10 Experts on The Secret to Good Native Advertising

Making great native advertising is not an easy task and the experts are aware of this. But there are, indeed, a few secrets to good native advertising that might help you master the format.

We’ve asked native advertising experts from around the world what their secret to good native advertising is…

Take the consumer’s perspective

“Thinking about content from a consumer perspective. So, instead of you as a brand or a business or a publisher coming up with the content based on what you want it to do, think about the consumer first, think about your audience and how you can provide value to them with the content that you’re creating”
-- Eric Fulwiler, VP, Account Strategy at VaynerMedia London

Be on the reader’s side - and on the advertiser’s.

“To tell a story. That is the main secret of good native advertising. I understand that this is easy to say and hard to do, but if you don’t have a story you will fail because some creative briefs from the advertisers can be really stupid, but you still need to find the story.
Then you need to go to to the client — and this is the trickiest part — and explain why you need to tell the story in a certain way. You need to be on the clients’ side, but also you need to be on the readers’ side because native advertising should be interesting for your readers, and the only interesting thing is a great story. Nothing else.” -- Ilia Krasilshchik, launched Meduza

Talk to the audience

“To do it well and actually talk to the audience the way the audience wants to be talked to” -- Maria Marteleur, CEO at Storstad Medieproduktion

Know your platform. Know your audience

“Really spending time and getting to know the platform, and getting to know the audience on that platform. And to make sure that that is the target group you want to engage with. The second secret to good native advertising is to have great stories. To be able as a brand to step away from your own outcomes and really focus on the target audience." -- Pontus Staunstrup, Head of Content Strategy & Social Media a PostNord Group

Make content as great as your editorial content

“Really making sure that the work is as good as the normal editorial content, you would produce. If it’s as good as you would normally produce an editorial product then it will be very successful because consumers will want to read it, and the editorial team will want to promote it." -- Pete Wootton, MD of Digital at Dennis Publishing

Tell great stories

“It’s creating content behind those ads that people actually want to consume. That they actually want to watch. That they actually want to share with their friends. That makes them look good to their friends and family.” -- Shane Snow, CCO and Co-Founder of Contently

Collaborate closely

“A close collaboration between a publisher and a brand. It’s when a publisher listens to what a brand wants to accomplish and helps to pull the expertise out of the brand and create experiences for readers that allow them to be informed and entertained.” -- Zazie Lucke, VP of Global Marketing at Quartz

Be authentic

“To be authentic. We all have so many choices for what we can consume and no one wants to read content that they feel is trying too hard or clearly trying to sell me something or accomplish some objectives. So the secret to actually creating content that works is to just be honest, and be transparent, and create content that you actually want.” -- Melanie Deziel, Branded Content Consultant and Founder of The Overlap League

Forget the corporate message

“That you are either very inspiring or very helpful to the people you are talking to. Try not to repackage a boring corporate message” -- Lukas Kircher, Founder and Partner at C3

Be transparent

“Fantastic content, the right message in the right channel - that is very natively adapted to that channel - and that’s also completely transparent; that discloses that it’s a paid message but is so fantastic on the content side that consumers won’t care” -- Rebecca Lieb, Leading Industry Analyst on native advertising

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

DOWNLOAD "The Native Advertising Trends in News Media"