Native Advertising: The Easiest Way to Unlock Video Inventory
All publishers face the delicate balance of content and advertising, how to maintain a positive and engaging user experience while earning enough revenue to continue delivering the quality their audience demands.
The move from offline to online led to many ad formats, leaderboards, headers etc, being replicated onto desktop sites, and while many of these proved effective monetisation tools, they did not translate well onto mobile devices. The smaller screen size meant banners formats became too small to be practical for an advertiser, while also feeling clunky and intruding on the user experience.
Mobile requires a complete rethink of the way advertising is delivered for it to deliver the revenues needed by publishers to operate. One of the easiest ad format which has offered a simple, user-friendly solution is native video advertising.
Rather than operating like a pre-roll, which requires the publisher to create and host video content, native video is positioned among the publisher’s content, fitting in with the style of the app or mobile web site. It is high impact for advertisers, but still user friendly. A recent study by the Mobile Marketing Association found that native advertising was responsible for a 23% increase in perceived ad quality.
As well as improving the perception of advertising on a publisher site, native delivers better interaction rates. The MMA found users paid native ads 3x more time and attention than other units, while Business Insider reported an average of 1.84% CTR, far higher than standard display formats, allowing publishers to earn higher revenues and maintain the integrity of their sites.
Another important benefit to integrating native video, is that it allows publishers to add to their existing video inventory, upgrading from static display advertising, adding incremental video revenues.
With news that 60% of brand professionals are planning to integrate native mobile video into their budgets in 2017, and the IAB predicting the the format will have a five year annual growth rate of 17% through to 2021, publishers should ensure they are building this new format into their mobile sites and apps. It is now possible to integrate with mobile native video providers, such as LoopMe, through Google’s DFP, easily allowing publishers to integrate video without having to make any technical adjustments to their properties.
As more users look to adblockers, native video provides a seamless solution to increase publisher revenues without becoming intrusive or damaging the user experience. Coupled with artificial intelligence, which delivers ads to users at the moment they are the most likely to engage, it is possible to earn significant revenue from native video on mobile.