Native Advertising Defined

● ThoughtLeadr native ad units are integrated into publisher design, matching look and feel.

● Broad spectrum defined as “native” in market○ Suggested content like Outbrain take user off site○ Sharethrough uses IAB formats & feel like display○ Others require manual formatting & insertion

● ThoughtLeadr’s dynamic rendering allows one set of creative assets to appear natively in multiple contexts, experienced in exactly the same was as the content on the site

● ThoughtLeadr units provide maximum leverage of publisher brand equity.

Transparency

ThoughtLeadr native ad units are always clearly labeled as paid advertising. We believe in complete transparency between paid content and organic content, with emphasis on adding editorial value to readers with contextually relevant brand content.

Measurement

● Depending on the goals of the campaign, there are various ways to measure the effectiveness of native ad placements.

● Media buyers can analyze time spent on page, user engagements, earned media, social activity, brand lift, traffic, etc.

● ThoughtLeadr’s Native Engagement Intelligence engine offers sophisticated reporting and integration with other analytics packages

Pricing

● Brands prefer CPA-type pricing for native - CPCs for articles and images, CPV for videos.○ Typical range $0.15-0.30

● eCPM can be difficult to predict - depends on design of native unit & resulting interaction dynamics with users○ Example: Imgur displays thumbnail on front page, content on separate

page for promoted images■ 2.5% CTR from front page yields $7.50 eCPM off a $0.30 CPC

○ Other publishers embed content directly in stream or autoplay videos on load, yielding significantly higher eCPM

● A pilot period can establish site / audience dynamics and optimal native unit interaction design for inventory yield○ dynamic CPM (baseline CPM plus CPA pricing) provides ample toolset for

creating appropriate pricing model for any publisher● Native drives higher yields than display, period.

Objection Handling

● We can post organic content ourselves.○ Serving ads out of CMS does not provide feature set and analytics to

optimize performance○ Serving content off own site or single content site, even large one like

YouTube, doesn’t garner the distribution and scale and attention that will optimally benefit the brand

● We don’t have any content.○ Creative agencies who specialize in branded content can be rare, but

ThoughtLeadr has partners who can help brands with proven track records

● Difficult to measure success.○ Campaign engagement can be designed with call-to-action○ ThoughtLeadr analytics can measure real results against any KPI

Broader Market Trends

● Native is increasingly high profile in brands awareness due to trade press coverage & spreading awareness of effectiveness vs. display○ 2.5% vs. 0.002% CTR on Imgur’s front page - 3 orders of magnitude

better● Agencies are gatekeepers - many are effectively dampening demand from

their clients because of the risk of the unknown● Creative agencies that can make good native content are still few & far

between● Scale is a critical discussion point

○ scale beyond siloed native inventory (FB, Twitter, etc)○ scale in raw inventory - engagement vs. impressions

● Mobile is where brands’ customers are spending their time, display works even worse on mobile than on web. Mobile advertising will be native.

Native buyer profile

● Brands for whom native is most attractive:○ Overall interest from media buyers with awareness/upper funnel budgets,

specifically with the launch or re-launch of new products and services ○ media companies

■ gaming, theatrical, television all perform well○ premium brands

■ blue chips building brand equity● Most buyers have not yet experienced genuine native advertising

○ Important to position ThoughtLeadr as truly branded content or premium sponsorship fully aligned with entire user experience

○ Very successful sales strategy to start with small pilot in 25-50k range■ Our pilots typically develop into six-figure range. Largest campaigns

currently in pipe are 300-500k