Content marketing vs. native marketing; is often misinterpreted by these two concepts in online marketing. More often than not, you’ll see content marketing and native advertising used interchangeably. To excel at content creation, you must know the differences between content marketing and native advertising. This blog post will elaborate on content marketing vs. native advertising and explain which one may be better for your brand.
What Is Native Advertising?
Native advertising is a modern version of traditional advertising that promotes paid media content created and distributed on different content marketing platforms. It is designed to be relevant and/or valuable to that specific platform’s audience.
They are called “native” ads because they are created in a way that matches the platform they appear in.
Types of Native Advertising
The average internet user encounters one or more types of native advertisements each time they browse. Some of the most common types of native advertising are the following:
1. In-Feed Advertising
In-Feed Advertising is sponsored content, or clickbait, ads placed in an article.
These ads are processed as news feeds and integrated into social media posts. In fee advertising, the social media marketing channels act as the bridge to tap the right target audience.
2. Advertorials
These ads are long-form articles that highlight the user or customer’s pain points to promote the company or a business as the solution to those pain points. In this case, advertisers pay to have their ads appear in reputable publications.
3. Recommendation Widgets
These are modified calls to action added at the end of an article, so you may also like to increase the engagement.
4. Sponsored Ads
Sponsored Ads usually appear on e-commerce websites like Amazon. These ads are categorized as “Sponsored” and are generally found on the categories page.
5. Paid Search Ads
Paid Search Ads are paid advertisements where your ads get listed at the top of the SERP or organic search results with a label.
6. YouTube Ads
YouTube ads appear while users watch videos; these ads play before, during, or after the videos you watch.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is an ongoing buzzword in online marketing today. It is the process of delivering valuable content about a product or service to the customers to create brand awareness or generate leads, resulting in a measurable ROI.
Content marketing involves creating different types of content, such as blogs, articles, guest posts, podcasts, and videos, engaging with the audience. The content marketing KPIs vary according to your organization and the audience you serve. Some of the common forms of content marketing types are discussed below.
Types of Content Marketing
1. Blogs
A blog is the most common form of content marketing and the most effective medium to promote your products or services. You need B2B content ideas to optimize your blog for effective content marketing.
2. FAQs
Answering FAQS that potential prospects might want answers to is an effective form of content marketing. This also gives them trust in your brand.
3. Visuals
Creating visuals can be an eye-opener in content marketing. It captivates the user experience. Visuals like images, videos, and infographics can also increase your conversion rates.
Images and videos are the most common and interactive ways to engage because they are visually appealing. You can create short informative videos for your visual content marketing campaign and link them to your blogs.
Infographics are an efficient way to convey your information visually. Utilizing infographics can improve your brand authority and add credibility to your content.
Also, you can easily share these infographics on social media platforms to boost brand awareness and get additional traffic.
4. Podcasts
Podcasts are some of the most popular forms of content marketing today. A podcast is a social media channel similar to a talk show elaborating discussions on a specific topic. Podcasts allow access to customers even when they are commuting or busy with work.
5. Email
Content marketing through email is creating optimized content and sharing it as an email with your potential leads and customers. Creating quality content can make them trust your product or service and subscribe to it.
Content Marketing vs. Native Advertising – Key Differences
1. Definition
1) Native advertising is paid content promotion in which a brand’s content is promoted in a third-party outlet website, such as news feeds or social media channels, along with other editorial content.
2) Content marketing is an organic promotion and distribution of created content, such as blogs, social media posts, videos, and infographics on a website and other social media channels.
2. Improved Traffic
1) Native ads are sponsored ads that talk about a problem, then offer a product or service as a solution to the customer. The advertising channels usually allow the brands to include a link to their website to improve their traffic.
2) Content marketing offers customers valuable information about a product or service at various customer touchpoints. They utilize keyword optimization through tools, such as Ahrefs, to create keywords, build backlinks, and add visuals to improve traffic.
3. Analytics
1) Native advertising will not give you the metrics to analyze and measure your results so you can optimize them.
2) Content marketing analytics offer you tools for tracking and optimizing content metrics.
4. Cost-Effectiveness
1) Basically, native advertising is paid media that involves investment to promote your ads and sponsorships.
2) Content marketing is more cost-effective since it is not a paid strategy. It drives conversions and can make you rank higher in search engines.
5. Search Engine Driven
1) Native advertising doesn’t go hand-in-hand with SEO. The ability to rank well in your niche is less than content marketing.
2) Content marketing and SEO are invariably interlinked. Once your content is SEO optimized, the search engines make them rank higher in your respective niche.
What Should You Choose? Content Marketing or Native Advertising?
Native advertising appears sponsored, exposing excessive advertising in the audience’s minds. At the same time, content marketing offers customers valuable information about a product or service. For example, if you are an eCommerce brand with many products utilizing content marketing, you can create How-To Guides to attract many customers and gain trust in your brand.
People may view it as spam if you are a financial start-up and promote your content through native ads. But, if you create an article packed with facts and infographics and offer relevant information on various financial topics, you can improve customers’ knowledge and reach your targeted audience. Using this method, the conversion rate from prospects to customers may be a lot higher.
If you are a B2B and want to attract business leaders, sending them ads will not help you.
Strategically optimized content with catchy keyphrases that target their pain points and answer their questions can better grab their attention. Promoting it on social media channels like LinkedIn can bring quality leads.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are native advertising and sponsored content the same?
Sponsored content is a type of native advertising that promotes paid media content on various social media platforms.
What is meant by native advertising?
Native advertising creates paid ads that correlate to page content and the platform used. It is predominately used on social media platforms. Sponsored ads and YouTube ads are some examples of native advertising.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the strategy of creating and promoting different forms of content. Content marketing is an organic promotion strategy. Some forms of content marketing include blogs, videos, images, infographics, podcasts, emails, and newsletters.
Which is best, content marketing or native advertising?
Content marketing is an organic approach that enables you to deliver quality content to your customers. But, collaborating content marketing with native advertising based on your requirements and the platforms you use can help you maximize your goals.
Closing Thoughts
The prime goal of content marketing is value-driven and establishing authoritative content that improves their ROI. It might sound challenging, but consistency can bring long-term benefits to your brand. You need to develop exquisite content marketing depending on your niche. Check out our recent blogs to start content marketing for your brand.
