Written By Mike Kelly | 5/17/24
The world of native advertising is incredibly complex in so many ways.
Advertisers need to create effective content, which users can consume and take action. They need to create strong headlines and descriptions to attract users to their content.
And most importantly, they need powerful images that are eye-catching to readers and at least “somewhat” relevant to their product/service.
Without strong images, you cannot command attention from your audience. And in an attention-focused industry, if you’re being ignored… you’re losing.
Selecting images for native advertising involves a mix of creativity, psychology, and strategic thinking. Simply throwing an image into your flow and hoping it’ll work without a strategy isn’t marketing. It’s guessing. To be an expert marketer, you need to understand the core pillars of effective native ads imagery.
1) Relevance
Ensure the image directly relates to the content and context of the native ad. It should enhance the message rather than distract from it.
2) Audience Alignment
Understand your target audience and choose images that resonate with their demographics, interests, and preferences. Personalization is key.
3) Emotional Appeal
Select images that evoke the desired emotions of your audience, whether it’s joy, curiosity, empathy, or excitement. Emotional resonance can drive engagement and action.
4) Authenticity
Choose authentic and genuine images that reflect real-life situations and experiences. Avoid stock photos that feel staged or artificial. Copying or stealing images from other advertisers is lame and shows a complete lack of creativity.
5) Mobile-Friendly
Given the prevalence of mobile devices, ensure that the image is optimized for various screen sizes and resolutions. It should look good and load quickly on both desktop and mobile devices.
6) A/B Testing
Experiment with different images to see which ones perform best in terms of engagement, click-through rates, and conversions. Use data to refine your image selection strategy over time.
By following these steps...
You can effectively leverage images to enhance the effectiveness of your native advertising campaigns, removing the guesswork and driving your skills towards the expertise of the top 1% of native ads marketers.
Internally within ROI Marketplace, we have been perfecting the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for image creation. You can use any of the numerous AI Photo generators out there to specify exactly what you want the user to see. Color, age, activity, race, etc.
Combining AI with human ingenuity is a powerful combination that breeds unbelievable results. Any tool is only as good as the person using it – and AI is no different. So again, don’t just tell Midjourney to make you a picture of a bear… give it direct and specific guidance in what you need (A teddy bear? Polar bear? Give it some details!).
Before making any decision around image creation, start with the end user in mind. Get their demographic and identity clearly laid out and start creating from there. Find your images that work and then iterate – find new versions that resonate BETTER with that audience.
This continuous improvement process is how ROI Marketplace has worked to become the premier Native Ads Agency across the United States.
If you’ve been struggling to land results with native ads for your brand, feel free to reach out to us using the contact form below. We’ll look into what you’ve been doing and show you how working with a dedicated Native Advertising Agency can breathe fresh life into your marketing.
