Native advertising, also known as advertorials or sponsored content placed on someone else’s platform, is increasingly being used but still carries the reputation of a used car salesman compared to how audiences view content marketing. Companies like RevContent are working diligently to try that perception of native advertising and prove that, by increasing quality content through new innovations. In fact, the company’s innovation team is going as far as to try to develop something new every two weeks that can enhance how native advertising can be used to build deeper connections with users rather than repulse them through obvious sales content.
The company produces widgets for its main technology platform. RevShifter is the latest to be introduced and is designed for seamless engagement for desktop and mobile users. This widget offers a sliding carousel to help users more easily page through content so they keep looking. The mobile version uses swiping gestures, which is already a common movement that users are already accustomed to. By keeping users on that site, there is a greater depth of engagement as more content is read.
Many of the innovations proposed in RevContent’s lab have already been included and are improving the reception that native advertising is getting from users and publishers. These widgets include:
- RevExit pops up on a user’s first impression every 24 hours for devices like desktops. When a user “mouses” off the page, they are either closing the window or navigating away from a page. The RevExit widget gives these users one more chance to see the content.
- RevFlicker entertains users with a way to change the content slider on a platform. It can be configured different ways for desktop, mobile, and tablet uses for moving between content and designed to engage the user.
- RevSlider is a carousel that can be used to showcase Revcontent ads on a site and can be configured to suit any site with numerous choices for the number of rows and columns for this native content.
- RevShifter helps to increase revenue by monetizing the premium top or bottom page sections of a site with native content. It’s proven to engage users on high bounce rate experiences through the use of touch support and pagination.
In addition to the widgets designed by its innovation team, the company is focused on raising the standards bar on what type of native advertising quality means so that it can continue changing perceptions and driving the benefits further across a wider audience. This includes providing more video native content experiences to address the growing preferences for video content across all platforms. To help publishers, RevContent developed a video overlay feature to add this capability and exploit the opportunities in this growing trend in content delivery.
While it may still take time to convince users and publishers of the value that native advertising offers as it moves farther away from the sales-directed approach, the changes in how it looks and feels as well as the effort to deepen engagement with the content will hit a tipping point. The amount spent on native advertising is already on the rise, showing promise that this type of technology and increase in quality standards is working to change minds.
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