Did you know that ad spend has grown by 25% each year since 2016, that’s fast approaching a 100% growth by end of this year! Not only that but there’s no sign of it slowing down but it is speeding up! What this means is that if you’re in the marketing and advertising industry then you must take a serious look at utilizing native advertising to launch your business into the new year.
Native Spending Forecast
Starting from just a few years back (2016) advertisers have spent over $16Billion on advertising in just the United States alone. Fast forward to 2017 and that number grew to over $25Billion only to reach $32Billion in 2018 and now in the current year as of the writing of this article ad spend on native ads in just the US alone is projected to reach over $40Billion Dollars!
What’s this mean for folks like us?
Well, it means that you better jump on the train before it leaves the station. Take a look at all the major players in the game such as Facebook, Google’s Display Ad Network, Bing Ads, and literally any other platform which aims to squeeze ads into the mix of it’s content, they all use a form of native advertising in one fashion or another.
The concept of ‘banner / ad blindness’ has plagued the advertising industry since it’s conception and that’s cause a need for innovative forms of bringing the message to new, potential customers. By offering ads which blend into the surrounding content and actually taking those extra steps to offer value to the reader, we’re now able to circumvent that nasty ad-blindness and actually get people to pay attention to our offers!
Below is a short & simple list of four best native advertising networks that you may want to take a serious look at. Starting off with MGID (which we actually have a 25% discount set up exclusively to our members).
MGID Network
MGID can be found: Right Here
We’re starting off with a fan favorite. This ad network makes it easy for even beginners to jump into the marketing game with access to their self service dashboard, real time ads bidding and easy to understand statistics panels.
Oh… did I forget to mention they’re EXTREMELY affordable!
With an initial deposit of just $100, which is very low compared to some other major players in the native ads industry, MGID is one of the tried & true options. They got their start way back in 2008 and have stood the test of time. They currently have an estimated traffic flow of roughly 90 Million visits as of the time of this writing and that number is bound to continue growing.
They are easy to use, offer great customer service and the majority of their traffic comes from the United States which is considered prime tier-1 traffic for just about any offer type under the sun. They are not however restricted to only tier-1 traffic which means if you specialize in monetizing the other tiers then they’ve got you covered.
If you would like a look behind the curtain then feel free to check out this estimated overview of their statistics. SimilarWeb Stats for MGID: Click Right Here
Targeting Options
As with any ad network there are options to help you finetune your efforts and MGID is no different. Here are a few options open to all advertisers on this platform:
- GEO Targeting
- Browser Specific
- Language Targeting
- Device Targeting (Desktop, Mobile)
- Retargeting Options
- Scheduling of Time & Date
- Frequencing Caps
- Selective Bidding (to dial in to what works for you)
Not too bad!
Now, it’s important to review their content guidelines in order to be sure you’re staying compliant. This particular ad network is considered friendly for newbies, as well as being very affiliate-friendly. It’s a good place to get familiar with the process of running native ads for yourself in preparation of branching out into other networks such as some mentioned further down this article.
Revcontent Network
Revcontent can be found: Right Here
Revcontent hasn’t been around quite as long as MGID, they are however a very strong contender in the industry. With a fair balance between quality traffic while still remaining relatively affiliate friendly, they’re an excellent source for high frequency traffic.
A very large portion of their own web traffic comes straight out of the US and a number of other tier-1 & 2 countries closely following. Have a quick look at the SimilarWeb stats if you’d like, which can be found: Right Here.
What sets this native ads network apart from some of its competition is it’s stringent policies for the publishers of it’s traffic. These are the websites which feature ads from Revcontent and they are required to have a few things in order before they can be accepted into the program such as a 50k monthly views minimum on top of an expected higher quality of content on the site.
This network has a pretty large reach:
- Over 250 Billion displays per month
- 97% of US households view at least some of their ads
- An impressive 3% average CTR
On top of that, Revcontent has two options for bidding styles which are CPC & vCPM. That means you can pay per click as most native ad networks have, but you can also opt to use the pay per 1,000 impressions which is something used by ad networks such as Facebook and Google’s own ad network.
They of course offer you all the standard specifics when tuning your ads such as:
- GEO Targeting, in both the include & exclude variety
- Device & OS Targeting
- Language
- Retargeting Options
- Brand Targeting
- Topic / Niche specific Targeting
- Exclude Low Volume Widgets Option
Some of these may be new to you and that’s alright. For now you only need to know that these options make it possible for you to dig deeper into your analytics in order to find your diamonds and dump the coal. No sense in wasting all that ad-spend on sites and brands which won’t convert for you when all it’ll take is a bit of testing to see which options are clear winners.
It’s important that you review their FAQ section before applying for this native ads network as they take their quality assurance very seriously. If you don’t meet their standards they will reject your application. Have a look at their requirements and more: Right Here
Taboola & Outbrain
Taboola can be found: Right Here
Outbrain can be found: Right Here
Let’s start with a brief introduction to Taboola. If you’re looking to get your ads out to big spaces such as NBC, MSN, AOL, Business Insider (and more) then it’s time to swim with the sharks. Established in 2007, Taboola has built a highly authoritative reputation in the native ads space which has given them top pickings when it comes to placing ads on real authority publishers.
Half of the traffic which finds its way over to this network come from tier-1 countries and when you add to that the fact they work with large brands such as the recent ‘Dollar Shave Club’ it’s no wonder they’re considered difficult to join forces with. It’s really not advisable to approach this network until you have a sizable ad budget along with offers which match their policies which can be found Right Here.
Moving on to Outbrain. Chances are extremely high that you’ve been exposed to a number of ads from this network in one form or another. A lot of political sites, humor-based sites and all around viral type websites love using Outbrain as their prefered network when it comes to placing ads for monetization. What this means for us as advertisers is that we’ve got the potential to reach a ton of people from all across the global internet.
In order for a website to even be considered to show Outbrain’s ads they must meet some very high expectations such as having at least 1-Million visits per month! Now, this figure is negotiable on certain terms but coming right out the gate swinging a figure that large is absolutely going to tell the world they mean business.
What this translates to for advertisers and affiliates like us is in order to run ads with these guys you have to meet their strict guidelines, they won’t allow anything that seems even remotely scammy or “hype driven”.
Both of these large native ad networks tend to have a higher CPC of about $1 per click, of course it will vary based on what you’re targeting. They do add all the usual targeting options which have been shared above along with the option to set fairly low budgets at just $20 minimum for Outbrain & $75 for Taboola. But with higher costs per click you’re probably going to require a larger budget anyway.
What’s It All Conclude To
In short, if you’re just starting off then you’ll probably want to stick with MGID and other networks like it. Once you’ve become more established and have a larger bank roll to spend on advertising then you may wish to consider using larger networks such as Outbrain.
These aren’t even the only contenders on the block. There are a bunch more such as AdBlade, AdNow, Content-ad and many more. The great thing about all this is that we actually teach this stuff. Inside the member’s area of Powerhouse Affiliate we have resources dedicated to helping you find the right ad network for you. There are quite a few options and over time you could very well try them all.
