Native-Advertising on Adbeat

How Edmunds spent $12.6M on native advertising to drive measurable ROI

Wed, 22 May 2019 16:12:20 +0000

Founded in 1966, Edmunds is a one-stop online resource for automotive information including car prices, dealer inventory listings, national incentives database, and vehicle comparisons. Using images, videos, news articles, blog posts, and discussion boards, the company caters to users looking to learn more about SUVs, sedans, minivans, wagons, trucks, luxury cars, coupes, crossovers, electric cars, and hatchbacks.Over the years, Edmunds has launched: a free online magazine for auto-enthusiasts, Car Week—a week-long event to connect car dealers with customers, a True Market Value Used Vehicle Appraiser that displays the actual transaction prices for used cars, and a hackathon event called Hackomotive to invite new ideas to scale the company. In their first-ever TV commercial that aired in 2012, Edmunds introduced the character of the ‘Car Head’—a company representative with a car for a head—who encourages consumers to avoid haggling with car dealers by using the company’s ‘Prime Promise’ tool to compare vehicle costs to secure the best deals. According to Datalogix, 59% of U.S. car buyers use Edmunds while making a purchasing decision, and more than half of their website visits actually result in a conversion.Let’s take a closer look at their overall advertising strategy: Ad Spend and Ad Networks In the last 6 months, Edmunds has spent a whopping $12.6M on online promotion of their brand, with the majority being dedicated to Outbrain ($11.6M), content distribution and native advertising platform. Additionally, Taboola ($735.2K), Direct Buy ($87.5K), and Yahoo Gemini Native ($79.7K) are also advertising networks that they’ve invested in. By comparison, Kelley Blue Book (KBB), a direct competitor to Edmunds, also invests heavily in native advertising with an ad spend of $9.5M on Taboola and $1.9M on Outbrain for the same time periodAlmost 99% of their ads are native—most of which run on mobile devices and have a 406% chance of a higher click-through-rate (CTR) than banner ads. Why, you ask? Simple! Banner ads are intended to show up at a designated place. On small screens, this can often interrupt the surrounding messages and in turn, the overall user experience of the platform they’re displayed on. On the other hand, native ads tend to blend in with the look, feel, and style of the website; and offer a distraction-free value proposition to the consumers. In an attempt to close intrusive ads, most people end up accidentally clicking on them—which is fairly understandable, keeping in mind the touch screen nature of smartphones. On the contrary, the clicks on native ads are a result of genuine interest and have a higher chance of a conversion. Publishers From the very beginning, Edmunds has stuck to advertising with the same publishers—CNN ($1.5), Rolling Stone ($980.9K), ESPN ($617.6K), The Hill ($393.7K) and Daily Caller ($379.7K). They’ve also advertised with The Verge ($334.7K), SBNation ($331.6K), Politico ($307.9K), Fox News ($298.4K), and Curbed ($252.1K). Quick side note: Kelley Blue Book uses more or less the same publishers as Edmunds. CNN ($256.2K), Slate ($245.3K), NBC News ($222.1K), Android Central ($219.1K), and NBC Sports ($186.1K) have been their top publishers in the last 6 months. On CNN, the ads appear largely on the homepage and on posts that fall under the ‘tech’, ‘business’ and ‘success’ category. One can assume that these pages get reasonable traffic, which explains why most of Edmunds’ ads have been running on and off with the same publishers for more than 600 days.

What is Native Advertising and why is it so effective?

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 20:04:15 +0000

According to an Adobe survey, 45% of respondents had no desire to view ads. The main reason? Most ads are intrusive. People get hit by an average of 5,000 ads per day! After a while, they just become blind to those ads.

Native advertising solves this huge psychological challenge of intrusion. These are ads that are designed to blend into the natural content of a website. The automobile and travel industries are the top industries using native advertising.

How Dating Apps Spend Millions on Native Ads to Get More Singles Aboard

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 18:36:23 +0000

According to Statista, 8% of 18– to 29-year-olds are in a committed relationship with a partner or spouse they met online. Using a dating app has become a meaningful and common method for people to find the love of their life. Of course, there are many more people out there using these various apps looking for casual dating, friendship, and other things.

Within this pool of eager singles, you have a plethora of subcategories for different niches and preferences.

How to Choose a Native Ad Network

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 20:25:21 +0000

Remember when the advertising strategy of choice used to be the “one size fits all” approach? There were only a handful of TV channels and newspapers to choose from so everyone saw the same ads regardless of their interests.

Fortunately for advertisers — and customers — advertising has evolved to be able to show audiences exactly what they need. In fact, online advertising has emerged as the most pervasive form of advertising, especially because it allows for more refined targeting. Now audiences see ads they can relate to.

The #1 Traffic Source You're Not Using: Content Discovery Networks DO NOT PUBLISH

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 14:00:26 +0000

One of your best traffic sources could be something that you’re completely ignoring, even though it’s right under your nose. Businesses always want to know where the next best traffic source is coming from, and, although that’s going to vary somewhat from field to field, one stands out as a pretty powerful traffic driver that’s overlooked.

It’s Content Discovery Networks. These are something that everyone is familiar with but many people haven’t considered using as a business tool.

3 Secrets of Mack Weldon's Display Campaigns That All Apparel Advertisers Should Know

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 21:41:39 +0000

Men’s underwear is a billion dollar industry, and it’s on track to grow even bigger.A recent Men’s Underwear Market Report predicts that “increasing numbers of metrosexual men in the U.S. [are] anticipated to fuel revenue growth of the boxer shorts segment during the period 2016-2026.” With so much market growth on the horizon, we decided to do a deep-dive into how Mack Weldon, a popular men’s underwear maker, runs its display campaigns. Last year, Mack Weldon made the news when they reportedly doubled underwear sales through podcast advertising. This kind of marketing savvy makes them the perfect candidate for a post like this.Here are our observations….

4 Winning Native Ad Tactics From Top Fashion Retail Marketers

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:03:26 +0000

There I was, reading about the Westworld finale on Variety (don’t worry, no spoilers), when I’m offered six more articles to read. They all look pretty interesting, but only two actually have to do with TV, while the others are about fashion and celebrity.

So, how did an ad for a Macy’s sale end up in my article about an HBO show about robots?

The power of native advertising.

7 Landing Page Styles That Convert on Native Part 1: Taboola

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 22:13:05 +0000

Note: This is part 1 in a three-part series that covers which landing page styles are converting for direct response advertisers on the most popular Native networks. This post covers landing pages that currently work on Taboola. Part 2 (Revcontent) and part 3 (Outbrain) will be published in the upcoming weeks.

Have you tested running traffic on Taboola?

If you haven’t, then you’re really missing out. Some of the largest direct response advertisers spend upwards of $100k/month on Taboola alone. Taboola reaches over one billion unique visitors monthly, and they recently acquired ConvertMedia, a native video advertising company.

How To Increase Your eCommerce Traffic & Sales With Native Advertising

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 18:23:46 +0000

Since 2014, we’ve seen a massive rise in the number of advertisers testing out Native Ads.

Looking inside Adbeat, the majority of Native advertisers fit into a few categories:

Direct Response (information products and supplements)
Digital publishers (viral news and celebrity gossip sites)
Big brands

However, we’re seeing more eCommerce sites throw their hats into the ring.

eCommerce sites tend to stick with tried and true networks, like Google AdWords. This continues to be the trend.

How Answers.com Uses Native Advertising To Make Millions in Ad Revenue

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 18:19:42 +0000

Looking for ways to drive more traffic and bring in more ad revenue?

Look no further than Answers.com for inspiration.

Answers.com is a large Q&A community that was created back in 1999. Originally called “GuruNet”, the company went public in 2004 and later changed their name to Answers.com.

Although they’ve been around for close to two decades, much of their recent growth has been fueled by content promotion through Native Ad networks.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Native Content

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 14:09:41 +0000

According to Statista.com, Native advertising spend is expected to reach nearly nine billion U.S. dollars by 2018.

Who’s spending all this money?

You might be surprised when you find out.

It’s not the big brands. It’s not the direct response advertisers. Although both continue to direct more ad spend toward native.)

Some of the top spenders on networks like Outbrain and Taboola are ad arbitrage sites. These are the viral content, celebrity gossip, and sports news sites that make money off of advertising – specifically, using Native Ads to bring in cheap traffic in the hopes that those people will click on ads that offer a higher payout.

How To Write a Native Ad Landing Page (3 Case Studies)

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 12:00:06 +0000

We’ve written in the past about Native Ad Networks (also known as “ Content Discovery Networks“) and how large advertisers are allocating portions of their ad spend to networks like Taboola and Outbrain.

We’ve also written about how they’ve been switching over to pre sell pages from traditional sales letter, VSL and opt-in pages.

76 Traffic Sources That Aren't Google Adwords

Thu, 28 May 2015 20:00:29 +0000

People ask us what other traffic sources are out there besides Google Adwords.

Below you’ll find a list of 76 of them.

The list spans various network types, from Native Ad Networks (like Taboola and Outbrain) to mobile networks (MoPub). It also includes a few niche networks that target the wealthy, prospects interested in fashion, female bloggers, etc.

This list is perfect for anyone in any niche who wants to scale their campaigns beyond Google.