What is the secret to good native advertising?

What is the secret to good native advertising? What is the biggest challenge for native advertising? And what is the future of native advertising?

We ask the world's leading native advertising specialists in our short form video series #NativeAdSecrets.

Here, Laura Sophie Dornheim, Public Affairs Manager at Eyeo, who was a speaker at the Native Advertising DAYS 2016.

https://youtu.be/NaBsKt3VI24 

Try to be relevant without too much tracking and interference with data privacy.

The secret to good native advertising is...

I think there is no real secret. It's pretty obvious: Try to be honest with the users. Try to show that this is advertising. Try to be relevant without too much tracking and interference with data privacy. Try to make it in a way that really works within a context and the website.

So for example, if I'm surfing on Neue Zürcher Zeitung and I'm reading an article and I scroll down and they recommend me other articles to read... And in between these recommendations -- highlighted so I can see it's different from the rest of the recommendations -- I get a link to another website that might be very relevant. And I actually find myself clicking that.

There are definitely a lot of options for native advertising to mask that it's advertising.

The biggest challenge for native advertising is...

The biggest challenge for native advertising is not to get tempted by the various options to trick users or try to make them click something when they don't know at all that it's advertising. So, we see that a lot in native advertising that just pretends to be content and then you click and you are like 'wait, where am I going?'

Also, the same is happening with so-called influencer marketing, which in my understanding is a subset of native advertising where you pay somebody to post something.

There are definitely a lot of options for native advertising to mask that it is advertising. It might actually improve click rates on a short-term, but I think you have a big problem if you follow these leads because then it will never be seen as qualitative.

I think in a few years we will not be talking about native anymore because it will be the standard of advertising.

The future of native advertising is...

In my opinion native advertising is the future. I think in a few years we will not be talking about native anymore because it will be the standard of advertising. I really hope to see it still be clearly distinguished from content and I hope it's gonna be way more relevant for users.

For me, the perfect example of a native ad is our google search ads. I mean, they are native, right? They are in the content, but they're super relevant because they are something that I'm actually looking for. And they are perfectly integrated into the site. So if all native advertising would follow that lead, I think it will be a good future.

DOWNLOAD: Native Advertising Trends 2017 - The Magazine Industry