The What and Why: Native Ads and Programmatic Advertising

Ever heard of Native Advertising?

From some basic research, I've gathered that it’s a new type of advertising that mixes content marketing with paying for ad placement that looks and feels like the surrounding site the ad sits on. Another way to look at Native Advertising is by thinking of it as paid content marketing.

But let’s be clear—Native Advertising is NOT content marketing.

While content marketing involves "distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience" (CMI, 2015), Native Advertising is more along the lines of formatting that content so it almost blends into the platform you are advertising on, though viewers should still be aware that it is an ad (this is a key factor that one should never disregard when it come to Native Advertising).

Native Advertising recently leapt into the marketing world about 6 years ago. We saw it come to life when Fred Wilson first used the phrase at the Online Media, Marketing, and Advertising Conference in 2011, and since then it has become a popular way to go about advertising, especially within Podcasts.

Since it’s start, Native Advertising has become a tremendously effective way to increase conversion rates and increase brand awareness for those who chose to use these ads as a main advertising strategy. From an article by Danny Wong for Huffington Post, I learned that Native Advertising can generate up to an 82% increase in brand lift or awareness. Conversion rates have the potential to increase by up to 60% from Native Ads that include rich media in them, and purchasing intent can soar up to 53% higher with an ad that delivers content and formats itself to match the format of the medium the ad is being delivered on (Native Ads).

A Podcast called “Startup”—which first launched in 2014 and features Alex Blumberg form This American Life as the host—has had a particularly successful integration with native advertising, though it was not all fun and games in the beginning.

Gimlet Creative is a division of the larger company that produced the “Startup” podcasts, called Gimlet Media. Recently, Gimlet Creative has taken a lot of steps towards using new wave advertising (like Native Ads) and discussing topics that are trending, so as to draw in as many audiences from different age groups as possible. The most recent creation is that of a podcast series called “DTR”, where host Jane Marie (also from This American Life) discusses the different aspects of digital dating in today’s world. The series is sponsored by Tinder, and since Tinder currently hosts 74% of dating app consumers (wowza!), it’s no surprise that the app is the center of the podcast series’ focus.

The show has received mostly positive reviews, with the main rave being that it makes sense of the current struggles of digital dating and is very relatable—not to mention the real-life stories shared on the show make for a great laugh.

Here are some of the show’s reviews I found on Podbay.fm, an online podcast streaming service:

So if the show has such positive reviews, does that mean it was a good choice for Gimlet Creative to take on the show altogether?

But what about Gimlet’s credibility?

Some would argue that by focusing on the pettier aspects of a 20-30-year old’s dating life wouldn’t make for a great podcast, and could potentially tarnish the credibility of Gimlet Creative.

However, I find that opinion to be a little too closed off. Because Tinder is such a popular application among the vast majority of the 20-something audience in the world, Gimlet is increasing their chances of capturing and obtaining even more audiences and conversions. After Googling “dating advice podcasts”, a couple articles mentioning Gimlet Creative’s DTR series were among some of the first results. Its just that easy for those looking for dating advice to find this podcast series. And don’t forget that some of those reviews came from people who are already married and just looking for a laugh! Gimlet is reaching more audiences by targeting the young, single Tinder users and getting people from all over to listen, and, hopefully, become a Gimlet Creative consumer.

Do podcasts help Tinder?

While not a fan of Tinder myself, I do have an enormous respect for the founders of the app and how successful they have become due to some really great branding efforts. They saw a niche and filled it—perfectly.

By meeting their consumers where they are and offering them great, relevant content (inbound marketing at its finest!), Tinder has not only increased their brand awareness, but also increased the type of services they now offer. Sure, a no-shame dating app was more than enough for all of the 20-somethings in this world, but a podcast that offers advice on how to use that app and remind you that you are not alone in the many awkward encounters you may have while using it is incredible. Tinder has already taken over the young adult audiences of the world, and by now applying what they’ve seen and learned from doing so to a free show that people can easily relate to, their brand awareness and credibility will only go up from here. There is even a chance that people who weren’t using Tinder before but stumbled upon this podcast could easily gain interest in creating an account for themselves (as we saw from the DTR reviews above). Well played, Tinder.

While we’re focused on advertising in different mediums, there’s another topic that I believe every digital marketer should be familiar with in this day and age.

The Revolution that is Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic Advertising (yet another term I’m sure you’ve heard of but may still be a bit confused on) is described as a way for one to “deliver the right message to the right person at the right time”, (ThinkwithGoogle, 2014).

This new way of advertising is essentially a way to automatically buy advertising space that will get to your target audiences in the best way possible. Instead of a human doing the work manually, programmatic advertising platforms can bid on ad space that is set to reach the potential customers you’ve described in the most efficient way possible.

Many people have become huge supporters of programmatic advertising, and they have good reason to be. In a study done by Google and Ad Age, 44.3% current users of programmatic advertising claim that CTR increased by a noticeable amount, and 51.5% estimated that their CTR will increase two years from now.

What’s more, an incredulous amount of display ads are bought using programmatic advertising. According to DigiDay, “Nearly eight in 10 [or 85% of] mobile display ads in the U.S. are purchased programmatically” and that percentage is still expected to increase by 5% within the next two years.

The fact that programmatic advertising is taking the digital marketing world by storm is just one of the many reasons why people find programmatic advertising so revolutionary. Others include the fact that digital marketers can now spend their precious time completing other important tasks that require their full attention, rather than spending countless hours deciding where to place which ad for the *hopefully* most optimal results.

Still confused on programmatic advertising and why people love it so much? Many sites I visited while researching the subject offered the analogy of eBay. Think of yourself as the person bidding on a product that you want. Instead of trying to keep an eye on a number of similar products you’re interested in and constantly updating your bids to win one of them, programmatic advertising does it for you. You set what you want to spend (max) and the basic product type you are looking for, and programmatic advertising does the rest for you, bidding and winning exactly what you want for exactly how much you are willing to pay.

I believe it’s a bit more complicated than that, but this simple analogy really made it a lot easier for me to understand. If that example wasn’t enough, try checking out this video from Genius Monkey, which I also found to be a great resource.

So, there you have it—the basics of Native and Programmatic Advertising, and why they are absolutely relevant and useful in this new digital age. As always, feel free to start a discussion here if you have any info you think might be interesting or useful on these subjects—I’m all ears!

Cheers,

Aubrey McNeil