SourceMedia moves into dynamic native ads

SourceMedia offers a variety of B2B publications, including American Banker, Accounting Today and Employee Benefit News.

Today, the company is announcing it is moving away from static native ads for the online versions of those publications, and for elsewhere, as it launches three new ad types — two of which are dynamic.

One type, a 970 x 250 ad unit, is called Topic Tile. It presents four sections or tiles of content — two that contain teasers for existing SourceMedia stories and two sections that contain content or an ad from the marketer.

The SourceMedia content excerpts are geared to that visitor’s perceived interests, as indicated by SourceMedia’s own profiles on its subscribers, or from such outside data as what types of products visitors from specific companies are interested in.

A click on the SourceMedia content leads to that article, surrounded on the page by that marketer’s ads. Since this native ad type attempts to attract attention by flagging the user’s interests, CMO Matt Yorke told me, it’s considered as being “top-of-funnel,” where the key goal is attracting awareness. Here’s a Topic Tile ad at top of page:

A second ad type, at 285 x 550, is called Content Fuse. It consists of one section that contains a snippet of original content created by SourceMedia. A click on that ad leads to a custom landing page with the rest of the original story, also surrounded by that marketer’s ads.

For this ad type, Yorke said his company is creating original content that has been popular in the past, and it is monitoring user engagement as a way of determining future content subjects. As this content is designed to be more aligned to a user’s interests, Yorke considers this native ad type middle-of-funnel, where the goal in delivering a customer is to achieve product consideration.

The third native ad type, Partner Insights, is also 285 x 550. It features one section with the marketer’s content or ad, and it is not based on what the visitor’s perceived interests are. It is considered bottom-of-funnel, where next-step action resides, and it might be served to a visitor who has seen the previous two native ad types.

Topic Tiles and Partner Insights are used only on SourceMedia’s publications, but Content Fuse is intended for placement anywhere. Advertisers are charged in a cost-per-view model, where they only pay for impressions that have been delivered to a targeted user.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.