Probably you’ve heard about the hype over native advertising, and you want to jump on the growth bandwagon. But what exactly is native advertising and what is native video advertising? Well, saddle up, because we’re here to tell you exactly what is native advertising, what is native video advertising, and why it is king.
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What is Native Video Advertising?
What is native video advertising? Native video advertising is a type of native advertising that is intended to blend in with its surroundings. In this case, the surroundings are always the publication the advertisement is placed. Often it is made to look like content that is published by the publishers, or perhaps by other users of the website. Some common examples are native videos that look like they are a part of a social media feed or video ads that appear to be published by the news-site.
The intention is to give a more bespoke feel, as the advertisement doesn’t disrupt the website viewer too much, and the video appears to be in harmony with the site. Native video advertising is kind of a hidden advertisement. Before we jump right in, to how to use this advertising format like a pro, let’s look at the topics we’ll be covering. 
Let the Battle Begin: Native Video Ads vs. Pre-Roll Ads
Whilst it cannot be said for sure, that native advertising is the far superior ad format, there are some unique points of difference, that when used appropriately, can increase your ad campaign’s effectiveness. Translation: native video ads can be epic (when used properly).
Non-disruptive
With many people being overexposed to advertising, consumer’s increasing intolerance to ads is a major problem for advertisers. Thus, native advertising, which appears to blend in with its surroundings, not only is not visually disruptive but is also not disruptive to the consumer’s desired experience. For example, if you’re advertising using native videos on a new-site, your content should read like a gentle, but engaging addition to the feed, rather than screaming “STOP! LOOK AT ME! I’M AN ADVERTISEMENT”
Favorite of Millennials
Much like the point made above, Millennials have grown up in an advertisement-saturated world.
As one can imagine, this generation has grown intolerant of ads, more than any other generation. Thus, native advertisement, as it seems more organic and less sales-oriented, is the preferred ad of choice of Millennials.
11 Stats Proving Native Video Ads are King
Whilst many different formats all have their pros and cons, numerous studies and anecdotal evidence points towards native video advertising having significantly higher than some other advertising formats, such as pre-roll ads. Let’s look at some of those stats:
Native Versus Pre-Roll Ads Stats
The following stats are all taken from an insightful report, written by Nielsen, called “Comparing Resonance for Native and Pre-roll Video Ads with Real-time Metrics”. This study tracked brand-lift according to 5 different brands. There were three different groups: control group (no advertisement exposure), pre-roll advertisement group and the native video advertisement group. Here are some results.
- 5/5 ad campaigns had a higher brand lift for native videos. Out of all of the experiments run, all of the native video ad campaigns returned a higher brand lift when compared with the control and the pre-roll group.
- Brand Lift increased by 82%. One advertising campaign actually showed that brand lift increased by 82% when comparing with the control and pre-roll group (see figure 1)
- Brand lift increased by 42% when measuring for purchase to intent. Another advertising campaign experiment showed that, when measuring for purchase intent, brand-lift increased by 42%.
Branded Content is King, According to Reuters
Reuters, another trusted site, did a survey of over 750 rueters.com users, to test their preferences and feelings towards branded content. The following stats are from that report.
- 73% of people prefer branded content. In a survey according to Reuters, 73% of people preferred branded content (native or regular branded content) when compared with traditional advertising.
- 64% of global consumers say they feel more favorable towards branded content when it is published on a credible online news website.
Native Videos Ads on Facebook
A study by Quintly, came up with some surprisingly clear results regarding the dominance in effectiveness and use of native video ads on the Facebook platform.
- Native video advertising is 530% more engaging. According to a study by Quintly, native video advertisements, compared to YouTube videos, generate 530% more comments.
- 477 % increased share rate on Facebook. On average, Facebook native videos has a 477% increased chance of being shared, when comparing against YouTube videos. This is according to the same Quintly study as above.
- Native ads take the majority share. The effectiveness seems to have impacted usage, as Facebook native ads take the majority share (89%) of the overall video content on the site (see figure 2).
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The Best Native Advertising Stats
The following are from a range of sources and will be individually credited.
- 8.8 times higher CTR than Display. A Whitepaper by AppNexus showed that the CTR on Native advertisement was 0.8 compared to display’s 0.09%.
- Sponsored Content Works with one-third of Millennials. According to Collective, Bias Millenials are likely to be driven to purchase 33% of the time, when exposed to branded content, such as sponsored posts. Such posts may have a stigma, or not be seen as authentic or hi-brow, however, according to Collective Bias’s results, when the content is valuable, this negates the potential negative effects from being sponsored content.
- Younger Audiences Prefer Tailored content (branded content and branded native content). A study by Time Inc. study, showed that 2 out of 3 times branded advertising content is deemed more trusted by younger (Gen-X, Gen-Z, and Millennials) consumers when compared with traditional advertisements.
Final Thoughts on Native Advertising
Native video advertisings are an incredibly tailored tool. The intention is to blend in with the surroundings. Considering that many platforms have algorithms intended to favor their own content (e.g. native content), it makes sense that many studies are showing that native content is currently more effective with consumers and audiences. Will this last forever? Probably not. Marketing and advertising will probably move onto another form of advertising once the audience becomes immune and intolerant to this form as well. However, until then, the studies indicate that in many contexts, native video ads outperform other advertising formats.
If you’d like to see what native ads can do for your campaign, you can get started here.