The Ultimate Guide to Advertorials: History, Best Practices, Examples, and ROI

Advertorials are considered an essential content marketing asset today. They are located between advertising measures and copywriting; they serve as a perfect bridge that makes it easier for brands to reach customers without the traditional disruptive techniques. Since consumers are growing increasingly towards anti-advertising and become exceedingly hasty about direct measures, the advertorial stands out as the better option because it’s the perfect combination of informing your audience while promoting a product or service.

This blog post will explain advertorials' history and evolution and why they became an essential marketing tool. It will also cover the best practices for creating an effective advertorial, real-world examples from well-known brands, and how to measure your advertorial campaigns' performance and return on investment (ROI).

What is an Advertorial?

An advertorial provides promotional information while looking like editorial content. The aim is to inform the target audience about the product, service, or brand in the same way as an actual advert. Usually, the goal of an advertorial is to provide readers with some sort of value, like insight into a solution to a problem, where the promotional side is hidden in the narrative.

Advertorials are often mistaken for native ads and sponsored content but serve a slightly different purpose and execution style. We will explore this later.

The History and Evolution of Advertorials

The Early Days

Advertorials have existed for much longer than many might think. Their roots trace back to the early 20th century, when the best way for any business to reach consumers was through magazines and daily newspapers.

In the early 1900s, companies began to see the value of using stories to engage their audiences. They shifted toward producing longer pieces rather than sticking to purely sales-oriented messages. The goal was to make these long pieces feel more like the editorial content in the rest of the magazine. 

John Deere is credited with being the first person to use this approach. In 1895, he launched The Furrow, a magazine aimed at farmers that featured informative articles subtly interspersed with product mentions.

Deere’s content marketing strategy was revolutionary for its time. He is widely regarded as a trailblazer for seamlessly merging editorial content with advertising.

Advertorials Golden Age (Mid-20th Century)

Around 1950, the printed media expanded fast, allowing advertorials to flourish. Magazines were trendy, and companies jumped on this trend to get their products out there. To ensure the advertorial blended with the existing copy, brands collaborated with editors. These editors would align everything with the tone of voice of the magazine so consumers wouldn’t immediately recognize the piece as an advertorial.

If you’re interested in looking up an advertorial from this period, your best shot is to look at the larger brands like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever. These large companies understood that consumers were likelier to trust an advertorial, so they created stories that placed their product in an informative and engaging story.

The Digital Transformation

The internet era brought a seismic shift in how advertorials were created, consumed, and distributed. As print media declined, digital platforms such as websites, blogs, and social media became the new homes for advertorials.

With this transition, advertorials evolved to include multimedia elements like images, videos, infographics, and interactive content. The essential advantage of digital advertorials is their ability to be highly targeted through algorithms, cookies, and tracking data.

One of the landmark moments in the history of digital advertorials came with the introduction of BuzzFeed's sponsored content model. BuzzFeed's approach was to create inherently shareable content, ensuring the promotional aspect of their advertorials was passed on organically through social networks.

Advertorials vs. Native Ads vs. Sponsored Content

Advertorials, native ads, and sponsored content have some overlap. If you want to tell them apart, there are some subtle differences you could have a look at:

Advertorials

The design of an advertorial aims to educate or inform while promoting a product or service. Typically, advertorials take the form of articles, guides, or reviews with a tone of voice that blends seamlessly with the platform on which they are published. Because they so subtly integrate the promotional elements, they feel authentic.

Native Ads

The main goal of a native ad is to blend in with all the other content on the platform on which it is placed. Compared to advertorials, they are a lot shorter. You will often find them in social media posts or short articles. 

Sponsored Content

The intention of advertising is most evident in sponsored content. The brand or the publisher creates this sponsored content as a listicle, video, or review. Compared to an advertorial, the content doesn’t mimic the tone of voice of the platform as much.

If you want to figure out the form of an advertisement, it’s best to look at two key points. First, you look at the length and then review the transparency. Advertorials are long and don’t hide their promotional nature. You usually find a note somewhere in the content that states the advertorial is an ad. Native ads blend into the platform in a much more natural way.

Best Practices for Writing Effective Advertorials

You must balance storytelling, value, and subtle promotion to create a successful advertorial. Take a look at these best practices for writing an effective advertorial.

The Federal Trade Commission requires publishers to clearly identify paid or advertorial content.

1. Get to know your audience

If you don’t understand your target audience, writing an even slightly appealing advertorial will be impossible. So, before you start writing, you must ask yourself a few questions. Start by asking yourself what problems your audience is facing, what questions they might have, and how your product or service might help them.

Before you start your work, research your audience's demographics, behavior, and preferences. Once you have these facts straight, you can tailor your advertorial to resonate with them.

2. Storytelling before anything else

The thing about advertorials is that they shouldn’t come across like an advertisement. To achieve this, you shouldn’t focus entirely on the product. Craft a narrative where you talk about a success story from another customer, a personal experience, or a case study. This way, you can easily demonstrate how your product or service fits into a reader's life.

A good example can be found at Casper, a mattress company. In its advertorials, Casper focuses on the importance of sleep and provides educational content. Through the information, it subtly promotes its mattresses as the perfect solution to sleep better.

3. Present a reader with value

There are many ways to give your reader value in an advertorial, like education, tips, or advice. You must present a reader with value before you move on to the promotional part. Readers should first feel that they gain something from the content because they are more likely to engage with your brand and the product you promote afterward.

A company that understands this well is REI. They create advertorials with outdoor survival tips, promoting their gear at the end of each tip.

4. Be transparent

Even though an advertorial aims to blend into the tone of voice of the platform, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be transparent. Make sure that somewhere in your article, you make it clear that the content is sponsored.

5. Leverage SEO

If you want your advertorial to reach your audience, you must optimize it for search engines. The first step is to research relevant keywords. These are the words that your audience will most likely use when they search for specific products. The next step is to incorporate these keywords into your content naturally. You make sure it’s not too obvious that you used these keywords. Doing this correctly will rank higher in the search engine results and attract more organic traffic.

6. Use Engaging Visuals

Advertorials are not limited to text alone. Include high-quality images, videos, infographics, or illustrations to break up the text and keep readers engaged. Visuals are particularly effective in illustrating key points and making complex information more accessible to digest.

7. Include a Clear Call to Action

While the advertorial should be subtle in its promotion, it still needs a clear call to action (CTA). This could be a button at the end of the article, a link to a product page, or an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter. After consuming the content, the CTA should be a natural next step for the reader.

8. Test and Iterate

No advertorial is perfect on the first attempt. After publishing, track its performance and make improvements based on reader engagement. A/B testing different headlines, CTAs, or content formats can help you optimize your advertorial for maximum effectiveness.

Examples of Successful Advertorial Campaigns

Now that you have a clear idea of an advertorial, it’s time to understand how they work in real life. Here are some examples of successful campaigns.

1. The New York Times & Netflix — Orange is the New Black

In 2013, The New York Times collaborated with Netflix to promote the new show Orange is the New Black. The advertorial was titled “Women Inmates: Why the Male Model Doesn’t Work” and gave some insight into issues many women in the prison system face.

The article related to many themes in the show while providing an in-depth report and insightful analysis on fundamental issues. Through the article, OITNB was subtly promoted, but it was never overly promotional. Within no time, the article was read by millions and widely shared.

2. BuzzFeed & Purina — Puppyhood

BuzzFeed is no stranger to advertorials, and one of their standout pieces was a collaboration with Purina, a company that sells pet food. The advertorial consisted of short videos about the joys and challenges of raising a puppy. All the videos were super light and entertaining, so they were easy to share. It didn’t take long before they became a hit on social media.

Although the Purina products were mentioned in every video, the main point of the videos was still to entertain the audience. That makes this collaboration a perfect example of how an advertorial can be entertaining and deliver a marketing message simultaneously.

3. The Guardian & Unilever — Sustainable Living

Unilever partnered with The Guardian to create an advertorial series focused on sustainability and the environment. The articles were informative, providing actionable tips on how readers could live more sustainably. Unilever’s branding was integrated into the content, mentioning its commitment to sustainable business practices and eco-friendly products.

This campaign was effective because it aligned with The Guardian’s audience, which is known for its interest in environmental issues. The advertorial built trust with the audience by providing valuable information while subtly promoting Unilever’s products.

How to Measure the Performance of Advertorials

It’s not easy to measure how successful your editorial is, because the impact is not as direct as with traditional forms of advertising. Still, there are some key performance indicators (KPIs) that can give you some insight into how effective your campaign is.

1. Traffic and Engagement

One thing you can measure is the traffic generated by your advertorial. There are many tools available that show you how much organic traffic came from search engines and how many people visited through social media or the platform your advertorial was published on.

Engagement metrics like social shares, comments, and likes can help you understand how well the content resonates with your target audience.

2. Conversion Rates

One of the hardest things about writing an advertorial is including the call to action (CTA) because a CTA will make it clearer that the goal of your advertorial is to get the reader to do something. You must always add a CTA, as it will allow you to track how many readers follow through. The CTA could be anything from signing up for your newsletter to visiting your product's page or actually buying your product.

Use UTM codes or unique tracking links to attribute conversions directly to the advertorial, making it easier to measure its impact on your bottom line.

3. Brand Awareness and Sentiment

Advertorials are the perfect tool for building awareness of your brand and shaping the public's perception. Use tools like Brandwatch or Sprout Social to track when and where your brand is mentioned and analyze the sentiment across all social media platforms. You can also track whether there are more positive mentions of your brand or a specific product after the advertorial comes out.

4. Time Spent on Page

Time-on-page metrics are super helpful in determining how well your advertorial performs. When readers spend a lot of time on your page, it’s safe to assume they engage with your content and find it valuable. The same can be said if it’s the other way around, if readers don’t spend a lot of time on your page, they don’t feel your content is engaging enough, and it could be too promotional.

Calculating ROI for Advertorials

Of course, you want to know if your advertorial has any return on investment (ROI). Unfortunately, this is quite complex because it’s hard to measure if the advertorial has any long-term effects on how your brand is viewed. To get an estimate of your ROI, you can use this formula with more direct metrics:

ROI=Cost of AdvertorialRevenue Generated from Advertorial−Cost of Advertorial​×100

Follow these steps is you want to calculate your ROI:

1. Determine the Generated Revenue

First, you want to calculate the revenue your advertorial generated. For a product, this is quite easy because you take the total sales that can be directly linked to the advertorial. You can use unique tracking links or special discount codes to make the distinction a bit easier.

2. Account for Assisted Conversions

Not all customers go directly from reading an advertorial to buying the product. This means you have to consider that you also influence your buyer's journey in the awareness and consideration stage. Always count the assisted conversions instances where the advertorial contributed to a purchase at a later moment. 

Google Analytics has a feature for tracking assisted conversions. This will allow you to get some insight into how much influence your advertorial had on the final decision to purchase, even if it wasn’t the last touchpoint.

3. Include Brand Value

Brand awareness is more complex, but you can estimate the value based on increased social mentions, media coverage, or web traffic following the advertorial. Some marketers use a metric called "earned media value" (EMV), which estimates how much it would cost to achieve the same exposure through traditional advertising.

How much do advertorials cost?

The cost of an advertorial depends largely on the medium in which it is published. It is true that larger and more respectable media outlets charge higher rates, while publications with a smaller audience are not so expensive. But it is a good idea to publish your ad where your audience is concentrated, regardless of the number of readers as the main factor. At the same time, it is useless to publish an advertorial in the pages of an unknown publication simply because it is cheaper.

Popular pricing models

There are several pricing and bidding models used in the market. Among them, the most common are flat fee, cost per thousand, and cost per action.

Flat fee

Flat fee is the most common pricing practice; no negotiations or formulas are required. It is one price per publication, or a slightly reduced cost per package for a publication cycle.

CPM

Cost per thousand (CPM) refers to the average cost a company pays for 1,000 ad impressions; This is a metric (and pricing model) used in digital marketing and is very clear to all media buyers. CPM is used both as a pricing model to represent how much a digital publisher charges for advertising space on their digital properties and websites; and as a metric that helps companies evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising efforts by clarifying how much they pay for 1,000 views of their digital ads.

CPA

Cost per action is the least common pricing model in advertising articles, despite the fact that its formula is surprisingly simple: campaign cost / target action. In fact, it means paying for conversion.

Determining fair value

The market is very fragmented and the size of the publication's audience does not always determine the cost per publication of an advertising article. In addition, different segments use different pricing models. This is why platforms like Medialister are so useful — they standardize prices and make the market more transparent.

What is the average budget for an ad campaign

A Harvard Business Review study on the ROI of content marketing and native advertising found that the average campaign cost was $54,014. Lower-tier posts cost between $70 and $8,000. While the number of leads generated tended to correlate with the cost of the campaign, the researchers did not see a significant increase above $50,000 per post.

Conclusion

Now that consumers are increasingly resistant to traditional advertising, advertorials are one of the most powerful marketing tools. You simply blend valuable content with some subtle promotion to build trust, educate your audience, and drive up conversions. Throughout the entire advertorial, you make sure to maintain the look and feel of an editorial.

Advertorials are powerful and can be easily adapted to any product or service. By following the best practices—know your audience, focus on storytelling, and provide value—you can create advertorials that resonate with readers and deliver measurable results.

If you do it right, an advertorial can be valuable to your content marketing plan. You use them to bridge the gap between educating your audience and promoting your product or service. Plan everything carefully, follow the steps for execution, and measure the performance of your advertorial. When you follow these steps, an advertorial can guarantee a strong ROI in every industry.

Statistical Information

• Average CTR for Advertorials: Different studies identified the average click-through rate (CTR) for advertorials between 2% and 5%. This is higher than for traditional ads, which usually have a CTR of around 0.05% and 0.10%.

• Time on Page: The Content Marketing Institute found that well-executed advertorials hold readers' attention for 20% longer than standard articles.

• Conversion Rates: The average conversion rate for content-driven campaigns like advertorials is around 3.5%, higher than many digital advertising forms.

If you fully understand the historical context, follow best practices, and use the right techniques to measure the impact, you can easily incorporate advertorials into your content marketing plan.