Digital advertising, in simple words, can be explained as an advertising format where the ads are delivered to consumers through online mediums by leveraging internet technologies. The mediums for digital advertising campaigns may include email, social media websites, online advertising on search engines, mobile ads, ads on websites and more.
Digital advertising, today, is more of a necessity than an option for businesses for the simple fact that the internet is today’s consumers’ best bud and he/she would most often than not turn to the internet for any and all information they need before making a purchase decision. This very dependence has led to the creation of a wide pool of audience thus immensely increasing the number of people an advertiser can reach and in turn making it cost effective.
The other benefits of this cost effective approach include the ability to precisely target your audience based on various factors which may include demographics, psychographics, behavioural targeting et al. which in case of traditional formats cannot be so accurate. That being said, it also becomes important to take into consideration the challenges of digital advertising to be able to best analyse and see if our business must include digital strategies.
This is an age of digital ad bombardment, the biggest challenge facing an advertiser is his ability to stand out in order to get them eye balls on his/her ad. Lastly, considering the humongous amount of information a consumer is exposed to in a single day, fighting for retention becomes the next biggest challenge.
Analysing the above mentioned facts, it would be right to surmise that digital advertising is surely a must thing to use for advertisers and also very effective compared to traditional formats. However, the challenges remind us that it is nearly impossible for your advertising objectives to be met unless you do it the right way.
So, what is the right way?
Tackling this question may be over whelming but, taking the right approach should definitely get you going in the right direction. In order to stand out and achieve retention it becomes very important for you to:
- Not push content when your consumers aren’t ready for it
- Keep in sync with the action they are already performing and content they are already consuming
Native advertising is one effective type of digital advertising that keeps up with the above mentioned conditions. It is a type in which the ads are of the same form and function of the platform upon which it appears.
The concept of native ads can be best explained in case of mobile games. The traditional ways of advertising on mobile games include pushing banners and interstitials. This, because of its intrusive nature, often results in being crossed out by the gamer without a second thought or if the ad can’t be crossed out, the gamers turn a blind eye towards it. This is also referred to as ‘Banner Blindness’.
Related Read: A Game Publisher’s Marketing Guide To The Indian Market
Native ads are the right approach to solve these problems; wherein the ads seamlessly blend into the game play environment. In this format, the game assets are usually branded or replaced with branded assets. For example, in a cricket game, the pitch, boundaries, character apparel etc. can hold branding just like what we see during a cricket tournament.
This format of advertising lets the brand customise their branded experience to a great extent to suit the product/service offering and carries the added advantages of digital advertising as mentioned earlier. It has far exceeded the expectations of digital marketers and is for sure here to stay.
(Disclaimer: This is a guest post submitted on Techstory by the mentioned authors. All the contents and images in the article have been provided to Techstory by the authors of the article. Techstory is not responsible or liable for any content in this article.)
About The Author:
Nikita, a start-up enthusiast and the marketing Ninja at GreedyGame, is a writer by day and reader by night. A graduate of Symbiosis International University with a degree in advertising, she is working towards supporting GreedyGame in saving the world from intrusive ads.