Hello dear friends!

Today we would like to share some thoughts about native advertising. What is it and what is its future? Stefanie Schröer from onlinemarketing.de will help us answer these questions.

Not so long ago Stefanie approached us with a request to answer a couple of questions for her new article. It was about native advertising. And this topic appeared to be very interesting.

Let’s clarify what native ads are? Native advertising (as Wikipedia tells us) is a type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. In many cases, it manifests as either an article or video, produced by an advertiser with the specific intent to promote a product, while matching the form and style which would otherwise be seen in the work of the platform’s editorial staff. The word “native” refers to this coherence of the content with the other media that appears on the platform. Remember some posts which you saw on websites or blogs of interest, which ‘gently’ told you about advantages of some goods.

Promotional articles, sponsored posts, product placement in videos: there is no mechanism for their blocking. And actually it’s a good question whether they should be blocked or not. Such advertising is unobtrusive and moreover is much more of interest for users than various annoying banners. After all this kind of advertising is in fact “waiting” for user just where he is looking for desirable content.

Stefanie Schröer wondered what would happen with this form of advertising? Will it share the fate of banners – whether it will be removed by ad blocking programs? And for answers she came to us and our colleagues – ABP and AdBlock.

For example, we believe that it is not up to us to decide what should be blocked. We always rely only on the wishes of our users. But for now we can not imagine that you, dear friends, will ask us to block the entire contents of the website. In addition, technically it would be very difficult to determine the quality of such content, and what should be blocked, and what is not.

Colleagues agree and add that advertisers and publishers shall create and publish adequate ads, and if they can not cope with this task, blockers will simply have to create new content filters.
Native advertising is a new form of online advertising, which in theory should make the entire industry rethink the concept of online ads. By installing ad blocker, users make it clear that the current situation (with tons of intrusive banners) is not appropriate.

However it is a too positive forecast. Let’s recall many sites which introduce ‘sanctions’ against users who install ad blockers by blocking the visiting/content/high quality view and such. They are still trying to impose old form of advertising on users.

But this way is a deadlock. And the best decision will be ads which do not annoy. Advertising that really is of interest and value to users. Advertisers and publishers should listen to opinions of their audience, or ultimately it may all simply lead to creation of new content filters.

We would also like to add that such advertising should not be excessive as well. Remember the episode of South Park about reading news. At some point, users can simply be tired of the fact that all the content on the website is just advertising. And this will lead to a loss of audience.

PS: By the way if you are interested you can look at some examples of good native ads.