Native Ads: What are they? What benefits do they bring?

February 21, 2023

Alina Hasnaș

Native ads: what are they and how do they work?

Native Ads (or Native advertising) is a type of paid, native advertising where ads match the look, feel, and function of the media format in which they appear. It fits "natively" and perfectly on the web page.

Native Advertising is a type of promotion that tries to be as least intrusive as possible. It is a way to do natural advertising, but in recent years, Native Ads have also started many controversies, because here the advertising message is delivered in a form very similar to the context in which it appears, taking over the form and functions of the online platform on which it appears.

Stay with us to find out how this type of advertising works and how it evokes different feelings in the target audience.

First, Native Advertising is difficult to differentiate from editorial content and can be very similar to authored material or genuine editorial.

Native Ads - what they are

A brief history of Native ads

Native Advertising comes after Embedded Marketing, also used for the subtle promotion of products/services.

Types and forms of Native Ads

Today, various forms of Native Ads can be distinguished, with diverse placement and function.

Native Ads in Feed

The advertising message is in this case placed in the feed of the broadcast platform. That is, where the site's main content resides and resembles (both visually and content-wise) the platform's organic messaging. Sometimes you might not even notice it's an ad when you see sponsored posts in your Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook feeds.

Search Ads

Advertising is just as organic in Google search results. These are contextual ads and are displayed immediately above the organic results:

Content Recommendation Widgets

Recommendation widgets are not part of the editorial content of the site, but are part of the content strategy and attract attention with quality information such as: "you may also be interested in", "read also", and "articles that are relevant".

Promoted Listings

They are present on large affiliate platforms, classifieds sites, or price comparison sites, where there are many, many ads. As with Google Ads, these are contextual ads. They have a discreet "sponsored" mention but have a more prominent position on the page.