Programmatic Ads vs. Native Ads: What you need to know for your advertising strategy

As described in our blog article on Programmatic Advertising, programmatic ads have become a popular advertising method in online marketing. Based on various data about user behavior, individual ads for the website visitor are played out in real time and advertisers can reach their target groups in no time. 

However, in recent years, especially among website visitors and social network users, there has been a certain dulling of the response to advertisements. When we search the Internet for specific information, we usually see ads as a nuisance. It is not uncommon for large flashing advertising banners to be either clicked away directly, deliberately ignored, or even cause us to prefer to leave the website again. Native advertising, on the other hand, offers a way to place ads as hidden as possible and to better unite the interests of advertisers and publishers.

How Native Ads differ from Programmatic Ads

While typical ad formats of Programmatic Ads are usually eye-catching sidebar banners, display ads or video ads, Native Ads, on the other hand, are displayed and placed in such a way that they are basically not perceived as advertising, i.e. they appear as natural and content-related as possible. In doing so, the ads always adopt the design of the respective website or platform. It is not the advertisers themselves, but the providers of the online advertising space (publishers) who determine the design of the ad. 

The presentation of the web ad can look very different. Native ads in text form are used most frequently (so-called text ads or native teaser ads). These are ads in text that are adapted to the editorial environment of the website or the corresponding article and are often displayed to the website visitor as further recommended content on the appropriate topic. Advertorials, i.e. extensive articles that are marked as promotional content, are also included here. The links within the texts can lead to a specific landing page or an online store, for example. Native video ads, in which moving image advertising is integrated into existing videos as appropriately as possible, and "in-feed" ads in social networks are also gaining in popularity. 

Native ads offer many advantages over classic online advertising banners due to the different design options and the rather unobtrusive placement on a target group-relevant and high-quality website. But of course, there are also disadvantages to be seen. Native ads usually generate fewer website visitors and clicks on the ads due to the rather inconspicuous integration of the ads, thus conversion numbers and ROI are often lower. With native ads, the focus is basically on general brand awareness.

Why not take advantage of both advertising approaches?

For some years now, it has been increasingly common for native ads to be booked programmatically as well. The combination of these two advertising approaches, known as Programmatic Native Advertising, offers many opportunities and advantages for both advertisers and publishers. Thanks to the programmatic technologies that run in the background in a matter of seconds during a website visit, Programmatic Native Ads are played out fully automatically, in real time and individually for each website visitor. This enables advertisers to address relevant target groups in a more targeted manner, achieve more conversions, and use their advertising budget more efficiently.  

The publisher, i.e. the provider of the online advertising space, also benefits. Not only can they increase their advertising revenues and offer their website visitors quality ads, they can also reduce their website bounce rates and improve click-through rates through the natural integration and presentation of the ads. Programmatic native advertising is extremely beneficial for mobile advertising in particular. Adblocker functions, which are activated on many smartphones, can usually be bypassed by native ads and the native ads can be better adapted to a responsive design.