Programmatic Vs. Native Advertising: Which is Best for You?

Native and programmatic advertising are different aspects of digital advertising. Native advertising refers to how advertising is published, and programmatic advertising is a way to buy and sell digital advertising spaces. Find out more about programmatic vs native advertising and how they both fill important roles in digital advertising campaigns. 

WHAT IS NATIVE ADVERTISING? 

Native advertising is when paid ads look and feel like part of the website they are served on. The goal with native ads is to create so cohesive content that it seamlessly blends in with the organic page content. 

Native advertisements have some sort of an indicator that they are an ad, but that can be hidden in the small print and easily overlooked.

While it has become more popular to use native ads in digital advertising, it’s been in practice for decades in print media. It isn’t uncommon for a magazine or newspaper to have advertisements that look and feel like an organic article from the company but are written and produced by another company trying to advertise their brand. 

EXAMPLES OF NATIVE ADVERTISING

One of the most common types of native advertising is sponsored articles. These articles appear to have been written and produced by the website or news organization, but upon a closer look, they’re written, edited, and produced by a third party. 

Identifying native advertising can be tricky because it is intended to look exactly like organic content. A quick way to identify native advertising is by focusing on who wrote the article in the byline. For most organic content, the byline will include a person’s name and sometimes even their picture. Instead of having “Written by John Doe,” the byline in native advertising might say something like “Promoted content by…” or “Sponsored by…” and have a company’s name.

Native advertising is also rampant in social media ads. This is how you can scroll through social media and see a post for a fast-food restaurant, a clothing company, or the newest model of car on the market. Native ads will look exactly like a post from a person you follow, when instead they’re from a company promoting a new product or service. 

BENEFITS OF NATIVE ADVERTISING

The biggest benefit, and the entire purpose of native advertising, is that it is less disruptive. Compared to large banner ads that are frequently looked over and ignored, native advertising is often not seen as an advertisement, and just a natural part of a website that does not change the user experience, while still improving brand image and exposure. 

Because native advertising is less intrusive and disruptive, it also experiences a higher engagement rate. More customers are willing to interact with native ads because they don’t feel like they’re being aggressively sold on a product or being taken away from the content they came to experience. 

The primary issue with native advertising is that some consumers see it as a deceptive marketing tactic. Just as people don’t want their lives to be continually disrupted by bold, intrusive ads, they don’t want to be tricked into “wasting their time” on content that turns out to be an ad. 

When native ads are too well integrated, it can make the customer feel manipulated and lied to and potentially damage the brand’s reputation by appearing secretive, sneaky, and willing to use underhanded tactics. 

WHAT IS PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING? 

Programmatic advertising is only used in digital advertising and focuses on automating the process of buying and selling digital advertising space in programmatic networks like the Google Display Network (GDN). Through this automation process, companies who want to buy ad space can automatically place their ads based on identifying characteristics of consumers to help improve the chances of placing the ad for the right target audience.

EXAMPLES OF PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING

The majority of advertising online is programmatic. Most websites that have a banner ad or a sidebar of advertisements do so through programmatic advertising. 

If you’ve ever searched for something in the morning, and then by that afternoon you start to see ads for that product or similar brands on every site you visit, you’ve been targeted by programmatic advertising. The algorithm identified your interests, and then companies were able to automatically purchase ad space that would put their brand in front of you as you searched the internet. 

BENEFITS OF PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING

Compared to native advertising which casts a very broad net, programmatic advertising allows for significantly better targeting. Companies have more control over who is served their ad, which helps them speak directly to their target audience. Improved targeting helps improve conversion rates because there won’t be as much wasted spend targeting an uninterested audience. 

Another benefit of programmatic advertising is that it is designed to be streamlined and easy to manage. Compared to the complex process of buying, creating, and managing a native advertising campaign, programmatic advertising is simple to set up. Even small startups can easily create and manage multiple programmatic advertising campaigns through a single platform like Agility. 

CHOOSE AGILITY

The Agility platform makes it easy for any company to create and manage native advertisement campaigns. Contact us today to see for yourself how powerful, and efficient the Agility platform is to use.