With almost 2 billion websites flooding the internet, standing out from the competition and attracting more traffic can become a monumental challenge.

News outlets, blogs, and other publishing platforms work endlessly to promote their content and reel in more visitors. While many opt for the organic route, using paid ads can provide an immediate traffic boost that brings in new readers right away.

Let’s take a look at the two best ad formats to promote content and go over a few tips to bring more people on to your site.

What Ad Formats are Best to Attract New Readers?

There are many different ad formats to choose from. But, when it comes to content promotion, native ads and push notifications tend to offer the best results.

• Native Ads

As you probably already know, native ads blend with a website’s content and they appear to be a part of the site rather than an advert. This format is ideal if you want to attract readers that are interested in specific topics.

• Push Notifications

Push ads work best when you need to target a wider pool of users. These ads are delivered to your targets’ devices, so they don’t have to be on a specific website to see your content. Instead, these come in the form of notifications, which makes them ideal for sending time-sensitive information to an extended audience.

Building a Solid Strategy

Like most types of digital strategies, the definition of a successful campaign will depend on your specific case. That said, here are some general tips to help you build a solid content promotion strategy.

Set the Right Goals and Objectives

The two main goals for most content promotion campaigns should be increasing new subscriptions and boosting engagement. You can increase the number of subscribers by using a pre-lander before accessing gated content. Or, you can opt for a conventional subscription form that highlights some of the benefits of signing up.

The best way to improve engagement will depend on your audience. As a general rule of thumb, you have to link your ads to the content you want to promote (rather than sending users to a homepage). Your content can also include links and other interactive elements that help boost your visitors’ interests.

Tailor the Targeting

Push notification and native ads campaign allow you to play with a variety of targeting settings that help save your budget while attracting higher quality traffic; because it’s much more targeted and you don’t waste your money on the audience you are not interested in.

First, use the traffic data you already have to figure out the languages, locations, browsers, and other variables that work best. Aside from tweaking your current settings, you’ll also be able to build a cross-format retargeting campaign that costs less money. And, don’t forget to run your ads on weekends to interact with users when they have more free time.

Content, Ads, and Creatives

Keep in mind that you need to create a set of ads and test them out using the push notification smart rotator feature. This will help keep your ads fresh while allowing you to identify which versions work best.

Try to find relevant creatives with high CTR – this way, you will get bigger traffic volumes and lower prices.

Here are a few pointers to help you craft push notifications and native ads that give your content more exposure.

Spicing Up Your Written Content

Remember, even the most effective promotion campaign will fail if your content is not interesting. At the same time, you should include CTAs that help guide the users throughout the entire piece. These can be different calls-to-action, but remember to have at least one subscription form within the content.

To help attract more traffic, you should also:

Create Listicles

Listicles are an extremely popular type of article. They are designed for easy readability and they should provide actionable advice or concrete information.

Quote Your Source

Mentioning the author, influencer, study, or general source of the information you’re providing will help boost your credibility and transparency.

Cover Current Events

Covering current events is a great way to stay relevant. For news outlets, this is even more important as being among the first to disclose new information is a great way to generate more traffic.

Ask Through-Provoking Questions

Using intrigue to your advantage and asking thought-provoking questions can capture the targets’ attention and entice them to get on your site.

Use a Simple Title or Create a Digest

If the topic is interesting enough, you can get away with a simple title that doesn’t give the best part away. In case you want to cover several topics, you can also create a news digest and condense the information you’ll present.

Leverage the Power of Personal Messages and Suggestions

Readers always appreciate the advice, especially if it comes from a knowledgeable source so use this to your advantage whenever possible.

Start with Facts and Figures

Using statistics as a hook is a common practice, but you can also use any type of verifiable fact or figure to bring more people onto your page.

Employ Superlatives

Using adjectives that highlight the value or magnitude of the topic will awaken the natural curiosity in most folks.

Images and Creatives

The images you use in both your ads and the content itself should also be carefully selected and edited to add value.

• Relevant to Topic

Even if it’s in an abstract way, the images you select must be relevant to one of the major points in your content.

• Headshots and Close-Ups

Displaying people in your images can have a positive subconscious effect on your visitors, so always try to include headshots and close-ups whenever possible.

• Avoid Clutter at All Costs

Clutter in any form has a terrible effect, so avoid overloading your images and creatives as well!

• Simple Banner Images

Banner images are all about the bigger picture, so try to keep text to a minimum and allow readers to soak in your creative work.

Why is PropellerAds a Great Source of Traffic for Content Promotion?

The only way to ensure your push notifications and native ads campaigns work is to get quality traffic. At PropellerAds, we work with an exclusive list of publishers that are not available on other platforms. In other words, the traffic that’s available through our platform is not accessible any other way.

We specialize in delivering high-quality traffic at affordable price. Literally, any other paid channel would be more expensive compared to our ads.

And, we’ve also created a comprehensive API which grants you access to the core functionality of our Self-Serve Platform. In other words, you have a variety of customizable tools that allow you to leverage the true power of our ads network.

Want to know how other advertisers promote their content? Discuss it in our Telegram chat. But if you are more into comments – cool, leave them in the comment section below. Cheers!