Getting Started with Native Advertising: How to Build, Test, and Optimize Campaigns on Tap Native
Native advertising is an effective way to reach consumers and healthcare professionals while they’re actively engaging with content online. Unlike traditional banner advertisements, native ads are designed to fit naturally into the surrounding website experience, making them less disruptive and more relevant to readers.
For marketers new to native advertising, success starts with understanding where your ads appear, learning the dashboard, creating multiple ad variations, and tracking the results that matter.
1. Understanding Where Your Tap Native Ads Appear
Tap Native operates an advertising network spanning more than 20,000 websites, including healthcare, medical, news, lifestyle, and consumer information properties. Advertisements typically appear within article content, alongside editorial recommendations, or beneath articles in sections featuring additional content readers may find interesting.
These placements reach audiences already engaged with relevant information. For example, someone reading about diabetes management may encounter an advertisement for a glucose monitoring product, while a physician reviewing clinical research may see an advertisement for a new treatment. Tap Native supports both direct-to-consumer (DTC) and healthcare professional (HCP) campaigns, allowing advertisers to reach audiences based on their marketing objectives.
The advantage is context: Your advertisements appear where people are already consuming information rather than interrupting their experience.
2. Getting Familiar with the Tap Native Dashboard
Once you log into your Tap Native advertiser account, you’ll find a dashboard designed to help you create, manage, measure, and optimize your campaigns. The dashboard provides visibility into essential performance metrics, including:
- Impressions: How many times your advertisements were displayed.
- Clicks: How many people clicked your advertisements.
- Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in clicks.
- Spend: How much you’ve invested in advertising.
- Conversions: How many desired actions resulted from your campaigns.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA): Your average advertising cost for each conversion.
You can organize advertisements into folders, monitor performance over different date ranges, and compare results across individual ads. Understanding these reporting tools makes it easier to identify which advertisements deserve more investment and which need improvement. You’ll see action buttons which are three dots which look like this ( …) – click those to see all the options.
3. Start by Creating 10 Different Ads
One of the biggest mistakes new native advertisers make is launching a campaign with only one or two advertisements. Different images, headlines, and messages can produce dramatically different results, even when promoting exactly the same product.
We recommend starting with 10 different ads. This provides enough creative variety to begin identifying which images and headlines resonate with your audience without making your initial campaign unnecessarily complicated. Each advertisement should test a different headline, image, or combination of the two.
Write Clear, Benefit-Driven Headlines
Tap Native headlines have a maximum length of 60 characters, so every word matters. Your headline should immediately communicate what your product or service offers and, more importantly, how it helps the reader. Avoid vague headlines, clever phrases that require interpretation, or exaggerated promises. Instead, focus on clarity, relevance, and a specific benefit.
For example, rather than writing “Discover Something Amazing Today,” a healthcare advertiser might use “A Smarter Way to Monitor Your Blood Glucose.” A strong headline answers two questions: What is being offered, and why should someone care? Test several headlines emphasizing different benefits, problems, or solutions.
Use Clean, Compelling Images
Images are equally important because they’re often the first element readers notice. For Tap Native campaigns, use 1000 × 600 pixel images that are non-branded and contain no text. Avoid logos, promotional banners, slogans, or text overlays. Instead, choose high-quality photographs that visually communicate the product’s purpose, the problem it addresses, or the audience it serves. For example, a healthcare campaign might feature a patient, medical professional, or relevant lifestyle situation rather than a branded product graphic. Here are some HCP targeted ads appearing on Drugs.com. Note that the images are non-branded, clear and crisp without any text. The headline appears below the image, not in the image itself. The souce line typically appears below the headline. Here are 3 separate ads.
Natural, authentic-looking images generally fit the native advertising environment better than traditional display advertising creative. Experiment with different people, settings, compositions, and visual concepts.
4. Install the Conversion Tracking Pixel
Before spending significant money on advertising, install the Tap Native conversion tracking pixel on your website. The conversion pixel allows Tap Native to measure what happens after someone clicks your advertisement and visits your website. Depending on your objectives, conversions might include purchases, lead form submissions, registrations, appointment requests, or other valuable actions. Without conversion tracking, you can measure traffic, but you cannot reliably determine which advertisements are generating meaningful business results. For example, Advertisement A might generate 500 clicks, while Advertisement B generates only 200. However, if Advertisement A produces five conversions and Advertisement B produces 20, the second advertisement is delivering substantially better results.
5. Compare Click-Through Rates and Conversion Rates
Once your advertisements begin receiving traffic, focus on two important performance indicators: CTR and conversion rate. Your CTR tells you how effectively an advertisement attracts attention. Calculate it by dividing clicks by impressions and multiplying by 100. Your conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who complete your desired action after clicking an advertisement. Consider these two advertisements:
| Metric | Ad A | Ad B |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | 50,000 | 50,000 |
| Clicks | 200 | 100 |
| CTR | 0.40% | 0.20% |
| Cost Per Click (CPC) | $1.20 | $1.20 |
| Total Spend | $240.00 | $120.00 |
| Conversions | 4 | 10 |
| Conversion Rate | 2% | 10% |
| Cost Per Conversion (CPA) | $60.00 | $12.00 |
Advertisement A generates twice as many clicks and has twice the click-through rate of Advertisement B. However, Advertisement B produces 10 conversions compared to just four for Advertisement A, while spending half as much. The result? Advertisement B delivers conversions at just $12 each, compared to $60 for Advertisement A. That’s an 80% lower cost per acquisition. This demonstrates one of the most important lessons in native advertising: The advertisement generating the most clicks isn’t necessarily the one generating the best results. By tracking conversions and CPA, advertisers can identify which ads are actually delivering value and make smarter decisions about where to invest their budgets.
6. Turn Performance Data Into Better Results
After collecting sufficient data, use your dashboard to make informed decisions about your advertising budget. Identify ads producing strong conversion rates and acceptable CPAs, then allocate more budget toward those performers. Pause or revise advertisements that consistently underperform, but avoid drawing conclusions from only a handful of clicks. Pay attention to the relationship between ad performance and landing page performance. If an advertisement generates strong CTRs but few conversions, your landing page may need improvement. Make sure your landing page delivers on the promise of the advertisement, loads quickly, and makes the desired action easy to complete.
7. Start Small and Scale What Works
You don’t need an enormous advertising budget to get started with Tap Native. You need a clear objective, 10 different advertisements, reliable conversion tracking, and a willingness to learn from performance data. Begin with a manageable budget and give your advertisements enough exposure to generate meaningful results. As you identify profitable combinations of headlines, images, and landing pages, gradually increase your investment.
The formula is simple: Create, test, measure, and scale.
With access to thousands of publishing properties, comprehensive performance reporting, and the ability to reach both consumer and healthcare professional audiences, Tap Native gives marketers the tools to build measurable customer acquisition campaigns.
The advertisers who succeed aren’t necessarily those with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones who understand their numbers and use them to make smarter advertising decisions.
