Online marketing and advertising experts spend a lot of time, and their customers spend a lot of money, trying to find the most cost-efficient ways to reach the largest audiences. Over the years, online publishers have learned that they have an advantage over printed publications in that ad placement can be dynamic and focused on the individual reader’s preferences. Native advertising has become very popular over the past few years and the reason is native advertising takes full advantage of the benefits offered to online publishers.
SEE ALSO: Can Native Ads Boost Your Audience Engagement?
What Is Native Advertising?
According to AdRants.com, nearly seven out of every 10 Internet users wants to see more information about products mixed in with online content instead of contained in banner ads or pop-ups. Native advertising is advertising that is mixed in with the format of content and appears naturally alongside whatever content the user is reading. Native advertising does not take away from the enjoyment of the article and it does not block the user’s ability to see the content.
Facebook Is Starting To Dominate Native Advertising
Facebook recently released new elements to its Facebook Audience Network, which is Facebook’s native advertising program. The social media giant has developed templates and monitoring programs that create more effective native ads and then automatically include those ads in content around the Internet.
According to Social Times, the reach of the Facebook Audience Network increased fivefold between October 2014 and May 2015. Facebook is reporting increased reaches of up to 33 percent, while lowering client marketing costs by as much as 40 percent. With numbers like that, it is easy to see why the Facebook Audience Network is so popular.
Facebook Is The Source For Native Advertising
Social Times also indicates that the Facebook Audience Network now reaches more prospective consumers than News Feed. The News Feed app has had a head start on Audience Network, which accounts for News Feed’s incredible reach and app download rates. But when it comes to value and reaching a target audience, News Feed cannot compete with Facebook.
Facebook Has Tapped The Native Ads Market
One of the biggest advantages Facebook has over News Feed is that Facebook can use its social media market data to determine exactly what consumers want to see in their native advertising. In this way, Facebook can turn the data it generates all day long into marketing data that will help its customers to generate even more effective native advertising.
Facebook has plans to expand Audience Network and reach even more users, but it is the conversion rate that makes Audience Network so effective. Native advertising is designed to add value for the user and Facebook is constantly figuring out new ways to enhance the value that its advertisers offer consumers. As Facebook continues to grow, the data it collects will help it to develop even more effective native advertising ideas and that is probably bad news for News Feed and other online and app-based native advertising companies.
How will Facebook’s utilization of native advertising impact users? Have users begun to catch on?