The Most Incredible Tips to Create Native Ads
Last updated on October 1, 2019 by Svetlana Malikova 8 min readIntroduction
What is native advertising?
How to do native advertising?
How to create catchy, yet relevant native ads?
More specifically, how to create content and product recommendation widgets – picture-plus-title units that suggest articles to read and promote products?
How to avoid obvious clickbait with outrageous imagery and vague headlines?
Getting traffic to your website is great, but if it doesn’t convert, it’s useless.
How to get your visitors to actually read the content or take action, whether that’s filling out a form or making a purchase?
In fact, you can create a widget in an infinite number of ways.
However, certain techniques have proven themselves to be more efficient.
This article is not gonna be a native advertising definition.
For that, you can check this amazing Mobidea Academy native ads article!
So what is this native marketing post all about?
I’m here not to define native, but to show you some awesome native advertising examples.
Here are some of the most useful experience-based insights that will never let you down.
1. Sincerity of Real-Life Pictures
Readers scan the web for visual content.
Therefore, you need to pay the utmost attention to this element of your ads.
When chosen correctly, an image is the best way to get people to give you their most valuable asset – attention.
People aren’t interested in dull abstractions.
Staged photos make them yawn.
Internet audiences perceive tedious stock images as digital equivalents of pushy salesmen who can’t wait to plunge their hands into your wallet.
In stark contrast, amateur smartphone pictures seem like your old friends or someone youf’d love to make friends with.
No wonder Instagram aesthetics is the new black.
Learn More: The 5 Best Alternatives to Facebook Ads
Amateur images look sincere, intimate, and familiar.
In this world, which is cluttered with standardized marketing imagery, the unbridled sincerity of real-life experience is the hack that could help you cut through the clutter and get your stuff noticed.
Ready for two native advertising examples that will allow you to understand what is native content at its very best?
2. Low Quality Can Get Your Audience High
When people are starting to learn how to write native advertising ads and even when they become focused on mobile native advertising, they all agree with the following statement:
Higher quality, higher conversions.
As a rule, yes.
That’s almost like the native ads definition you need to get inside your head.
But there are always exceptions to every rule.
Low quality images can act just like drugs.
In fact, they trigger pathways in the brain that make us crave for the genuine.
Imperfect means honest and real.
3. Make Eye Contact
“Add a person in your picture.”
This piece of advice is always given to people designing ads.
Related: Banner Design for Ads: The Definitive Guide
A photo of a realistic woman looking directly at you works like a magnet in 9 out of 10 cases.
Moreover, human eyes are champions is winning people’s attention when it comes to ads.
Our brains are evolutionarily programmed to recognize faces of other humans and animals to detect life-threatening perils and avoid getting in trouble.
This is why ads featuring direct eye contact are always eye-catching.
In addition, eye contact in an ad increases a customer’s trust and the feeling of connection.
Eye contact flirting moves always work, don’t they?
That’s right!
It’s key to really understand how to do native advertising!
4. Prominence of Digits
Use numbers in your headlines wherever possible.
Not using numbers when you can use them can be regarded as bad native advertising, indeed!
Why?
Simple!
Numbers are a time-proven trigger to make anyone pay attention to anything.
Make sure you’re using digits (i.e. “7”), not words (i.e. “seven”).
They work better.
Digits enhance the scannability of web content.
They’re stepping stones readers are jumping onto in the flow of words.
They easily draw our attention just like a punk wearing a pink mohawk sticks out in a crowd of Wall Street white collars.
On the other hand, numbers appeal to our rational thinking.
Why are lists so appealing?
Because they give readers an overall understanding of what to expect when clicking through.
This really takes native content marketing to a whole new level!
5. Facts Tell, Stories Sell
In the golden era of newspapers, headlines should have been as short as possible.
Even adjectives were thought to weaken the style.
Internet has revised that concept and put concise titles into extinction in the realm of native advertisements.
New-style headlines don’t just inform, they describe content and tell stories.
In fact, that’s what the best native advertising companies do every single day.
These native articles headlines are a super effective native advertising example.
In a few words, they can show a human experience we can easily relate to.
They move and engage.
They evoke empathy and wonder, create tension, and – consequently – draw attention.
Most importantly, stories make people hungry for more information, leaving the audience wanting to know more.
Check one of the best native ads examples of this!
6. Power Words
A wisely chosen word can change anyone’s mood and motivation.
Seduce your audiences with emotionally charged words.
No wonder copywriters call them “power words.”
They do have almost superhero abilities to crank up marketing effectiveness, especially on mobile native ads.
The difference between “broken” and “smashed” is the difference between a dry fact and a vivid story.
Use strategic words such as “hilarious”, “cringe-worthy”, or “jaw-dropping” to invoke emotions and create engaging titles.
Learn More: How to Write Clickable Facebook Ads Headlines
7. Curiosity Words
Another go-to move is not giving everything away.
It’s like internet advertising for dummies!
While it’s important to be specific in your titles, you shouldn’t provide so much information that readers aren’t interested in wasting their precious time by checking out the rest of your content.
Why bother?
A good headline triggers curiosity, giving readers enough information to encourage them to actually learn more.
Curiosity words such as “reveal”, “secret”, “confessions”, “wonders” work great for piquing the interest of all readers.
The aim?
Make them feel as if they’re going to miss out on something if they skip reading the article.
8. Only “You”
Personalize your message in disguised advertising and get a money making native ad platform!
“You” is arguably the most powerful word in any copywriter’s kit.
Headlines that directly refer to the reader by using words like “you” or “your” usually perform better because everyone wants an ego stroke.
In fact, people are more interested in reading an article when they know what emotions or benefits they will get for themselves.
9. Not All Superlatives Are Awesome
Using superlatives such as “best,” “worst,” or “amazing” in digital headlines seems like a time-honored method to enhance headlines, but they irritate readers instead of winning their hearts.
Modern users prefer headlines with zero or one superlative, so use them sensibly.
This means you have to adapt your native advertising content and follow the best examples of native advertising.
Try to choose unusual, emotion-inducing, and more specific epithets such as “blood-chilling”, “drool-worthy”, or “outlandish.”
10. Turn Negativity Into Positivity
Sometimes negative superlatives such as “worst” lure more clicks than positive ones like “best.”
There are a few reasons that might explain this paradox.
Love it or hate it, there’s no escaping the following fact:
Positive superlatives are overused.
That’s why more sophisticated and less gullible readers may just ignore them.
On the other hand, negative statements have always been intriguing.
They take readers aback and force them to react.
Last but not least, negativity seems more authentic and genuine.
Orthodox salesmen never use negative expressions to sell their products.
Smart marketers, on the contrary, never neglect this option and know that this is the definition of native that really works!
11. Don’t be Afraid of “Mistakes”
Humans are mistake-making creatures and we get wiser by learning from our errors.
At least, we try.
Of course, one thing better than learning from your bitter experience is to learn from the experience of others.
People hate feeling awkward and looking silly, so they want to make sure that they never make “ridiculous faux-pas.”
Everyone wants to find out if there’s something they’re doing that they shouldn’t.
That is why incorporating words such as “mistakes”, “errors”, “blunders” into your headlines is a wonderful tactic to get people clicking.
Mix them with powerful negative verbs such as “avoid”, “regret”, “stop”, “hate” to create a perfect attention-grabbing cocktail.
Check two examples of native ads to see what I mean!
12. Desires and Cravings
Find insightful words that will define what people lack and crave in life.
There are so many native ads examples of this technique actually working wonders!
For example, what tactic would you choose to promote a Christian dating platform?
As the dynamics of dating in the new urban environment can be very confusing, loyalty is what men who got tired of irresponsible and superficial relationships are looking for in women.
This teaser features an angelic and a little bit nerdy girl combined with a title that offers the solution and works great for social native advertising.
13. “How to” Approach
The “How to” technique also contributes to this widget’s success.
It appeals to our need for improving ourselves, changing our lives, and/or discovering other people’s knowledge and experiences.
You can substitute the “how to” formula with attention-grabbing words that imply rationality, such as “ways”, “methods”, “techniques”, “principles”, “reasons”, “lessons”, and other tempting signs of other people’s expertise that will make you smarter.
Never forget that almost always when you write about “how to”, you can transform your message into “how not to.”
14. Invent Tropes
Copywriters are usually warned not to use metaphors in headlines.
They kinda weaken headlines and make them too vague.
It’s true when metaphors are too complicated.
On the other hand, a graphic and clever trope can turn your title into a work of art.
Don’t underestimate the intellectual ability of your audience.
Metaphors are a key element of the definition of native advertising.
Feel free to invent them, but don’t make them sound too highbrow.
Bonus Tip: Multiple Tactics
Combining approaches is the surest way to compose the best, most powerful ad.
As you can see, in most of these examples, we took advantage of various creative tactics at the time.
Experienced fishermen rarely return home empty-handed, because they often use more than one fishing-rod.
Hook your readers with different types of lures.
Conclusion
Of course, there’s no blueprint for creating a blockbuster widget.
And this article is only a quick look at possible approaches to boost the effectiveness of your native ads.
But experience is the best teacher when it comes to getting to understand what is a native ad that works wonders.
Experiment with power words, digits, storytelling, superlatives, tropes, how to- and you-strategies in your native content.
Don’t forget to choose the most sincere pictures of people looking at readers or objects.
Trying and mixing these time-tested tactics and inventing your own tricks will give you plenty of choices and define native advertising strategies that work.
And this truly is the surest way to arrive at the best, most powerful ad.
See also:
Svetlana Malikova
Native Acquisition Expert – MGID Inc.
Svetlana is a remarkable Native Acquisition Expert who is responsible for audience development, traffic sales and media buying processes at MGID, one of the world's coolest native advertising platforms! Wanna learn something with a true online marketing master expert? Then check Svetlana's articles, bro!
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