Native advertising is a concept that has been floating around in marketing circles for a few years but has recently been generating a massive amount of buzz in mainstream media far and wide. Yet, for all of the hype and discussion, there is still immense confusion around what native advertising is, how it works, why it works and whether or not it is good for brands, banner ads and publishers. In our new e-book Erin Lanuti, SVP, Director of Paid and Integrated Strategy for MSLGROUP in North America, provides a definition of native advertising, explains the different types that exist – publisher and social networks – and how they work. We explore some recent data on the type of ROI native advertising is delivering as well as how to optimize a campaign. And last but not least we end with the top 10 reasons why native advertising should be included in the marketer’s mix.

1. Native Advertising:
An Easy Guide
By Erin B. Lanuti,
SVP, Director of Integrated and
Paid Strategy, North America
MSLGROUP

2. Advertising
Native advertising has generated a lot of buzz and excitement ...
...around what it means for brands and publishers. Unfortunately, what Native
advertising is and how it works is something that the communications industry
is far less clear on.
The purpose of this guide is to give a definition of what Native
advertising is, what it isn’t as well as how it works.

3. What is Native advertising?
PAID
OWNED
EARNED
According to Altimeter Group,1 Native advertising is a form of converged media
that combines paid, owned and earned media into a form of “commercial
messaging” that is fully integrated into a specific delivery platform. This can be
done as a one-off with a publisher or at scale across multiple publishers. The
New York Times, who itself hosts Native advertising, had a far less technical
definition, “Native advertising is advertising wearing the uniform of journalism,
mimicking the storytelling aesthetic of the host site.”2
MSLGROUP believes that:
Native advertising is the ability to embed a brand’s storytelling - either text or video or
a combination of the two - in a publisher’s content well . When selected, the user stays
within the publisher’s site to experience the content and thus it appears “native” to the site.
1
2
Altimeter Group, September 10, 2013
New York Times, September 15, 2013
3

4. Where can Native advertising be
executed?
Native advertising can be executed across a wide variety of media
publishers and platforms such as:
≠
≠
Publisher sites and blogs such as Buzzfeed, Business Insider, CNN Money,
Entrepreneur, Forbes, Internet Brands, Kiplinger, Maxim, Motor Trend,
Reader’s Digest, Source Interlink, The New York Times, The Street, USA Today
Sports Media Group, WebMD, and a few thousand more.
Social Networks - All top social networks have native products. Facebook,
Foursquare, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr.
Representative sampling of publisher sites and social networks currently offering native advertising products:
Publisher Sites Offering Native Advertising Products
PUBLISHER
NATIVE PRODUCTS
BUZZFEED
Listicles, Sponsored Articles
BUSINESS INSIDER
Sponsored Articles, Sponsored Slideshows, Sponsored Videos
CNN MONEY
Sponsored Content, Sponsored Stories
ENTREPRENEUR
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
FORBES
BrandVoice
INTERNET BRANDS
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
KIPLINGER
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
MAXIM
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
MOTOR TREND
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
READER’S DIGEST
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
THE STREET
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
USAT SPORTS MEDIA
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Videos
WEBMD
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Posts
…and a few thousand more.
Social Networks Offering Native Advertising Products
PLATFORM
FACEBOOK
Sponsored Stories, Page Post Ads
FOURSQUARE
Sponsored Listings, Promoted Check-in
LINKEDIN
Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Updates
PINTEREST
Promoted Pins
TUMBLR
Sponsored Radar, Spotlight, Sponsored Posts (Web/Mobile)
TWITTER
4
NATIVE PRODUCTS
Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, Promoted Accounts

5. How Native advertising works:
But how Native advertising is executed and its transparency remains a critical
differentiator of good and bad Native strategy.
Native can be executed in a variety of ways, direct with a publisher or at scale.
The example below is based on a publisher site.
HEADLINE
FULL
ARTICLE
SOCIAL SHARING
Regardless of the direction, the core native advertising tenants remain the
same with a user flow similar to the one above.
Native content matches the publisher site design and the look
and feel of the surrounding editorial content. Headline is shown in
publisher content well and marked “promoted” or “sponsored” and
the brand name is attached.
When clicked, Native advertising content also behaves like
surrounding editorial content in that the article opens within
the publisher site and provides a full user experience which can
consist of an article plus photos, videos, infographics, white papers,
slideshares, etc. This is the fusion of paid and owned.
The user is then provided the option to share the content. In a social
example, the promoted tweet or sponsored story would be in the
newsfeed (content well) and when clicked the user would stay on the site.
5

6. How Native advertising can be
scaled:
There has been much recent debate about the ability to scale Native
advertising. At MSLGROUP we are fortunate to have the largest native ad
network in North America in our network, Nativo. With more than 1,500
publisher sites, Nativo enables us to have automated scaled distribution of
brand-voiced content made native in real-time for desktop and mobile devices.
Through our scale platform we can target consumers with
contextually relevant content via:
≠ Context
≠
IAB vertical categories
≠ Geography (DMA)
≠ Device
≠ Time of day
6

7. How Native advertising can be
optimized:
We can test, measure and optimize content quickly and easily, and we do.
The Native campaigns we have run have performed 5x-20x industry norms
for banner ad click rates. Native advertising should be considered a fantastic
tool to drive upper funnel metrics like awareness, preference and favorability.
In addition, many new studies have shown Native advertising success driving
brand lift and purchase intent metrics:
≠ IPG Media Lab reports seeing lift and purchase intent metrics rise by 40-
50%.2
≠ Markerly found that when retargeting off of Native advertising, 76% were
able to recall the brand name and context of the sponsored story. 91% of
those could remember this 24 hours later.3
Native advertising can also drive powerful engagement through custom
surveys, polls, coupons, video, mobile app downloads, slide shares, etc.
1 e-marketer, October 7, 2013
2 IPG Media Lab, Versus Banners
3 Markerly, October 2013
7

8. What Native advertising isn’t:
Native advertising is not a banner ad on the periphery aiming to distract
attention.
Native advertising is not a banner ad repositioned to fit into the content stream
and take users off to an external site
Consumers have always preferred editorial-driven content. As long as brands
continue to publish informative content that is of value to the reader, users
couldn’t care less if that content is sponsored or not.
Native advertising should be a tool marketers utilize as part of their marketing
mix to provide deep engagement across multiple devices and platforms, but it
will be especially impactful across mobile.
8

9. Why Native advertising works:
Our top 10 reasons why we believe Native advertising should be a component
of a brand’s content strategy:
Top 10 Reasons Why Native Advertising Should Be Considered
Native advertising is a powerful new tool that helps brands get closer to
providing consumers with storytelling in a contextually relevant fashion that
can elevate a client’s narrative and overall equity.
9

10. Erin Lanuti is SVP, Director of
Paid and Integrated Strategy for
MSLGROUP in North America. Erin
works with clients across the network
to create cross-channel plans that
deliver a media multiplier effect that
yields stronger engagement and a
deeper business ROI.
@erinlanuti on Twitter, LinkedIn.com/in/erinlanuti