Native advertising tips for higher conversions

Benefits of ExoClick’s Native ads

We serve very high volumes of the Native ad format, it is ExoClick’s second highest used ad format and we serve over 50 billion of them every month. This is because the majority of our top publishers have Native ad zones implemented on their websites. Native ads are also cheaper to bid for than ordinary banner formats, plus ExoClick’s platform has lots of great tools to help you maximise your ROI. This blog post is packed with great tips to bring you higher conversions!

Variations

When publishers create a Native adzone with ExoClick’s widget the most popular varieties selected are 1×4 and 1×6. To ensure that the same ad doesn’t show twice or more in the same widget make sure that you use several different variations. Try uploading several different images and use ExoClick’s Automatic Variations Optimisation tool. The tool allows automated control over the traffic sent to a campaign’s different variations. More info here.

💡 TIP! –  Test up to 20 image variations either using the ‘Even’ algorithm or testing manually until you know which are your top 4 creatives, then use the ‘Automatic CTR’ or ‘Automatic on Conversion’’ algorithms to automatically send traffic to the best clicked or converting creative.

Keyword Insertion feature

Did you know that you can dynamically change texts within your Native ad campaigns? This is a really useful feature, particularly for GEO targeting and can really help you increase conversions. It’s all down to dynamic keyword insertion tokens, which automatically replace specific texts with keywords relevant to the end user. Check out the video below:

Here’s an example, let’s say you have a GEO localised dating product. With the dynamic keyword insertion for country, in your admin panel you can create the Native title “Meet Girls and Guys from {country_name}”. The {country_name} will be automatically updated with the country of origin pulled from the ad request, so if the ad is served in Ireland the final result will show the end user in real time the Native title “Meet Girls and Guys from Ireland.” Or you could make the ad text even more geo-localized, for example by using the {region} or {city} tokens.

Here is a full tutorial.

Keyword Insertion Language distribution

ExoClick allows you to automatically translate the Keyword Insertion token in the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.

💡 TIP! –  So now you can run the same campaign across several countries that speak the same language, for example, in Spanish speaking countries España will show for Spain using the  {country_name} token. 

Make it look even more editorial

Native ads appear like the editorial of a website’s content. ExoClick optimises your Native ad to fit into each websites look and feel, however, it is always worth looking at a website before you target it to make sure that your image and texts match or are very similar in style to the editorial content of the site. This will increase your conversions as the user will think your ad is part of the websites editorial.

Bidding 

You can bid for Native using:

• CPM – Because of ExoClick’s high volumes for Native bidding on CPM is generally cheaper than bidding on banners.
• SmartCPM – This will ensure you are the highest bidder.
• CPC – Works really well for Native because it looks like editorial content so you will get more clicks than a banner ad, but make sure your landing page is enticing to the end user so you get them into your conversion funnel or you will be wasting money on clicks that don’t convert.

Of course you can use ExoClick’s Bidder tool which will automate your bidding and block any non-converting ad zones for you. Check a tutorial here.

💡 TIP! –  Test CPM and CPC for Native and then see which is the most profitable for your offer.

Frequency Capping

As mentioned in Variations section of this post, Native uses a widget, so to ensure that your ad isn’t duplicated within the same widget make sure you set frequency capping, we recommend setting it at 1/24, so the ad will show once every 24 hours, however testing is key here.

When you turn on the Frequency Capping switch, you can then use the drop-downs to set how many impressions of each variation in the campaign a unique visitor can see within a set number of hours or minutes. You can choose from 1 to unlimited impressions.

Please note: The frequency capping settings apply for the whole campaign, but they set how many impressions each variation in the campaign can receive in a time period, not the number of impressions the whole campaign can receive.

💡TIP! – The effectiveness of an advertising message is based on repetition. By testing different types of campaigns and playing with the frequency cappings, you can fine-tune the campaign to get the right exposure and higher profits.

RON versus Premium

With RON set a low bid because volumes are high, prices are cheap and you will still be able to achieve conversions. Set up separate campaigns for Premium traffic, then compare the results.

Desktop or Mobile?

Slightly more impressions were served on mobile in Q3, and mobile also had a higher CTR than desktop, so target the device that is best suited to your offer. For example mobile games, dating, etc might be better to target mobile, but offers that work better on larger screens such as VoD should convert better on desktop.

Verticals with the best CTR

The top 6 verticals with the highest CTR on ExoClick’s network in Q3 for Native were:

Landing pages

So once a user has clicked on your Native ad you are halfway there to getting a conversion. Because of the editorial nature of a Native ad we recommend your landing page should not be pure sell. The user has clicked on your Native ad thinking it will take him to an interesting blog article or tutorial and this should be your marketing focus.

Don’t say how amazing your product is or what type of superb services you offer. Tell a story first, use the page as a tool to educate the consumer about your product or service, provide customer testimonials, if it is a live cam product try interviews with some of the models. Deliver the story first before your call to action.

In the example landing page below for a men’s skincare product it includes product branding, a reminder that this product has been seen on TV and is recommended by a Dermatologist organisation. It is informative showing a ‘before and after’ face and lists the product benefits, It includes some FAQs and celebrity endorsement from Tim Allen of ‘Home Improvement’ fame. The call to action offers a 30 day trial and takes up a smaller section on the page.

As you can see, by making the landing page more lifestyle orientated the end user feels informed because it is now much more than a straight ad. Using this type of landing page for Native ads will increase your conversions because you are engaging the consumer first and selling afterwards, Native advertising brings great results when the story comes before the promotional part.

💡 TIP! –  Test different variations of your landing pages with our Offers tool, which automates the traffic sent to different landing pages in order to see which landing page converts the best. Read this tutorial.