Study: Native ads outpace traditional marketing efforts

Native advertising is significantly spurring in-store traffic — at a more cost-efficient rate — compared to traditional display advertising.



This was according to research from Placed, Inc., a location analytics provider, and Sharethrough, a native advertising supply side platform. In late 2016, the partners tapped a popular quick service restaurant chain, a nationwide apparel brand and a major global consumer electronics company to compare native advertising's effectiveness in driving traffic to retail stores and the lower cost-per-visit vs. display ads.



Across the three brands, people exposed to native ads were 21% more likely on average to visit a brand's physical retail location than those who weren't. All brands studied beat Placed benchmarks for in-store lift for their respective verticals — at a collective average of 300% above the standard.



The brands drove traffic to their stores through native ads at an effective cost of 41 cents per visit. The major consumer electronics brand drove in-store traffic to stores selling their products at 22 cents a visit, a high cost-efficiency that was 84% lower than Placed's benchmark.



Further, the quick service restaurant chain was able to drive extra sales from people exposed to their native ad campaign equivalent to a 20x return on their native spend, research revealed.



"As we keep drilling down on the 'why' of native at Sharethrough, it's not just about serving less interruptive advertising that audiences actually pay attention to — it's also about showing brands how native moves the needle for their business," said Dan Greenberg, Sharethrough co-founder and CEO. "This new work we're doing with Placed locks in a major new piece of this narrative, proving that there is a direct line between better ads in someone's content feed today, and more people shopping in that brand's store tomorrow."