By Mr. X

I’ve been deeply in love with the internet marketing industry for the past decade.

After some flings with SEO, Poptraffic and Mobile DSP love hit me like a 10 pound hammer.

It was a cold winter day back in 2015 when a mutual friend told me about Miss Facebook.

I remember our first date as if it was yesterday: I brought roses and a raffle ticket to win a free iPhone.  She became ecstatic about the iPhone — it was almost over the top. She really liked my unusual present. And I could immediately feel we were made for each other.

Facebook has been my BAE for the past few years.
We shared some amazing adventures together, but something painful became clear over time: It was a hot and cold relationship, and it wasn’t good for me or my business.

Sometimes she would kick me out of the house in the middle of the night, only to apologize the next day and act as though nothing happened.
And the mood swings became even more extreme over time. One morning I woke up to a red post-it on the fridge:  “I am breaking up with you. This decision is final.” That’s the day our love story ended.

If you also feel heartbroken, I have good news for you.
You see, there is a new breed of women out there. They call themselves “Native Ads” and they offer the stability we all crave.
I’m happy to share some tips on how you can win the heart of your very own native girl.

For the past few months, I’ve been running most of my traffic on Taboola and Outbrain. The following tips are tailored to these sources.

9 Native Ads Tips For Ex-Facebook Lovers

1. Prepare well and get help – The Key to a successful transition 

You don’t have to do this alone. The transition from Facebook media buying into native is a challenge for everyone involved, from the creative team to landing page creation to campaign management. Where Facebook’s fabulous plug-and-play system will do the optimization for you, Native is a hands-on process. It requires your unconditional attention to bid up and down when needed. Fortunately, you don’t have to do this alone. With the help of Maximus (top native optimization software) you are going into the game meters of ahead of anyone going into native alone.

Learn more about what Maximus can do for your native campaigns: https://maximusx.com/features/

2. Every Campaign Gets A Label – And It Might Impact Traffic Quality 

When your campaign is reviewed, the content review team will put it in a certain category.
If your campaign is labeled as “too sensational,” it might not be whitelisted for all premium placements (i.e. the big news sites). This will impact your scale and traffic quality.

Some products might also be “blacklisted” for certain placements.

Your rep can tell you in which category you were placed. They can also advise you on how to get whitelisted for the premium traffic.

3. How To Get A Rep

You need an inside man to make this work. Your rep can also help you get a denied campaign approved again. They will fight your case with the content review team (if you ask them nicely) or tell you what tweaks to make.

They can also help you save some money by giving you whitelists/blacklists.

Three tips to get a rep:

1. Show them the money: Ask for a prepaid account and do a first initial deposit of $10 000 or more. Make sure the ad-account is in EST time and USD. This will help with Maximus integration.
2. Ask your affiliate network to vouch for you. If you did serious volume in the past on Facebook, they’ll be happy to introduce you. It also does not hurt to share screenshots of your Facebook spend.
3. Be professional. Make sure you have a website that represents your company as an ad agency.

4. Common Compliance Mistakes Every Newbie Makes

Until recently, I’d consider myself a native ads newbie. When I masterminded with people from my level, we were all making similar rookie mistakes.

Avoid these mistakes to get your campaign approved:

• Always mention “Advertorial” on top of your presell
• Don’t use a fake comment section
• Don’t link the logo on your advertorial to the offer (either don’t link it, or link it to your homepage).
• Don’t use fake countdown timers for scarcity
• Don’t do false claims. Back up unusual claims by linking to studies in the footer area.

5. You Might Have A God Complex – Here’s How To Create Better Ads

Dear Facebook marketer, you might suck at marketing.
Even a bad advertisement and landing page might bring in sales thanks to the Facebook Pixel. This is because your ad gets shown to the perfect audience (and because Mr. Zuckerberg hates privacy).

When you run native ads, you need to bring your A-game.

I recommend reading A Complete Guide To Native Advertising.

To start testing a new product, I would recommend starting with two separate campaigns:

• 1 campaign containing 4-7 headlines
• 1 campaign containing 4-7 images

Find the best image/headline (based on ad CTR and conversions). Once you find your winners, combine them into a new campaign.

6. It’s A Rather Slow Game

Gathering the correct data and waiting for approval all takes time.
Embrace the slow process. The higher barrier of entry makes it harder for your competition to copy you.

You might need to spend a lot of money to know what’s working.

7. One Rotten Apple Might Spoil The Whole Barrel

Pause ads with low CTR.

You pay by click on the Native Networks, which means you can get way more traffic if your ad CTR is good.
Your rep and your Maximus Client Success Team can advise you about what you should aim for. On Taboola and Outbrain anything under 0.10% ad CTR for desktop USA is considered really bad.

But don’t aim for just a sky-high ad CTR alone. You need to prequalify your clicks to make this work.

If you’ve had a campaign with a history of low ad CTRs, sometimes it might help to duplicate it as a fresh campaign with only the winning images inside it.

8. Keep Your Devices Separate

Facebook advises putting mobile/desktop together in one campaign.

On Native it’s the other way around.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll have to bid around half the amount for mobile compared to desktop. Desktop usually converts better and is more stable.

9. The Sleazy Tricks Native Networks Use To Empty Your Wallet

Networks have a lot of traffic from push notifications and content arbitrage sites.

This is generally considered low-quality traffic or has unstable performance.

Block these placements as fast as possible, or ask your rep to start your campaign on a performance whitelist.

 

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