We live in a world where everyone and everything does more and more online. It makes sense, then, today’s world of digital advertising is constantly evolving; marketing trends change just as fast as the way consumers engage with digital information changes. Despite ever-evolving trends, one tactic has generated the most hype in the digital space as of late: programmatic advertising.

We’ve mentioned it before, but we’ll say it again. Native Advertising kicks butt in today’s ever-changing world of online advertising. It’s a tactful way to deliver valuable content—your brand story—to prospective customers, leading to impactful impressions and brand lift. Advertising that’s beneficial to both the consumer and brand? Yeah, that’s pretty powerful. Of course, sponsored content doesn’t automatically guarantee engagement. Creating relevant, meaningful content is only part of the equation. You also need to take a strategic approach by using quality metrics to inform and ultimately define the success of your Native Ad campaign.

Just as five feng shui elements can help you to balance your environment, five native ad elements can help you to place your campaign on the road to success. Native Advertising provides an opportunity to reach, engage and build a relationship with prospects in ways traditional ads simply can’t. Although the nature of native ads is to seamlessly blend in and appear native to the page—hence the name—the goal is to encourage consumer interaction in a less invasive, more impactful way that benefits both the consumer and brand.

Images have always been a powerful tool in advertising, but strong imagery is even more essential in today’s competitive world of online advertising. The image needs to grab the attention of the visitor and entice them to click; this is especially important with Native Advertising, since the ads are meant to match the look and feel of the content around it.

As we mentioned in our previous post on writing a strong native ad headline, an effective native ad should stand out, inform, and encourage interaction. Along with a great headline, images are one of the first things to attract attention from a user. Whether the image is eye-catching or triggers an emotional response, you’ll want to create a reason for a user to not only pay attention to your ad, but to then click. In part two of our Native Advertising best practices series, we’ll help you choose a Native Ad image to not only stand out, but capture the right audience for your brand.

In a world filled with SEO, content marketing, and display ads, it’s hard to keep up. We totally get it, but faster than you can say “Siri, what is Native Advertising?” we’ll get you an answer! Okay, maybe not that fast, but you catch our drift.

So what is native advertising?

The quick and dirty answer: Native Advertising is a form of paid advertising where the ad matches the form and function of the content on the platform on which it appears. Of course, how can you really get to know Native Advertising in just one sentence? It’s like a first date . . . You might need to dig a little deeper to get to know the person (or ad) behind the name. Second date, here we come!

The beauty of native advertising is that the ad matches the look and feel of the content around it, blending in. The tricky part about this form of advertising is that, well, the ads blend in. Because of this, brands must compete for the attention of the consumer—a consumer who likely has an attention span of less than 25 seconds—and the only way to do so is by creating something interesting, catchy and of course, relevant. That’s where the headline comes in.