How To Increase Your eCommerce Traffic & Sales With Native Advertising

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.

Yet, there are a handful of eCommerce companies who have begun to allocate more of their ad budget to Native Ad networks like Taboola, Outbrain, and Adblade.

In this blog post, you’ll see the Native Advertising strategies for four online retailers:

• Dollar Shave Club
• Crutchfield
• Wayfair
• GlassesUSA

Dollar Shave Club

The Dollar Shave Club is a mail order razor blade company that’s become quite popular over the past few years, as is one of the fastest growing advertisers according to Adbeat data.

Dollar Shave Club’s Ad Spend & Ad Creatives

The majority of DSC’s ad spend is allocated towards Taboola, with Outbrain in a distant second.

They’ve started to ramp down their spend over the past couple of months, but they had a big push at the beginning of Q4 2015.

Dollar Shave Club’s Top Native Ads

Dollar Shave Club’s most seen ads focus on the “Disrupting a $13 Billion Razor Industry” angle.

This style of copy is similar to something a Direct Response advertiser might use. You see this style of copy a lot in the finance space, because it’s quite useful at grabbing attention.

You’ll also see a testimonial-style ad in the lower-right (“Here’s What Happened When I Tried Dollar Shave Club.” This ad sends traffic to an article written by a customer who recounts his experience with the product.

Dollar Shave Club’s Landing Pages

Dollar Shave Club is testing three different landing pages.

All three pages include a large picture of a razor, the blades, and the packaging. All three landing pages also include a picture of Michael Dubin, one of the founders.

The main copy on each page is also very similar, if not exactly the same.

The only big differences you’ll see are the background image (the wooden background in LP #1) and the “It couldn’t be simpler” diagram seen at the bottom of landing pages #2 and #3.

GlassesUSA

GlassesUSA is an online retailer that offers prescription eyeglasses at discount prices.

GlassesUSA’s Native Ad Spend & Ad Networks

GlassesUSA allocates the majority of their ad spend to Taboola — an estimated 4.1M over the past 6 months. You’ll also see that they’ve spent ~$160k with Outbrain over the past 6 months.

GlassesUSA’s Top Native Publishers

The majority of GlassesUSA’s ads are seen on news sites, viral content sites, and political commentary sites.

GlassesUSA’s Top Native Ads

GlassesUSA’s ads all focus on the price of the glasses, and why you should buy online. They probably chose this angle because a) anything that promises lower prices is tantilizing, and b) most people assume purchasing glasses is the best option. It’s simply easier to browse and try on different pairs in person to find the one you like. Online glasses shopping is a bit different. You can’t try them on right then and there. However, GlassesUSA and other online retailers have made this process a bit more friendly.

GlassesUSA’s Top Native Landing Pages

GlassesUSA is split testing two similar landing pages:

You’ll notice that both pages use many of the same images, calls-to-action, and even some of the same copy.

The differences between the two landing pages include image placement, some different images used, changes in body copy, and the headline, which changes depending on the copy in the ad.

Crutchfield.com

Crutchfield is a retailer that specializes in car stereos, speakers, TV sets, and other electronic devices. Crutchfield was founded in 1974. This makes them, by far, the oldest company that is featured in this blog post.

It’s not too often that you see an “old school” business using Native Advertising, so sure to pay close attention to Crutchfield’s strategy.

Crutchfield’s Ad Networks & Ad Spend

The other advertisers in this post allocate the majority of their Native ad budgets to Taboola and Outbrain.

Crutchfield also spends significantly with both of these networks.

However, they currently spend the most with Adblade.

Crutchfield’s Top Native Publishers

Crutchfield sends most of their traffic to fanboyreport.com, a site that publishes tech & gadget news for nerds. The audience that reads fanboyreport.com is right on target for Crutchfield’s products.

They also spend significantly on walmart.com placements related to electronics:

Crutchfield’s Top Native Ads

Crutchfield uses this “article-style” copy in their ads. Consequently, each ad creative sends traffic to an article related to the product advertised.

Crutchfield’s Landing Pages

Crutchfield simply uses informative articles related to the product advertised in the corresponding Native ad. However, they don’t forget to sell. The articles include links to potential products a visitor can buy. Some articles include multiple products, and some articles focus on one specific product. Crutchfield opts for a softer kind of selling.

Wayfair.com

Wayfair is a furniture and home decor retailer. Long time Adbeat blog readers will recognize Wayfar.com from previous blog posts. Wayfair has consistently been one of the highest spending Display advertisers across all ad networks. They’ve recently scaled their campaigns to Native networks.

Wayfair’s Ad Spend & Ad Networks

You’ll notice that Wayfair still allocates the majority of their ad spend to the Google Display Network.

Yet, we’ve recently seen them start to allocate more ad spend to Native networks, specifically Taboola, Yahoo Gemini, and Outbrain.

Wayfair’s Top Native Publishers

Wayfair’s Top Native Ads

Wayfair uses curiosity building ad copy in their Native ads. Their strategy is similar to that of Dollar Shave Club. Wayfair and Dollar Shave Club are not necessarily new. Furniture are not usually thought of as controversial. Therefore, when you see a headline like, “See The Online Furniture Store That Has Retailers Worried” will catch your attention.

As we harp on again and again here at Adbeat,  the best ways to see better results with paid traffic is by analyzing what other advertisers are doing successfully, and using their strategy as inspiration.

Here’s a Native ad by the watch company MVMT that mashes the Dollar Shave Club and Wayfair’s copy together:

This style of ad copy is working very well for a various advertisers across different markets.

Do you think this style of ad copy could get you more clicks and sales, too?

Wayfair’s Top Native Landing Pages

Wayfair is not currently split testing any landing pages.

They send all traffic to this gated landing page:

Gated landing pages are quite common for eCommerce Display advertisers.

Why?

Simply because being able to utilize email marketing to keep selling your products, informing customers of special deals, and reminding customers that you exist, is extremely powerful.

Conclusion

Many companies wonder if Native ads are right for them.

We’re used to seeing Direct Response, large viral style publishers and big brands using Native.

There are fewer eCommerce sites, yet the ones you’ve seen in this blog post seem to be doing really well.

What does this mean for you?

Well, if you have an eCommerce site that appeals to a large audience, then Native ads can work VERY well for your company.

You can use the strategies above as inspiration.

All you have to do is start testing.