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The Future Of Native Advertising for Brands and Publishers

Increased spending for native ads

Although spending on digital and native advertising is at an all-time high, the native ad market remains ripe for expansion. Native is a hot topic in the advertising industry and it’s easy to understand what the fuss is all about.

Publishers and marketers can create ads formatted similarly to their content, giving consumers a much richer experience. Native ads also have soaring click rates, and they are already beating traditional ads in this regard (especially on mobile); Not to mention they are also cheaper to run.

This all leads to increased spending on native ads (better bang for the buck). According to data from BI Intelligence, spending on native ads will grow to $21 billion in 2018. In comparison, only $4.7 billion were spent in 2013.

The Ad Blocker Effect

At one time, big publishers got the bright idea that they could pester users into disabling ad blockers. At the time it seemed like a rational strategy. Unfortunately, it backfired on both publishers and brands.

Popular websites such as Forbes and Wired even pleaded with users that they turn-off their ad-blockers before visiting the websites. Some websites even flat-out refused to let a user read content if they had an ad-blocker enabled.

But these pleadings were seen as being annoying and desperate. Much like those flashy display ads that the user was trying to block in the first place. Readers, for the most part, chose to browse away and go to websites that don’t pester them with such demands.

Ad-blockers have resulted in a loss of revenue for publishers and brands, estimated at around $22 billion in 2015 alone. Scary, isn’t it?

Now, let’s look at where all of this is heading

The main philosophy of most ad blockers is that they’re only trying to block intrusive and annoying ads. This means that native ads aren’t being blocked by the major ad blockers. This is based on the notion that native ads aren’t intrusive or annoying.

There's a reason that adblockers ignore native ads. They're not seen as intrusive. However, this might change.Click To Tweet

There is, however, some discussion about the potentially intrusive nature of native ad providers like Taboola and Outbrain. Translation: ad blockers might soon start blocking them. This is quite a realistic possibility for the coming period and something you should consider.

The good news is that even if this happens, it would only apply to those specifics networks, not native ads in general.

The rise of native mobile advertising

You’ve probably heard about this too many times by now. Mobile is taking over the internet. More and more people are primarily accessing the internet from their mobile devices as opposed to their PCs.

According to some reports, the number of mobile (smartphone and tablet) users has already surpassed desktop PC and laptop users. Most ads today are seen on mobile devices.

According to some estimates, native advertising will account for 63.2% of all global mobile display advertising by 2020, up from 52% in 2015.

The mainstream will continue adopting “content recommendation”

A lot of popular sites such as CNN and ESPN have embraced “recommendation” native ads as part of their strategy. They incorporate these widgets that display “interesting content from around the web” relevant to their audience. Most of these are actually just native ads.

Expect more and more brands and publishers to embrace this trend and apply similar strategies to capitalize on native ads.

Storytelling through native advertising

Native advertising isn’t about merely masquerading your ad to “blend in”. It’s about an entire experience that runs on a different philosophy than traditional ads. Yes, you will see plenty of native ads that are traditional ads in disguise. You click on a native ad with a bombastic headline and end up getting a sales pitch.

These are simply direct advertisers (ab)using a native ad delivery platform. The ones who get the most out of native advertising understand the bigger picture. It’s about providing the consumer with a value-driven experience. The same kind of experience they’re used to when they consume content from the publisher they already love and trust.

If you're not doing storytelling in your native ad campaigns, you're not fully utilizing the power of native.Click To Tweet

The stories that will improve people’s lives are the stories that will be told by native advertisers. To put it in less poetic terms, native advertisers will have to master the art of storytelling. Expect to see this reflected in the headlines.

The number of headlines that promise the reader a good story for clicking on the ad will grow. And good native advertisers will deliver on the promise, realizing that the story needs to deliver value first, and only promote their product second.

More publishers will embrace email as a platform for native ads

Why do native ads work so well? It’s simple. They utilize the power of relationships. When your native ad appears on a website, that reader has a relationship with this website. They trust and like that publisher. And unlike traditional direct ads, a native ad lets you borrow from that trust and piggyback on that relationship.

Now, focus on that keyword there: relationships. What is the one major marketing channel that best represents relationship-driven marketing? You’ve guessed it – email marketing.

What if you could combine these two powerful strategies? The native ads that capitalize on pre-built relationships, and the email channel that dominates in terms of creating relationships.

Well, you can actually do this, and it’s quite simple. Just run native ads inside of emails. If you think about it, an email-based relationship is much deeper than any website-based relationship.

Sure, people have their favorite websites and feel some level of trust in their favorite bloggers or authors. But no website can come close to the personal feeling that is achieved by email marketing. When a recommended native ad appears inside of an email that those readers love, the level is magnified tremendously.

Hence, expect more marketers to catch on to this and start running native ads inside of popular newsletters. Fortunately, you can beat your competitors and get on the train much sooner.

At AdMailr, we’ve worked really hard to produce the most straightforward email advertising platform. We’re also leading the pack with our passion for email-based native advertising. You can join today and be one of the first in your field to experience the power of email native ads.

How to Successfully Create a Native Advertising Article

Find your WHY

Think about the reasons you are running a native ad. What do you want to achieve with the ad and what do you expect from consumers?

Do you want consumers to buy your product or service? Perhaps you just want a boost to your website traffic and have no additional goals? Or maybe you want to get some emails from qualified leads. Make sure to note down these goals before you proceed. It will be important.

Try to understand the reader’s journey

If you plan on manually arranging a spot on a single publisher’s medium, this is a bit easier. Just talk to the publisher directly about where your ad will display. Then browse their website a bit to feel what it’s like for the average reader. Ultimately, use this understanding to make sure your native ad article doesn’t stray far from that.

If you’re going to use a native advertising platform, you can’t manually explore every possible website that might feature your ad. You will have to make a general ad that “generally fits” most typical websites where it gets displayed.

Find some websites that use the platform of your choice and study how other advertisers are doing it. Notice which ones stick out badly, and which ones do a good job. Analyze these findings and use them in creating your own ad and article.

Don’t sell immediately

Native ad articles should be informational, educational and interesting to read. Don’t jump straight to selling your product or whatever your conversion goal is. Offer some background information and key industry info.

Ideally, the first 1/2 of the reading experience should be purely about giving value. No mention of your company, your services or your goals. Just cover the topic that people come to learn about. In a word: make it about them, not yourself.

Give plenty of value, but hold back strategically

The information should be as useful as possible, while still leaving readers wanting for more. This makes it more likely that they’ll desire a product you sell or other content that you publish.

Writing native ad articles is an art. Give enough value to establish yourself, but know when to hold back.Click To Tweet

For example, if your goal is to get people onto your email list, your content should aim to leave them wanting more information. It’s an excellent way to get them to sign up for your email list.

If you want to sell a product, make sure that the information in your article helps in solving most of their pain points, but not all. Hint at the fact that there’s a major point which can’t be solved by reading an article. In fact, this point is best solved by purchasing your product or service. And that brings us to the next point.

Make sure to have a clear CTA

You’re publishing a native ad for a reason: you want your customers to buy your webinar course, download your whitepaper or hire you for consulting services.

It can also be about signing up for a newsletter, buying a product or booking a consultation; Any conversion goal you can have in an online environment.

The trick here is to consider the overall experience. You want to make people take action, but you want to do it in a way that feels organic and natural. It needs to be a tie-in to the overall story presented in your article, a logical sequitur, if you will.

Produce several versions so that you can A/B test later on

You’ll want to experiment with several alterations of the title, as well as test different endings and intros. The fact is that you don’t know what content will produce optimal results with traffic coming from a native ad. One of your alterations will produce significantly better results than the others.

You can find out what works in one of two ways. You can simply change up the content after it’s been linked to from a native ad. And then, just note which versions produce better results.

Alternatively, you can do exploratory tests in advance. This will give you a better idea what content might perform better as an ad.

Simply point some PPC traffic to the page that hosts the native advertising article, and split test some of the alterations. That way, you’ll have a better idea what content is worthy of being linked to from a native ad.

Bonus tip: Consider utilizing the newest type of native ads

Did you know that you can now have native ads inside of emails? This method combines two high-potency strategies into one. If you consider why native ads work so well, it’s because they utilize the power of relationship-driven marketing.

When you run a native-ad, your ad is “piggybacking” off of the relationship that the reader has with that publisher. They trust that website, so when they see your native ad, they also trust you. This is because your native ad looks and feels as part of that website.

Relationship-driven marketing is taking over the world as we speak, and for a good reason. It works way better than traditional marketing ever did. People want to buy from those whom they have a relationship with. To utilize this fact, you can do your own content marketing, social media marketing and build your own email list.

But you can also use the relationships that others have built. This is how native ads work. But stop here for a second, and think about the following. Which form of marketing builds the best relationships? All the data shows that this would be email marketing.

Emails have the highest conversion rates of anything out there. People just seem to love buying whatever you sell in your emails. What if you could tap into that power without having to wait for your own email list to grow? This is where native ads for email come in.

At AdMailr we believe that native ads are the future of email advertising. This is why we created a platform which makes it effortless to place your native ads in popular newsletters that readers love and trust. Give it a try today. It might be the best marketing decision you’ve ever made.

If you have anything to add I’d love to hear from you in the comments area and if you feel like this is worth sharing please share it! 🙂

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7 Reasons to Make Native Ads part of Your Marketing Strategy

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If you’re even marginally interested in following marketing trends, you must have noticed all the hype surrounding native ads. During the past couple of years, native advertising has become one of the most influential and fastest-growing types of advertising.

There is substance behind the hype surrounding native ads – they do work exceptionally well. Native ads offer a slew of benefits for small and large companies, as well as individual entrepreneurs. Native ads nowadays can be adapted to any format. Be it a blog post, website, or newsletter native ads.

It’s wise to note that the rising popularity of native ads is actually part of a more general shift in advertising. As it turns out, traditional and impersonal advertising is dying.

Native ads are killing traditional ads, fastClick To Tweet

The old marketing is being replaced by a new kind of relationship-driven marketing. Native advertising itself represents a big player in this “new marketing”. Native ads themselves are great at creating a more meaningful relationship with your audience.

Why are native ads the future of marketing?

The primary focus of native advertising is blending into its surrounding content. The idea is that it shouldn’t stand out. It should feel as if it were a natural part of the editorial content. It doesn’t feel like an ad slapped onto a website or newsletter.

Native advertising doesn’t bother the audience or create a distraction. On the contrary, it enhances their experience in consuming and interacting with that content. Even if you are not always aware of it, you see native ads in your favorite publications on a daily basis.

Native ads do not annoy or distract the audienceClick To Tweet

No one likes seeing online ads that are aggressively displayed and disrupt the experience of consuming certain content. That kind of advertising is slowly being phased out by a more genuine form of ads. Ones based on a mutually beneficial relationship with the consumer.

So, what makes native ads the future of marketing? Read on to find out.

Native ads are more popular

One of the most useful aspects of native ads is that they produce higher viewing rates in comparison to other types of advertising. They also allow advanced customization. This means that advertisers can represent their offerings in ways that make the target audience more likely to interact.

Furthermore, using native ads can result in outstanding engagement and conversion rates with customers. The reason is simple: the ads blend in with the content without annoying potential customers with countless distracting messages.

This subtle improvement saves the customers time since they don’t have to bother removing the variety of ads and banners that would otherwise occupy their screen.

Ultimately, customers end up staying much longer on websites that incorporate native ads. What’s interesting is that some websites, like Upworthy, get almost 3x more views towards their native ads than their editorial content.

Native ads increase purchase intent

Native ads in general increase the purchase rate in comparison to, for example, banner ads. Yahoo reports that native advertising also increases search activity of users upon viewing native ads (reporting a number as high as 204% of improvement in search activity).

This is mostly due to the seamless blending of the native ads with the content. In short – engagement and monetization are sure to increase if you replace banner ads with native advertisements.

They strengthen the loyalty of your customers

Every business needs a loyal customer base to stay relevant on the market. If you think that flashy banner ads might get you one, think again! Be wiser and incorporate native ads in your strategy.

When consumers come across a native ad on the website of the brand they like, their brains create an emotional connection to what they’re engaging with. This associates your brand or service with content that they already love and so you’re much more likely to win sales.

Using native advertising, you’re communicating to consumers that you’re not solely interested in their wallets. You’re aiming to create a lasting relationship that’s mutually beneficial. In return, they will reward you with their loyalty.

Native advertising is more genuine than other forms of advertising

Native ads strike a balance where they can blend in, yet still offer transparency. Most native ads openly display the third-party branding. So the consumer knows that this content is third-party content, yet it isn’t like a traditional display ad. It is content that that appears to come from a “trusted third party”. It is content that’s relevant to (and adds value to) the regular content. So they can choose for themselves whether to engage or not.

Native ads are genuine and create instant trustClick To Tweet

The best way to describe this is with an analogy. Let’s say you’re having a conversation with a good friend at his house. His colleague from work is sitting alongside you. She’s smart, witty and your friend seems to respect her a lot.

So you’re having this engaging conversation with your friend at his house about some topic. And then she chimes in with a very positive and valuable addition to the conversation. You’re then drawn into a conversation with her that you find even more engaging. You have every reason to trust her because she is a close friend of your friend, and you’ve heard lots of good things about her.

Native ads are similar to this kind of “third trusted person”. It isn’t like some sneaky trick where the advertiser pretends to be the publisher. There is transparency that this is a third party, but there’s also a prebuilt relationship and carryover in trust.

All of this makes native ads more appealing than other forms of advertising. The transparency they offer increases your credibility with the customers. As opposed to forcing random banners and irrelevant ads to pop up on their favorite sites or newsletters.

Publishers get to keep their integrity and self-respect

Control is one of the major things native ads offer to publishers. Advertisers who publish ads on websites often have bigger control over the ads than publishers. So if that advertiser displays a random ad that disrupts the look & feel of the website, the publishers just have to “live with it”.

This isn’t the case with native ads. The publisher doesn’t have to tolerate compromises in style and disruptions in flow. Native ads maintain the tone of the website and increase chances of monetization at the same time. The click-through rates are better both on mobile devices and computers.

The publisher, therefore, builds an even better relationship with their readers. The readers love coming to the website and consuming it when there aren’t distracting elements (like those traditional random display ads).

Customers start working for you

Native ads inspire higher engagement and conversion rates. They engage consumers on both an emotional and intellectual level. Even better, native ads can oftentimes encourage consumers to promote your brand.

Native ads get consumers to promote your brand.Click To Tweet

This may happen when they share one of your articles. The one that they discovered from clicking on a native ad. The fact that native ads help you make content go viral is probably one of their biggest upsides.

Native ads are fantastic for improving brand recognition

Customers that consume native ads are more likely to trust your brand. However, even native ads can backfire. They might tarnish the reputation of both the brand and the publisher if the placements aren’t strategic.

Every advantage that we’ve discussed so far assumes you’re placing the native ads in the right place. Your ad has to add value to the conversation on that page. If there is a mismatch between your native ad and the page it displays on – you won’t get much better results than with a display ad.

Fortunately, Admailr is here to help

We’ve worked really hard to come up with the perfect solution. As you already realize – native ads work because relationship-driven marketing works. The power of native ads lies in the general power of relationship-driven marketing. And it is email marketing that creates the deepest bonds and relationships.

When a person looks forward to someone’s newsletters, they open them with anticipation and glee. They look forward to anything this newsletter author will recommend or talk about. This is why email marketing beats everything else in terms of conversion rates and returns.

And incidentally, this is why you should get started with email marketing if you haven’t done it yet. It’s a surefire long-term investment.

But what about now? You can leverage other people’s existing email relationships – starting today. Admailr is a solution that helps you place native ads inside of other people’s newsletters.

Our intelligent process chooses where to display your ads, picking the perfect newsletter and placement every time. To create your free account just head on over to our sign up page.

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Seven Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2018

Differentiate Your Product

You’ve probably heard this advice too many times to even care about it. But chances are you’re not applying it to the fullest. To get more customers, you have to differentiate.

From what we’ve seen, most businesses get this wrong in one of two ways. You might spend a lot of time making a product that is genuinely different than the competition. But then you fail to make that distinction clear in your marketing.

Alternatively, your marketing department might claim you are unique and different, but your feature set is identical to any random competitor out there.

Ideally, you want a combination of the two

Invest in both marketing differentiation and product differentiation. It is obvious you need help from marketers to improve your marketing. They can help you craft your marketing message in such a way that it makes you appear different (and better) than the competition.

But how do you know which product or service features will get you noticed? Simply “looking different” by having a distinctive marketing message is not enough. You also need to differentiate yourself by the actual feature set.

So how do you know which features to work on in order to attract more customers? The common sense answer might be to ask the employees who build the product. For example, if it’s a software product, ask the software engineers. Right? Wrong!

Even when it comes to building or developing a product, the market is key. You need to do your market research to know which features would differentiate you in a beneficial way. Let’s use the software example again. Your engineers might believe that Feature B is what differentiates you in a positive way. The average customer, however, might not care all that much about this feature.

Obviously, you don’t want to go too far in the other direction either. You can’t have the market researchers just make all the decisions without consulting the engineers. It has to be a collaborative effort.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Differentiate your Product @Admailr #EmailMarketing #AdvertisingClick To Tweet

Review Your Marketing Strategy For 2016

That’s not a typo. We’re talking about the past on purpose. If you want more customers in 2017, you need to look back on your marketing in 2016. You need to do a serious analysis. Be a harsh and tough critic on yourself.

Try to find out which tactics were a waste of time, and which ones could have been applied better. You need to have clear data on which marketing tactics showed results and which didn’t.

Also, you need to find out which of your actions converted leads into customers. Find out whether the right customers were being reached and if you were any good at keeping your customers. With today’s analytics tools it’s quite easy to get a hold of this information.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Review last years marketing strategy @Admailr #EmailMarketing Click To Tweet

Make Sure You Have the Right Call to Action

A lacking call to action (CTA) is one of the most common marketing mistakes. If you go around and look at the marketing of most small businesses, you’ll find something interesting. In many cases, they can double or triple their sales by just crafting a good CTA.

It is surprising how often a business will have an amazing product, but fail to ask the customer to take action. Don’t let your visitors miss out on your great products and services due to a technicality.

Do you want your competitors to get more customers just because they have a stronger CTA? How would you feel if people passed on your product and went to an inferior competitor – just because of their bolder marketing?

Now, a call to action isn’t just about saying go buy our service or buy this product

You should be using CTA elements to guide people along every step of your marketing funnel. Let’s look at an example where you get leads into your funnel through content marketing.

You want to first direct people to read your content by saying Read this article now to learn the 7 ways to XYZ. Then, the article would have several calls to action, depending on the next step in your funnel.

If your next step is having people sign up for your product announcement list, craft good CTA elements for that. You want to scatter different CTA elements throughout the article. Have some of them asking the reader to sign up for that product announcement list.

There are also some other uses for CTA elements that you should consider. For example, you want to make sure to ask people to share your stuff. Ask for likes, shares, reviews and ratings.

Have you ever noticed that all the top ranking apps on your smartphone ask you for a review? That’s not a coincidence. Those who have the courage to call to action get ahead in the marketplace. This is true in any industry.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Have the Right CALL to Action @Admailr #EmailMarketing #AdvertiseClick To Tweet

Target the Right People

The better your targeting, the higher your profits. It might sound like a bold claim, but it’s absolutely true. If you’re targeting “everyone”, you’re actually targeting no-one.

You want to create a detailed profile of the ideal customer. This means figuring out what type of person is most likely to need and love your product. Who is most likely to appreciate what you do? The more thoroughly you specify the attributes of your ideal customer, the better.

Now, this topic alone can fill an entire semester in a university, so we can’t go into it too much. But if you want help with this, consider enlisting the help of marketing experts.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Target the Right People @Admailr #EmailMarketing #AdvertisingClick To Tweet

Use Email Marketing

If you’re not using email marketing, you’re missing out on the marketing strategy with the single highest return. In the long-run, nothing comes even close to giving you the benefits of having an email list full of adoring fans.

Once you build your list, there are countless ways to monetize your email list. This includes subscription-based newsletters, promoting others’ non-competing products for a commission, selling your services and products and so much more.

And when it comes to building hype for a new product launch, nothing beats email marketing. Social media marketing does a good job, but email marketing is still the king of product launches. Also, this applies equally to launching new features for existing products and services.

If you’re considering starting up an email list, it’s always the right time. You can start small. Don’t wait until “you have the time to dedicated yourself to email marketing”. Fortunately, Emercury offers a 100% free plan!

This is our way of helping you avoid procrastination. We want to help you get started today. It’s ok to start small, we give you all of the features and won’t charge a penny until your list grows above a certain size.

Every day that goes by without you asking leads to sign up for your list, is another day where you’re robbing from your future self.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Use Email Marketing @Admailr #EmailMarketing #AdvertisingClick To Tweet

Reward Your Best Customers

Consider implementing a referral program. Chances are many of your best customers were referred by a raving fan. Why not reward those fans for sending you people? You can do this by implementing a referral program? If you advertise it well enough, this program can boost your sales. It will also give you an opportunity to connect with your best customers and keep them around for a long time.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Reward Your Best Customers @Admailr #EmailMarketing #AdvertisingClick To Tweet

Utilize the Power of Native Ads

Traditional ads are dying, and it’s not a slow death. Relationship driven marketing is taking over. To get more customers than your competitor, you have to evolve faster. The landscape is changing, and those who are quick to adopt relationship-driven marketing will reap the rewards.

While there are many different types of relationship-driven marketing, many of them take a lot of time to implement. Things like content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing take a while to build up.

But what if there was a way to get the immediacy of PPC advertising and all the benefits of relationship-driven marketing? There is a way to do this with native ads.

For those who don’t know – a native ad is an advertisement that follows the natural form of the medium in which it is placed. In other words, it resembles the regular content of that medium. It doesn’t stick out as a traditional display ad or banner would.

7 Bulletproof Ways to Get More Customers in 2017...Utilize the Power of Native Ads @Admailr #NativeAdvertising Click To Tweet

Admailr can help you beat the competition and get more customers

We’ve worked really hard to come up with a solution that represents the future of customer acquisition. We are combining the power of three extremely powerful lead-generation tactics in one powerful strategy.

Three Powerful Ways to Get More Customers
PPC-precision targeting	Drip (email) marketing	Native advertising

All of this power can be within your grasp today. Admailr is a revolutionary new platform where you can start using native ads right away. Your ads will be placed in email newsletters. These are emails coming from someone who has a deep relationship with the reader.

And your native ad will be right there, in the middle of that email’s regular content, but in a way where it gets the same trust as their regular newsletter content.

Admailr lets you set up your ads and campaigns in a way you’re used to with PPC advertising. You can set up targeting, budgeting and other preferences. Our system then intelligently chooses where to place these ads for the best impact.

3 Powerful Ways to Get More Customers...PPC Precision Targeting, Drip EmailMarketing, NativeAdvertising @Admailr Click To Tweet

Create an account today, it’s free

You can start experimenting with Admailr’s exciting features whenever you want. Just head on over to the free signup page and get your free account.

What are some ways you are getting more customers in 2017? Let me know in the comments and please share this article if you found it valuable 😉

Is Direct Advertising Dead? Is it time to move on?

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There is a good reason that all the experts are raving about things like content marketing, native advertising, email marketing, and building relationships. The fact is that as marketers, we’ve “killed old-fashioned direct advertising for good”. The average person today is bombarded with thousands of ads every day.

People have literally become so numb to ads, they just tune them out. The competition for attention is so fierce that you stand little chance of attracting attention.

Your customers automatically ignore most ads

Notice we said “most ads”. There are two types of advertising that people today still pay attention to:

Superbly ingenious and super-creative advertising
Ads coming from a brand that they have a relationship with

Let’s just say that the first option is out of most people’s reach. Unless you have Coca Cola’s advertising budget, you’re unlikely to achieve it. So let’s talk about the second option and what it means.

Consider the following. When you walk by a random billboard and it tells you to buy a product, you’re likely to ignore it. This is direct advertising.

When an expert that you like and trust makes positive comments about a product, you’re likely to consider it. If this person was actually sponsored to make that recommendation, then this constitutes a form of indirect marketing.

Indirect Marketing comes in many different forms

Native Advertising

This is probably the oldest form of indirect advertising. You can find examples going back to the 18th century. One of the nicknames for this type is familiar to many people. You might have heard about “advertorials”. This is a good (albeit simplified) way to describe native advertising.

It is simply where an advertising campaign is shaped in the form of editorial content. To the reader, it is indistinguishable from that publication’s typical content. It has the same “look & feel”. Except it is written by an advertiser.

The primary idea is that it still needs to provide value like an editorial piece would. Yes, the advertiser wants to promote something. But they only do it through giving valuable content. In that sense native advertising is similar to content marketing.

Branded Content

If you’ve ever seen the line “sponsored content”, then you know what this is about. In fact, this is probably the easiest way to distinguish native ads and branded content.

Content Marketing

At first glance, it might seem like content marketing has overlap with the previous two. However, there is a clear demarcation. It is about who owns the medium that publishes the content.

If you run your own company blog and you invest in producing valuable content for future and existing customers – this is content marketing. Native and branded refer to creating content that appears in publications and media owned by others.

Search Marketing

Any strategy that focuses on getting more visitors from the search engines is a “search marketing strategy”. This isn’t separate from content marketing. In fact, there’s a big overlap between the two. Almost all search marketing strategies involve the use of content.

At the same time, anyone involved with doing content marketing will tend to consider the SEM implications of any content that they publish.

Social Media Marketing

This is in some ways similar to content marketing. It also involves producing content of value to potential and current customers. The main defining feature is that it gets done through social media channels. Sometimes the exact same content may be part of your content marketing and your social media marketing. These two are overlapping, not exclusive strategies.

Embedded Marketing

Most people are familiar with embedded marketing. The most popular example is when you see product placement in a new Hollywood movie. By definition, it is supposed to be “subtle”.

Perhaps your favorite TV show or music video has an “obvious” product placement. In such a case the marketer has failed at achieving “embedded marketing”. Though in some cases it may be done on purpose to get people talking about the “obvious product placement”.

Referral Marketing

Most referrals in business happen organically. That is, some of your customers love your stuff and just happen to recommend you. On the other hand, there are ways to encourage this process. You can be methodical about increasing the number of referrals. When you do this, you are engaging in “referral marketing”.

Affiliate Marketing

The same phrase refers to two sides of the same coin. If you’re promoting someone’s products for a commission, you are doing “affiliate marketing” as an affiliate. If you have an affiliate program to recruit affiliates to promote your products – you’re also “engaging in affiliate marketing”.

Drip Marketing

In some ways, drip marketing is very similar to content marketing. You produce content that your future customers would love. And you give it to them for free. The difference is in the delivery method.

Whereas content marketing “attracts visitors”, drip marketing communicates to them directly. In “content marketing” people need to discover your company blog or web-site first and then choose to continue consumption.

Typically they will first discover just one of your articles. This might happen because a friend sent them a link, they found it through a google search or one of many other ways. To consume more of your stuff they have to decide to keep exploring your blog and find other articles. They decide which is the next piece of content and when to go looking for it.

If you run a blog full of great advice on a topic, someone can just come in and binge on all your free stuff in a single day. If you choose to send the same type of content in intervals over email – you are doing “drip marketing”.

In drip marketing, you decide the schedule. This typically involves email marketing automation. You decide which type of content they receive at what point in time. You can accomplish this with traditional sequencing. Or you can get even fancier and use the latest forms of email automation.

All of this allows you to weave a narrative. It allows you to create a storyline. You can take the reader through a journey. A journey full of giving them (dripping) value on them, where the end conclusion is a subtle nudge towards your product or service. Purchasing your stuff becomes the resolution to the story.

The term “drip marketing” has in some ways become synonymous with “email marketing”. You can use other channels to do “drip marketing”. But email marketing is still king in this field. This is because of the low cost and great automation features provided by good ESPs.

Each one of these is killing direct advertising

While this might sound like a hyped-up statement, it is not. Research consistently shows us that relationship-based advertising destroys traditional advertising. One study found that branded content was 24% more effective at increasing purchase intent.

In another report by BI intelligence, we see even better evidence for the coming death of direct advertising. Whereas advertisers in 2013 only spent $4.7 billion on native, in 2017 it’s expected to be $7.9 billion. But get this, in 2018 they are projecting this will rise to $21 billion! No, that is not a typo.

Similar trends can be seen in all of these other alternatives. For example in 2012 only 60% of corporations used content marketing. By 2013 this number jumped to 93%.

The reasons for this trend are clear. Traditional advertising overwhelms people and creates high levels of skepticism and distrust. People always prefer buying from someone they trust. And they trust those with whom they have a relationship.

These trends will only keep accelerating. Everyone is abandoning traditional advertising and for a good reason. It no longer works. When you read about how much companies are increasing their efforts and investments into relationship-based strategies – it isn’t because of larger marketing budgets.

This is effort and money that is being diverted away from traditional advertising. It is being redirected to these new forms of marketing for a good reason. They work.

What if there was a way to use ads in relationship-based marketing?

That’s where native advertising comes in. It is clear that traditional display ads are slowly dying, and native ads are taking over. When you switch to native advertising, you don’t have to give up on advertising completely. Not everyone has the time to build a relationship with their potential customers. Doing advertising is still the best way to get your first customers quickly.

But what if there was a way to borrow from someone else’s relationship capital? What if you could get the best of both worlds? The immediacy of advertising, combined with the benefits of trust in relationship-based drip marketing? And then, what if this method allowed you to use native ads whenever you wanted to?

Introducing Admailr – Now you can get the best of both worlds. If you build an email list of committed fans, this will be the best long-term investment you ever make. And we do hope you take the time to build that list for your business. When you pitch to your email list, you will see the most outrageously high conversion rates anywhere. Nothing beats good email marketing.

But you don’t have to wait until you have your own list. What if you could just advertise on the list of someone who already has a legion of fans. These are people who trust anything this expert tells them. They eagerly await and open every latest issue of those newsletters.

If a native ad appears in that newsletter and points them to your content, magic happens. They are just as likely to devour it as if it were content by that newsletter author. The one that they trust and love getting newsletters from.

And that’s not all – our system supports traditional display ads as well. If you still want to use some of your traditional ads and banners, you can do that too. You will still get a much better result having those display ads shown to a newsletter reader than if you continue putting them in front of random cold traffic.

How it Works – The Killer Features – Our FAQ

At Admailr we’ve worked really hard to leverage the power of relationship-based marketing for advertisers. With AdMailr you can enjoy the same gratification you have in PPC advertising. You can set up your ads, targeting, budgeting and other preferences.

We do all the rest. Our system will make sure you get those amazing results that only a pre-existing relationship can provide. We choose the right newsletters to show your ads, and we choose the perfect placement inside of the newsletter.

Create your account right now – it’s free. Getting started is a breeze. There are no setup fees, minimum budgets or anything to allow you to procrastinate. Giving this a go is extremely low-risk. You can create a small campaign and test out this strategy today. Find out what it can do for you and your business.