Advertisers often ask us how they can get lots of traffic without bidding higher. It’s actually quite easy to increase your traffic without raising your bid. The key is to maximize your Click Through Rate (CTR).

Native Advertising networks prioritize the ads that generate the highest revenue. However, that doesn’t mean we always prioritize the highest paying ads. If an ad bidding $1.00 gets 20 times fewer clicks than an ad bidding $0.10 then the $0.10 ad actually generates more revenue for the publishers. That means they will show the $0.10 ad, not the $1.00 ad.

Every ad, regardless of the bid, goes through a discovery phase to establish how clickable it is. So if you want to bid low, and still get a lot of traffic, then it can really pay off to make your ads more clickable than the competition.

Images

The image you choose is critical to your CTR. The best images jump off the page and convince a person to read your headline. Remember, most content recommendation units have fairly small images, so it’s important that your image is clear and recognizable even at a small size.

It also helps to pick images that are colorful. Color helps you catch people’s eyes. It’s also important that your images are unique. People ignore really basic stock images. Your image has to be unique enough that it makes them stop and really take notice.

Headlines

The average website today has anywhere from fifty to one hundred hyperlinks per page. Your headline has to fight all of those links to be the one a person clicks on out of all of their options.

It’s important to test headlines, but many advertisers simply change out a word or two. They’ll change the word Amazing to Incredible. Real headline testing involves trying completely different concepts and angles.

My favorite tool for coming up with headline concepts is http://www.alltop.com. You can browse hundreds of headlines from the biggest websites on the Internet across any niche/topic in just a few minutes. A few minutes of headline browsing often results in a ton of great headline ideas.

Content

The top advertisers on NativeAds.com are constantly producing new content. They find trending topics people are interested in right now, and create content around their niche based on it. If you are looking to spend at a high volume then creating a lot of content that people are interested in is the best way. The CTR of any piece of content falls over time. So if you aren’t getting as many clicks as you want, try creating something new and relevant, and you’ll often get a healthy boost of traffic.

We hope these tips help! Please feel free to contact your account manager for more ideas on how to make your ads more clickable.

Featured Image: Deposit Photos/© Olivier26