7 Examples of How Big Media, New Sites and Top Blogs are Using Native Advertising

As bloggers and site owners, we are always trying to think up new and creative ways to make our website and content better. At the same time, we also want to make sure we can increase page views, visitor time our sites and of course, revenue. With all of this in mind, native advertising has completely changed the way content is being created, read and monetized on the internet today. Through the use of native advertising network, websites and brands of all sizes can ‘recommend content’ to their audiences, while also cashing in on their traffic and providing engaging content in the process.

The concept of native advertising is nothing new, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down in usage or revenue it generated either. Some of the biggest brand names in the world like Fox News, Forbes and ESPN are all using native advertising to increase traffic to their sites, other articles and make even more money in the process. Not only are we seeing native advertising being used across some of the top websites and blogs on the internet today, we are also seeing thousands of entertainment and link bait type sites making a decent coin using these methods as well.

How Top Sites are Making BIG Money with Content Recommendations

If you aren’t already making money with content recommendations or native advertising, there is still plenty of time to take action. To help with this process, I wanted to highlight seven different sites to show you how they are using ‘content recommendations’ and native advertising to increase activity, content, and revenue through their sites. Each of the sites featured below go livw with new daily articles on a wide range of topics and are using native advertising and content recommendations in different ways. Check out each of the examples below and see if you can come up with any ideas on how to improve page views, engagement and revenue for your own site.

ESPN

Millions of people visit ESPN.com daily to find the latest scores and highlights… though they are likely led off to a wide range of other sites through the content recommendations will come across while browsing through their site. Head over to any article on ESPN and you will see a bunch of native advertising in place from Outbrain. What stands out about the content recommendation on ESPN, is when you read an individual article, like this one on The Boston Celtics, you will start seeing content recommendations relating to the sport you are reading about. I bet this works extremely well for CTR!

Fox News

Fox News is well-known for being one of the most popular news sources in the world today. At the same time, they are probably banking a lot of money off their TV ads and commercial time. However, when you look at their site you can see a ton of ad placements and content recommendations on there as well. Take a look at this recent article on Stephen Collins and the upcoming reunion of 7th Heaven, then scroll down passed the article and you will see a section like the one below. Massive content recommendations from OutBrain, TMZ, Pop Crush and even additional articles from the Fox News site.

Jeff Bullas

Jeff Bullas has become a well-known name in the world of blogging and social media. Through his high-traffic site and daily article publications, Jeff is able to reach thousands of people daily. With all of this reach, it would only make sense for him to add content recommendations to his site as well. Check out this article on The Power of Storytelling and scroll down to the bottom. You will then see a few content recommendations from Publi.sh and also internal recommendations to his other recent articles. This is a great way to keep audiences flowing through content on your site.

Business2Community

With the rise of Google Adsense, contextual marketing and native advertising on the rise (along with their revenues), more websites and blogs are now focused on increased content creation at mass scale. We are now seeing more media outlets cover topics like entertainment, politics and general news… simply to increase the amount of traffic flowing through these sites, while also increasing ad exposure. One such example of this is Business2Community. You can view this recent article on entrepreneurial advice from Sam Ovens, and as you scroll through the article, you will see a wide range of native advertising and content recommendations along the sidebar and at the bottom of the paid. You will likely pass some Outbrain ads on the right sidebar, while hitting some Google Adsense recommendations after the article, along with a few from Publi.sh and Brightinfo as well.

Mashable

Web sites and blogs that used to focus heavily on content and news, now seem to put out anything to simply attract more attention and traffic to their sites. This kind of makes sense, since they are all relying so heavily on native advertising to produce more traffic and revenue for their sites. A perfect example of this can be seen at Mashable — which used to be a tech/business type of site, and now puts out articles like this one on Pretty Little Liars. While on the site, you will quickly see how content recommendations and on-site advertising pretty much dominates the page space in and after the article.

Inc.

One big media site that hasn’t sold out to the native advertising networks like many others have, is Inc. In one of my recent articles on their site about infographic marketing in 2017, you can take a quick look at the many content recommendations they have on their site and shown alongside their content — but for the most part, it’s all content within the Inc website. Along the right side of the page you will see “Today’s Must Reads”, then at the bottom of the article you will see “More” articles (found on Inc) then a “Recommended” section with thumbnails and videos of other content on the site. While many other news sites are making money with native advertising, it would be interesting to see how much of an increase Inc. has seen in page views per user since implementing all of these content recommendations to their own content.

ViralNova

Probably one of the best examples of how content recommendations and native advertising have changed the way we browse content online is ViralNova. The site is basically what started the whole craze and even went on to sell for $100 million. Take a look at any article on their site, like this one about a daughter coming home from school and you will see a great supply of recommendations throughout the page (for other content on the site), then after the article, you will see a mix of content from Revcontent and Community Postings as well.

Content Recommendations and Native Advertising is Here to Stay

As you can see, the world of content recommendations and native advertising looks like it’s going to be around for a while. As long as the process continues to generate enough money for big name sites and also enough quality content for the site users, both sides look like they will be happy. To learn more about this process and how to get set up with your own content recommendations, see this review on Revcontent.