Native advertising
What is native advertising?
Native advertising is paid content shaped to match the medium it appears in, so it reads like the surrounding editorial rather than an interruption. It earns more attention than a banner and carries a duty in return: the label has to be visible, because advertising that hides what it is spends the publisher’s credibility, not yours.
The usual forms
- Sponsored articles on news and specialist sites, written for that site’s readers and marked as paid.
- In-feed ads on social networks, which look like ordinary posts and appear among them.
- Recommendation widgets under articles (“You may also like”), which mix paid links with the site’s own.
- Sponsored listings in marketplaces and search results, shown among the regular ones.
What they have in common is that the ad takes the shape of the content around it. What they must also have in common is a visible label: in the EU, presenting paid content as independent editorial is an unfair commercial practice.
Example
A producer of natural cosmetics pays a lifestyle site €600 for a sponsored article on choosing a sunscreen for sensitive skin, written by the site’s editors with the producer’s expertise, marked “Partner content” and naming the brand as one of the options. The article is read by 9,000 people, 540 click through to the shop, and 31 of them order in the first month.
The same budget in display banners on the same site brought 160 clicks and 6 orders the season before. The article also keeps bringing visits from search for months, while a banner stops the day it is switched off.
Why it matters for a business
Native advertising earns more attention than a banner because it gives the reader something: an answer, a guide, a story. It suits products that need explaining and audiences that ignore classic ads. It costs more to produce, and it works only on media whose readers are the right audience; a large site with the wrong readers wastes the money.
The label is part of the deal. Readers forgive advertising that is useful and honest about being advertising; they do not forgive being misled, and a hidden ad spends the publisher’s credibility and the brand’s together.
What to ask
- Are the site’s readers the people we sell to, and how does the publisher know?
- Is the paid content clearly labelled, and who writes it?
- How will we measure the result: visits, orders, enquiries, and over what period?
- Does the article link to a page that continues its subject, or only to the home page?
Native advertising works while it is useful to the reader and honestly labelled. Where it makes sense and what it costs is something we weigh in our digital marketing work.