unless you extend your budget. This allows you to have full control over spend.
You will notice that practically all tools will operate in dollars, so when devising a budget, be sure to factor in currency conversion. The tool provider, as well as the sites that your content is placed on will monetize by gaining a shared fraction of the cost per click. This percentage is dealt with by the tool provider.
You will only be charged for the clicks that you have acquired, and this will all be clear in the reports supplied by your chosen platform. You will then be invoiced at the end of the campaign.
Tools
There are many tools out there that specialise in native advertising opportunities – so many in fact, that making the right choice becomes much more difficult.
So what needs to be considered?
- Does the tool provider work with sites that are relevant to your target audience?
- How easy is it to use and understand the interface? To maintain a successful native advertising campaign, you may need to access the management tools to add further content pieces, or adjust budgets.
- How does the tool track performance? You will need to implement coding to your site once campaigns are set up so be sure that you are clear on what your chosen tool requires.
- Which reports can you generate? It is vital that you are able to easily access required reports to measure performance regularly.
What To Do Once Your Campaign Is Set Up
Once you’re all set up, the work is not over. You will need to measure the effect that the click throughs are having.
Whilst the native advertising tool can show you the Impressions (number of times your ad has appeared) and Click through Rate, you need to delve into your Google Analytics to see whether the traffic is converting.
Look at the following metrics:
- Goal Completions – from your content CTA’s
- Average Session Duration – the amount of time the visitor has spent on the page
- Pages / Session – this will tell you if visitors have ventured to other pages of your site
Regularly review this throughout the campaign, as you may wish to allocate more budget to particular pieces of content.
For more advice on native advertising and how we can help you to run a successful campaign, get in touch today.
Image Credits:
Graph image from BigStock
Businessman image from BigStock
Tools image from BigStock
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