Display ads ruled the roost in the ad market for a long time until native advertisement came and disrupted the market. Today, marketers prefer native ads, but display ads are not completely out of reckoning.
Advertisers prefer native ads because of its high efficiency, but there are situations in which they feel that display ads can serve their needs better. That’s why they need to create ad space for both the mediums.
Let’s take a closer look at both these ads:
Native Ads
Native ads are designed to feel and appear like the natural or native content of a website. Native ads often appears in the form of ‘promoted’ and ‘suggested’ content. They are placed in such a manner that these ads blend seamlessly with the original content and are hence more likely to get a click from readers.
Visitors interact with native ads in the same way they interact with the web content. These stats show how visitors feel about native ads and display ads:
- Native ads get 53 percent higher attention that display ads
- Native ads are remembered by 25 percent of visitors whereas only 20 percent visitors remember display ads
- 32 percent visitors are more likely to share native ads with their friends and family members. The comparative percentage for display ads is 19 only.
Native ads are placed as a part of the subject around them. They do not stand out as promotional and are often mistaken to be just like other content on a page.
They could appear like:
- A recommendation at the end of a page
- A social media feed that looks like a post
- A promoted search result in the top page of a search engine result
Visitors have indicated that they have no issues with ads showing up on their web pages as long as they do not interfere with their tasks.
Display Ads
Display ads, also known as banner ads, and have been around for many years now. To grab the attention of visitors, the ads are placed alongside the main content in various types, formats, and sizes. Images, audio, and video formats are seen in the evolved format of display ads. As mentioned earlier, display ads dominated the advertising arena until the advent of native advertising.
Display ads stand out from the rest of the content and make no attempt to be subtle and indirect.
These ads are downright promotional and always aim at marketing something. The most popular forms of display ads are:
- Banner ads
- Pop-ups
- Pre-roll videos
- PPC ads
Native or Display Ads? What Is Your Take
Both types of ads deliver results with varying levels of effectiveness in promoting a brand or business. However, there is a definite shift towards native ads because of the many advantages it offers over display ads.
It is important for marketers and advertisers to understand where to use native ads and where display ads will be more effective.
Native Ads Works Better While Targeting a Niche Audience
Native ads can be the right choice for promoting your business or content to a small audience. They are a niche audience reading content in a specific place such as magazines, blogs and other similar pages.
If you need to promote your business or content to a small niche audience that reads content in a small set of specific places, aim to use native advertising. Use content in the form of an article style ad that blends smoothly with its surroundings to improve the chances of your niche audience reading your information.
Use Native Ads On Sites That Visitors Love Using
Some types of sites are the favorites of visitors. They are most likely to click and interact with the content of these pages. Sites that have surveys, quizzes, and social media content are the places where readers are most likely to engage with the content and perform specific actions such as post comments or click on like and share.
Social media is just the kind of place that native ad makers adore as social media advertising relates completely to the style and context of native advertising.
Use Display Ads To Perk Up Visual Content
Display ads can be the perfect promotional material for those ads high on visual content such as images and videos. Native ads are inherently text-based, as it often formatted. A display ad serves the purpose of a billboard for displaying the ad in a predominantly visual format. It is the best way of gaining attention of an audience that likes visuals.
A key difference between native ads and display ads is that native ads offer the choice of whether readers want to click on an ad. They can click on the ad if it appears interesting. And that increases conversion rates.
Display ads do not provide that crucial option.
This brings us to the crucial part:
Traffic and Revenue
Research data show that native ads hold the edge when it comes to revenue and traffic. Users view native ads 53 percent more than display ads. They also show an 18 percent increase in intent of buying after viewing native ads.
However, the most important factor is the click-through rate as it is a measure of the effectiveness of an ad. A study on the subject reveals that display ads have a click-through rate of just 0.05 percent compared to 0.38 percent of native ads. That’s a significant difference, and this piece of stats matter the most to advertisers.
And that’s not all.
More interesting stats are available, which states that 32 percent of users are more likely to share a native ad they like with friends and family. The relevant percentage for display ads in the same context is just 19.
And you can go beyond vanilla native ads now because there is also this programmatic native advertising. It makes use of machine learning to make native ads even more relevant to users. Another chance to increase your traffic even more!
Conclusion
Display ads and native ads are just two of the most popular and commonly used forms of advertising in a digital marketing world that is becoming increasingly complex. However, you can optimize the output of your marketing efforts by placing ads in a way that people respond to them in a very positive manner. For this, you must understand the nuances of each type of ad.
Both native advertising and display advertising offer effective ways of promoting a business. Both the approaches work. But you must know the areas where each one will be more effective than the other. And when you are able to decode that, it can help you get the best ROI on your ads.
