Ben Young
Ben Young
July 25, 2016

Make the most of your native content investment by embracing these best practices.

Make the brand integral

This story couldn’t exist without the brand being present, it should feel natural for the end consumer to make the connection to the brand.

A great example of this is a collaboration between Puma and Refinery29. Read our write up here.

Content Length

Half the battle is getting attention, once someone has decided to click on your content, look to hold it. Keep your content length to 800 words.

Here’s an example of a long form piece of content sponsored by GE on Business Insider. Business Insider took a dense subject matter and created a long form piece of content that feels snackable and easy to digest.

Content Formats

Match the content type to your brand objectives, access the latest recommendations in our Research Reports.

At the moment, video + article drives twice as high purchase intent. The combination of video in an article helps improve attention and downstream conversions.

Load-Time & Cross Device

Ensure the content is fast loading and cross device.

Seems obvious but the allure of high production can sometimes mean this is forgotten. Too slow a load time reduces your audience size by 20-30%

Driving to Attribution Events

If you want to optimize to attribution events, Attention & Virality are the two KPIS to focus on. Virality maximizes your reach, thus increasing conversions on your budget. Attention improves your conversion rate.

Get the right Publisher Fit

Make full use of the native features that your publisher offers. They know the audience, trust them and give them room to deliver the best content at the intersection of your audience.

Review our pick of the Best Native Ads of 2015 

Headline of Share Copy

Often overlooked, the headline is what draws social audiences in. You can miss out on 21% of your reach by not optimizing.

Share Image

Next to the headline is the share imagery, ensure that your imagery doesn’t have a stock photo feeling and stands out in the news feed. Be sure to check all the top social networks for your audience.

Easy Sharing Functionality

It seems obvious but if your audience wants to share, ensure it’s easy to do so. A good example of this are lists or images, make sure each section can easily be shared.

Our November campaign of the month ‘Quaker Oats’ on Huffington Post made full use of this.

Calls to Action

If someone is engaged there is no harm in having multiple calls to action within the content. I.e. a click out to another website. We find the best place is around ⅓, ⅔ and at the end.

One of the big takeaways from AdWeek 2015 was not being afraid to make the brand essential and a part of that is including conversions and calls to action. Check out our review here.

Embedded Video

If you have an embedded video, include a link to your call to action below it. As people are dwelling on this part of the content and people are more likely to leave after watching it.

Set KPIS

You want to validate a few things:

  • The audience scale, did you reach a significant portion of your audience.
  • The quality of the attention, Earned Impressions & Attention.
  • Impact, post-reading actions and brand-lift.

Take a look at the Nudge metrics for more info on the right KPIs for your campaign.


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