Native advertising

Native advertising allows for a more natural ad placement as the ad retains the look/feel of the ‘organic’ environment. Examples would be a post on a social network or an article on a news site. The wealth of personal (and behavioural) data that many social networks contain provides rich targeting opportunities.

Native advertising tips

  • Tag ad landing URLs with UTMs, and make use of dynamic parameters from ad platforms
  • Add ad platform pixels to website to help with audience curation
  • Make use of ad platform conversion pixels (or, even better, API) to help with attribution and automation

Native advertising resources

General resources

  • Meta Ad Library – search and view all ads live on Facebook and other Meta services such as Instagram

Self-serve native ad networks

  • Meta Ads – ads on Facebook, Instagram and partner sites, with extensive demographic targeting
  • Google Ads – native ads on Google properties such as the Discover feed, Gmail and YouTube
  • Microsoft Ads – native ads on Microsoft-owned sites (MSN, Outlook.com, etc.) as well as partner sites
  • X Ads – ads X, with targeting options that include the types of profiles users follow
  • Pinterest Ads – ‘promoted pins’
  • Quora – ads on Quora, with targeting that includes question categories and site browse behaviour
  • LinkedIn Ads – ads on LinkedIn and partner sites with professional/career targeting being the major advantage
  • Reddit – ads on Reddit, with targeting by subreddit
  • Taboola – native ads across a network of websites, including major publishing brands
  • Outbrain – native ads across a network of websites