Welcome back to another week of advertising insights from Social.com. This week, we take a look at the prominence of native ads; Twitter’s power to promote a brand and drive purchase intent; and the overwhelming presence of Facebook in today’s top websites and domains.

The first advertising insight this week is the rise in popularity of native ads. These include social ads like a promoted tweet in your Twitter stream or content chosen specially and placed in your Facebook feed. The difference between these ads and traditional banner ads is the way native ads appear to look and feel like a part of the rest of the content on a page.  According to a study posted by Right Mix Technologies (the study originally conducted by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough), native advertising is therefore a kind of content marketing, improving the user experience by cutting the clutter.  As a result, native ads drive more views and in turn a greater influence on your brand; viewers report looking at native ads 52% more frequently than banner ads. Partially because this type of ads are more likely to be viewed, native ads drive a 9% higher lift for brand affinity and a 18% higher lift for purchase intent. In addition, 71% of viewers say they feel personally connected to brand they connect with in a native ad, compared to 50% who say they can personally connect with banner ads. Finally, because native ads are made to fit within a feed or existing content, they are more mobile friendly. In today’s mobile dominant world, it sounds like native ads have quite a leg up. 

Speaking of branded native content, Twitter conducted a study (posted on Social Media Examiner) which shows just how much exposure a brand can receive from being active on Twitter, and how much Twitter can impact a brand both online and offline consumer behavior.

Of Twitter users surveyed, 54% acted on a brand as a result of seeing the brand mentioned in their stream. Of these particular users, 23% then visited a brand’s website, 20% visited a brand’s Twitter page, and 18% will retweet a brand; all after seeing that brand mentioned in their stream. Users who saw a brand in their stream were also compelled to interact with that brand outside of Twitter; specifically, 20% of users actively search for a brand online and 19% are motivated to actually make a purchase. Overall, there are numerous ways users can be active with a brand on Twitter that result in higher acquisition of brand supporters and an increase in the strength of existing relationships.

Not only do today’s social media channels impact brand awareness and purchase decisions, but they also play a role in tracking and other marketing technologies. Gigaom research conducted a study of the top 1,000 domains and what tracking tags are on each one of them. (Tracking tags from third party technologies are usually related to at least one of analytics, personalization, ad networks, or affiliate linking.)  Key for advertisers, an astonishing 92% of these domains make calls to a Facebook. Facebook tracking tags are primarily included in a domain for a combination of ad tracking or login credentials (like when you sign-in through Facebook).  This shows how impactful Facebook is in the digital world. Whether Facebook is used to track advertising activity, to increase awareness and adoption of a brand, or to drive purchases, Facebook seems to be everywhere. 

Join us next week for more insights! Until then, for more information about Social Advertising, check out our Advertising Benchmark.