The 5 do’s of native video advertising
Video is the single most engaging form of media and many online publishers are eager to take advantage of its monetization power. But how do you “do” native video advertising right?
We have put together 5 best practices for working with native video widgets. But first, let’s quickly go through the basics.
What is native video advertising?
Whenever you see video ads while watching original video content – you are looking at native video advertising. YouTube has them, TikTok has them – and websites use them too, to encourage engagement and to increase their ad revenue (many times dramatically so) without the user leaving their site.
How do native video ads look on the publisher’s website?
After the publisher decides to include video widgets in their ad portfolio the video ad vendor is responsible for filling the widget with engaging, relevant video content. This may be general interest reels fitting the audience of the website, news snippets from around the world, video content from the website itself, or a slideshow of articles.
It’s during this stream that ads appear for website visitors to see.
5 best practices for working with native video widgets:
The time is now
The first ‘do’ is the simplest one; do begin using native video widgets today. Currently, there is no better way to achieve a dramatic eCPM increase – as demonstrated in this case study. Or simply look at YouTube and TikTok’s ad revenues for confirmation. (BTW TikTok just got ahead of good ol’ YT).
Be visible – always
Both viewability and revenue can be increased with floating video units that stay visible as the viewer scrolls through the page. Publisher payments are based on views instead of clicks. This means that the visitor does not necessarily leave the site after viewing a paying ad. The visitor can go on engaging with other content items and can convert again and again – depending on the ad format.
Location, location, location
Where to put your video widget? While native content (recommended article) widgets are usually placed by the side or at the bottom of articles, video widgets can be granted a more prestigious position – around the first half or middle of the article. It fits naturally into the flow of the page and gets more views.
Recirc it!
Video widgets are a powerful tool to enhance user experience and increase engagement. Most providers allow using their widgets to showcase the publisher’s own, in-site content items – either as images or videos – and display direct links to them.
Sell to the best bidder
The most important thing when monetizing a native video widget is to sell the placement to the highest relevant bidder.
When it comes to display ads selling to the highest bidder goes without saying. Advertisers bid for the placements through DSPs and the best offer gets displayed. But in the native ad game, RTB (real-time bidding) never became a thing beyond the ad network level. Until WhizzCo.
The WhizzCo platform enables publishers to work with as many vendors (video and content recommendation vendors) as they wish. With a quick and straightforward integration, your widget can display the highest bidding video ads, every time.
(We would explain how we do it but have already done so here. Spoiler alert: it involves our proprietary algorithm that predicts the highest bid.)