You may be wondering how Native Commerce compares to Native Advertising, or perhaps whether Native Commerce is a type of Native Advertising. Rest assured, the answer to the latter is “no” — Native Commerce is its own beast, and it comes down to one crucial difference: Native Advertising primarily benefits brands while Native Commerce focuses on content creators.

Let’s think about Native Advertising and what it, in the most basic form, actually does. Ad exchange service Sharethrough defines Native Advertising as “a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed.”

Essentially, Native Advertising allows brands or content creators (through services like Sharethrough) to more seamlessly integrate their marketing and / or products into your content, with the intention of driving prospective buyers or readers away from your site. Breaking that down:

  • Making brands more likely to want to advertise to your audience — great!
  • Blurring the lines between your own content and that of an outside brand — not so great.
  • Taking your users off your site — bad, bad, bad.

Even the first point isn’t a real selling point. Brands always want to advertise with publishers that cater to the same audience — Native Advertising just makes it easier on the advertiser’s end.

Now let’s compare this to Native Commerce. Native Commerce allows publishers to seamlessly and organically integrate relevant products into their own content, so they own the customer’s purchase cycle from start to finish — from discovery to desire to checkout. Breaking that down:

  • Selling products directly through the content you’re already producing — great!
  • Monetizing in a completely transparent way that gives users direct access to products when they want them most — wonderful!
  • Keeping users on your site to buy instead of sending them somewhere else — hooray!

If you’re trying to figure out new, innovative ways to generate revenue from your site, don’t always feel like you have to give someone else center stage. With Native Commerce, keep everything under your brand — and generate more revenue — in the most seamlessly integrated way possible.