Native marketing: Tips, benefits & more

Do you want to promote your products and services effectively but want to do it naturally? Then you are in the right place. Native advertising is the best way to do this! By using various types of digital native marketing, you can present your products and services to your customers without the air of advertising. Continue reading our article to learn how!

In this article, we talk about the definition of native marketing and its advantages. We also teach you about native marketing types and five native marketing examples. Finally, you can continue reading to learn six expert tips for success in native marketing. If you're ready, let's start by understanding what native digital marketing is!

What is native marketing?

You can promote your products and services through these advertising campaigns without interrupting your users' experience. Offering ads to your users as a natural part of their experience will help you increase interaction, conversion rates, and, therefore, sales and brand awareness.

6 Advantages of native marketing

Native marketing advantages

Running a native marketing campaign benefits your business in many ways. Your native ad campaign integrates with the platform you’re adapting or running on and doesn’t directly generate ads. Therefore, it allows you to encourage purchasing behavior from your customers in a less intrusive approach. Here are some of the benefits of running a native marketing campaign:

🔔 Increases brand awareness: Native ads do not disrupt the user experience because they are campaigns you present to your customers as part of the content. Thus, they increase brand awareness by allowing you to reach a wider audience.

🔔 Improves user experience: Native ads tailored to the interests and preferences of your target audience enable you to enhance the user experience.

🔔 Distinguishes from your competitors: It allows you to differentiate yourself from competitors by creating more original and natural content than traditional advertising methods.

🔔 Offers more direct measurement: It is easier to evaluate ad campaigns for Native compared to other campaigns.

🔔 Builds consumer trust: Native ads also help you gain consumers' trust by allowing you to take a more natural and friendly approach.

🔔 Increases engagement: Native ads help you get higher engagement than banner ads because they appear naturally in front of your consumers due to their format.

6 Native marketing types

Types of native marketing

There are numerous native marketing methods that you can utilize to promote your products or services without disrupting the user experience. You can run numerous native marketing campaigns in various formats that align with your goals. Below, we have listed these types of native marketing strategies for you:

1. In-feed ads

In-stream ads appear naturally in the content stream that users consume. You can convey your message naturally by placing these ads on platforms your customers use the most, such as social media and news sites. Due to their format, these ads are designed to be a natural part of the stream, thus attracting your customers' attention without causing discomfort.

2. Branded content

Branded content occurs when brands collaborate with publications, influencers, or YouTubers to create engaging content that reflects their brand identity. This content can include blog posts, videos, or social media posts. It appears to be independent and natural content, which does not create a perception of advertising while attracting consumers' attention.

3. Promoted listings

Promoted listings are campaigns in which brands pay to have their products appear higher in search results on e-commerce platforms. With this campaign, you can increase the visibility of certain brand products and encourage purchasing behavior. Thus, you can highlight your products or services by matching them with the words that users search for.

4. Paid search ads

Although similar to promoted listings, paid search ads differ in terms of platform. While promoted listings are used on e-commerce platforms, paid search ads are campaigns designed to rank higher on search engines. As with promoted listings, you can attract your users' attention with specific keywords and thus increase your conversion rates.

5. Content recommendations

Content recommendations are native advertising tools that allow you to suggest additional content on your website based on the products your users are interested in. Through these ads, you can offer relevant content based on your users’ past experiences and encourage them to purchase. Offering products to your users based on their interests also allows you to provide a personalized experience.

6. Sponsored content

Sponsored content is a type of advertising that is very similar to branded content, but it differs in one respect. In this native advertising type, unlike branded content, you should state that the content you create through an influencer, YouTuber, or publication is sponsored by your brand.

5 Examples of native marketing

Native ads help you build trust with your consumers by allowing for a more natural promotion. You can review successful examples of native ads and then use them as inspiration to create your campaign. Below are 5 examples of native marketing campaigns from famous brands that set an example with their success:

1. Netflix - The New York Times collaboration

Netflix native marketing example (Source: Observer)

Netflix partnered with the New York Times to promote the Orange Is the New Black series. It created editorial content around the series’ theme and characters. This content was both informative and entertaining, aiming to increase engagement. By including the New York Times’ audience in its target audience, it expanded its target audience and built trust.

2. Red Bull - Content ads

Red Bull native marketing example (Source: SprintZeal)

As we all know, Red Bull frequently incorporates extreme sports into many of its campaigns. In this way, it aims to attract the attention of its customers and create a natural promotional campaign instead of a direct marketing strategy. It publishes videos on its own media platform, Red Bull TV, as well as documents and blog posts about this lifestyle on social media and various other media channels.

3. NASA - James Webb Space Telescope blog posts

NASA native marketing example (Source: Wikipedia)

NASA aimed to inform its audience through various blog posts and articles about the James Webb Space Telescope. At the same time, it effectively used social media and multiple visuals, paid posts, and infographics. With this native advertising strategy, NASA aimed to promote its content and increase the interest of its target audience.

4. Verizon and LinkedIn - Future Fund collaboration

Verizon native marketing example (Source: yellowHEAD)

Verizon launched the Future Fund campaign in partnership with LinkedIn. Through this native advertising campaign, they aimed to start a conversation about the social issue of gender inequality and the roles women play in different sectors. They created LinkedIn profiles for women in different sectors in these roles, and these profiles received a lot of engagement on LinkedIn.

5. Amazon - Related product recommendation widgets

Amazon native marketing example (Source: Amazon)

Amazon is a brand that has effectively used and succeeded in many marketing campaigns. However, Amazon's product recommendations are one of the most successful examples of advertising. Amazon offers product recommendations to its customers in various formats. 

These recommendations are under multiple headings, such as recently viewed products, agricultural history, previous purchasing behaviors, or best sellers. Amazon successfully applies product recommendation personalizations and effectively targets without creating an advertising feeling.

6 Pro tips for your native marketing process

You’ve learned successful native marketing examples. Now, it’s time to learn the pro tips you need to consider when implementing native marketing into your business. By following these 6 tips, you can create the most effective native marketing strategy for your business:

🔐 Understand your target audience: Understanding your audience's expectations and preferences in detail allows you to direct your native marketing strategies effectively. You can also use the best marketing survey types to deeply understand your customers and learn about their preferences and behaviors.

🔐 Create native content that resonates with your customers: To capture the attention of your target audience, your native advertising campaigns should be engaging and of high quality. Whether you start dropshipping or expand your market, creating native content (or making collaborations for it) can significantly boost the brand/product awareness and have an impact on your sales. There is an emphasis on "resonates" here. Ensure your content marketing is helpful to your target audience.

🔐 Choose the proper native advertising platform: The correct distribution strategy helps you effectively target native customers and create a satisfied customer profile. You can especially run a native marketing campaign on platforms where your target audience is active.

For example, you can conduct a digital marketing campaign that benefits from paid advertisements or other native ad formats through social media platforms.

🔐 Improve customer experience: When creating a native advertising campaign, improving the user experience will increase your business satisfaction. Creating a satisfied customer profile is one of the most critical steps in achieving success based on your goals.

🔐 Determine what you aim for with this campaign: Defining goals is vital for creating a successful native marketing strategy, as it is for any marketing strategy. What do you want to achieve with your native marketing strategy? Knowing the answer to this question allows you to create the right native marketing strategy and achieve your goals.

🔐 Follow up on the performance of your campaigns: Evaluating and tracking your native marketing campaign results enables you to identify what went right and wrong in your campaign process and assess its effectiveness. You can benefit from marketing statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of our campaign and run more effective campaigns and regular content in the future.

Key points to take away

You can interact with your customers more effectively and intimately through native ads. These ad campaigns allow you to introduce your products and services naturally, as they have a less intrusive approach to your customers due to their format. It does not create a direct advertising perception in your target audience, but builds trust. Therefore, your customers will show a higher tendency for purchasing behavior.

In this article, we define native marketing and talk about the benefits of native advertising and its types. Then, we include five successful examples of native advertising in digital marketing. Finally, you can see the six pro tips for your native marketing process.