Let's start with some definitions:
- Content marketing - the larger umbrella which essentially covers everything. Advertisers create content that educates, entertains or otherwise engages a user, without the primary purpose being to sell. Sometimes it's as subtle as just a small logo of the brand included at the end of an article.
- Content- lots of definitions here but effectively comes in three main forms: videos, articles, or social media posts (status updates, tweets, vines, etc). For most publishers it will probably be articles or video. Tying into the above definition, content that is paid for by a brand and includes some hints to the brand name is called sponsored content.
- Native advertising - this is really a format for ad units that places them within the content feed rather than making space for them explicitly, like banners. This leads to sites that look better and ads that aren't intrusive (no popups, overlays, etc). Users can read them or just skip them like any other headline they're not interested.
- Landing pages - these don't count as "content" but are just highly optimized selling pages with a call to action to get a conversion (signup, purchase, etc). These are not recommended for use with native ads.
- "Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it's an ad." - Howard Gossage
So assuming branded content, should a native ad drive to the article hosted somewhere else or on the same site?
Instinctive syndicates sponsored content and runs both types of options. Our real results after billions of impressions shows that keeping the sponsored content on the same site is almost 2x as effective, with more clicks, less bounce rates, more time spent and more recall by users.
Reasons why:
- Users do not like jumping to different sites, it breaks their current experience, increases loading time with a new site, surprises them with more ads, and generally annoys them as something unexpected. Having the sponsored content on the same site avoids any bounce issues as it's treated like just another page.
- Most advertisers don't have great "sites" to send users to. Again landing pages are not "content" and shouldn't be used, and sending people to a corporate blog can turn people away. Even good content with gentle branding can look bad or lose value when shown on a corporate portal or site that is full of other marketing messages.
- Publishers don't like losing traffic and if the destination isn't good, users will blame the original site as low quality for sending them to a bad location. Instead of just losing a pageview, publishers might lose the user completely by sending them to a page out of their control.
- Content on the same site will load faster and reduce waiting times while potentially sharing in the reputation and voice of the publisher. Most sites should be careful about what ads they're running but with good moderation, this can lead to more trust and engagement by users.
Overall, data and results have always shown that sponsored content delivered to the user where they already are performs better in every way. Occasionally some advertisers just want traffic and clicks but more sophisticated marketers are learning that attention and engagement are what matter and will deliver far more ROI.
This post was originally published on Quora at Are native ads more successful & effective if they direct the user to the advertiser's landing page or to sponsored content on the same site?
