Sponsored Content Advertising—What Is It and Should you Add it to Your Digital Marketing Plan?

Sponsored content is when a company pays to have a piece of content about their product featured on a major publication.

This is a fairly new concept to some people.

Here’s how it got started:

Have you ever seen banner ads on websites or social media pages? Have you ever been trying to read an article and an ad pops up? Most of us quickly hit “X” so we can get back to reading the article. 

In recent years, there has been less and less traffic that originates from these types of ads.

Studies show that many viewers have learned to completely tune them out—a subconscious effect called “banner blindness.”

Because there are so many ads, and viewers have been inundated with them for so long, we don’t pay attention anymore. 

So companies have gotten more creative to get us to read their ads. 

Instead of using banner or pop-up advertisements that attempt to stand out, they try to camouflage the advertisement into the website you are looking at so that you might stumble across it thinking that it’s information you are looking for.

The ads are made to blend seamlessly into the platform. 

You might think you’re browsing news articles in the New York Times, but some of the headlines might actually be sponsored content.

This has proved to be an effective way of marketing. If you can make interesting, engaging content about your product, people are going to want to learn more. 

Of course, with everything, it’s not fail-safe. 

There are pros and cons to sponsored content, which we will talk about later.