Publisher Objections To Native Advertising And Why They Are Wrong

Native advertising is lauded in equal measure as the saviour and the pariah of modern publishing; it’s the Justin Beiber and marmite of online publishing all rolled into one. Some people love it, others cannot stand it. But just like Beiber, I’m sure, native advertising can be misunderstood.

If you look at publishing evolution over the last decade or so, publishers have had to move fast and adapt, but most, to steal Mark Zuckerberg’s phrase, have not had the luxury of being able to ‘move fast and break things’. Rather it has been more a case of trying to ‘move fast, and not break anything’, as many publishers moving online have been forced not to disrupt too much of their print heritage business models.

Technological innovation swept many publishers by. We’ve had email, display, search, social, video, mobile, RTB and plenty more besides; every new ad format and digital ad solution promised to revolutionise digital publishing once and for all. And in fairness most of the above listed did revolutionise digital publishing; just not in the way most established publishers would ever want.

Instead of additional revenue, which most of these ad solutions promised, many publishers have seen their userbase carved up by younger, more agile publishing start-ups.

Native advertising: the return to content

And now we have native advertising. Native advertising is a return to what publishers have been doing for 100+ years; creating and sharing interesting branded content with a relevant audience. Native has content at its heart. Publishers instinctively love this. Most publishers can see the possibilities and benefits of running native advertising; most would have been doing versions of native themselves for years. It’s what they do best.

But many are worried that native will be overrun and commoditised by the behemoth that is the online ad industry. Research commissioned by native ad provider Adyoulike has revealed that native advertising is set to account for 15% of all display ad budgets by 2015. So the opportunity is huge.

Many publishers see ad-tech providers, brand content experts, and digital marketers in general as non-content folk blurring the lines between advertising and content. Little wonder that there are some sceptics out there, suspicious of all things dubbed ‘native advertising’.

Fixed tenancy: the last bastions of a print mentality to be found online

The majority of publishers that have major objections to the growth of ‘native advertising’ technologies tend to be publishers that make a significant amount of their revenue from selling fixed sponsored content placements to their customers. These tend to be bespoke pieces of content, typically sold on a fixed tenancy basis. They are the last bastions of a print mentality to be found online, a place where irritating client requirements like accountability, reach, conversions and ROI are not an issue; CPMs, engagement rates and KPIs often outweighed by more visceral requirements like does it look good, or does it have a jazzy headline. These publishers are right to safeguard this format – it generates good money – but in my opinion does little to future-proof their business for the content-led ad-tech innovations that are on the horizon. It cannot scale and will be left behind by the avalanche of creativity that has content at its core.

Scale

The scale of content that will need to be created by brands is only going to increase in the future. How that content is created, and what form that content is going to take, are major issues; the elephant in the room for any agency and brand is scaling quality content.

How you create it, and how you distribute to the right audience. It’s a real challenge that all brands and their agencies are currently wrestling with. But few are arguing that brands will not need it.

Which is why publishers need to embrace native ad-tech specialists that are emerging, not resist them like some sort of cuckoo in the nest. They offer considerable opportunities to future-proof a publishing business for ongoing growth.

Here’s why:

Ad-Tech Expertise

Native advertising may not be new, but the scale and reach is. And with that comes a major technology challenge. Do publishers have the best technology to run native advertising campaigns? In my experience, no. Typically most publishers run their native advertising through their own content management systems – they run the ad content in there with the news, sport and feature content. The metrics they deliver are what you would expect from a CMS; fairly comprehensive to a degree, but all held with the publisher. There is no third party access allowed to review stats in real-time. Plus the stats are often not detailed enough to what a brand advertiser is looking to report on. Native ad platforms typically provide publishers and their advertisers with far more efficient data-sets – social reach, social shares (across multiple website placements), time on site, mobile, tablet & desktop data are all provided.

Separation of Church from State

Crucially though, just by the very fact that native advertising is running on a separate platform to a publisher CMS – it means that publishers can clearly divorce native advertising content from their standard editorial. This is key to distinguishing any blurred lines around native advertising and counteracts any publisher editorial team objections. It will go a long way to ensuring your editorial team do not view native ads as the Ebola virus.

Native advertising expertise

Publishers believe they are the best at native advertising; they know their audience, their sites, their users. But native advertising specialists can assist here too. They can offer assistance on where best to place native advertising, so you can run more effective campaigns.

Native content expertise

No matter how good your in-house brand content team, they are sometimes limited by a lack of data about what content performs best for native advertising. On the flipside, a native ad platform that has run hundreds or even thousands of campaigns has great insight into what content works best, where.

The native advertising opportunity

Publishers have a major opportunity with native advertising to restore their flagging online revenues. Adopting a lofty attitude that ‘they know best’ when it comes to all things content would be a failure on the part of publishers to embrace the changing shape of online advertising and the benefits that native ad-tech providers can bring to their changing business models.

Publisher Objections To Native Advertising And Why They Are Wrong