5 Native Advertising Tips to Promote Your eCommerce Site

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Most online entrepreneurs use Adwords and Facebook ads to promote their sites. However, there are other great advertising platforms that are less expensive. You can get lots of targeted traffic from native ad sites for a couple cents a click.

Native ads used to be used exclusively by digital publishers. Ecommerce sites have only recently begun taking advantage of them, but some online stores rely on them more than any other platform. DSC actually spends six times more money on Taboola than any other ad network. As a whole, advertisers will spend $31 billion on native ads by next year.

Unfortunately, promoting ecommerce sites with native ads isn’t easy. Here are some tips to help you navigate the process.

Don’t Use Adwords Style Copy

The biggest mistake most native advertisers use when they start a native advertising campaign is use the same copy that worked on the AdWords Search Network. The problem is that visitors that are actively searching for content are in a very different state of mind than users that passively came across your ad. They have probably already decided that they want what you have to offer, so it doesn’t take much convincing.

With native advertising, you need to build trust first.

Use Ads to Build Leads Instead of Selling Your Products

Since users on native ad networks are still in the exploratory phase of the buyer decision making process, you won’t be able to sell products to them right off the bat. Instead, you will want to try to generate leads, which you can later convert into buyers.

There are a variety of ways that you can do this:

·         Get them to download a whitepaper.

·         Encourage them to join your email list.

·         Get them to visit blog posts and follow you on social media.

Once you have earned their attention, you can gradually nurture the relationship until they are willing to purchase a product. It takes time, since most visitors aren’t quite ready to open their wallet the first time they see your ad.

Don’t Copy Clickbait Ads

So many advertisers used clickbait ads when native advertising first came out. Ads like these have been around forever:

“7 Phenomenal Tricks to Hack Your Credit Score. #7 Will Surprise You!”

“The One Investing Rule Warren Buffet Doesn’t Want You to Know”

Now, these ads may have worked for sites like Buzzfeed, because their only goal was to get people onto the their site and impulsively share content. However, they do not work for ecommerce sites.

You are paying for every click, so it’s important to prequalify your visitors. Think about what you can offer and make sure your ad conveys it clearly.

See Where Your Ads Show Up

Native ads show up on lots of different websites. There are lots of ways that you can target them. You can target specific sites or make sure they show up on webpages with certain keywords.

It’s important to track that carefully, because you don’t want your ads showing up on unrelated pages. If you are using keyword targeting options, you may find that they are showing up on sites that you didn’t intend them to be seen on. This is a common problem advertisers encounter.

Make sure you have a tracker like Prosper202 or CPVLab setup, so you can optimize your targeting better.

Provide Disclosures

The FTC has always required advertisers to let people know if content is sponsored (unless it is very clearly an ad). However, there was a lot of ambiguity with native advertising, since it was designed to look like surrounding content. Under the FTC’s 2015 guidelines, advertisers must provide disclosures for native ads, so make sure this is listed.