So I thought I'd share some numbers from a recent run with native ads, mainly Taboola and Outbrain. Started out thinking it was a quick waaay to scale but wow, kinda skeptical now. Ran a campaign for a health niche offer, spent like 1.5k in a week. Initially, the CTR looked decent, around 0.8%, and I got some clicks, maybe 80 total. But conversions? Man, only 3 sales outta that, and those were kinda dud offers with 20-30 bucks CPA. So total revenue was maybe 90 bucks. That's like 6% ROI tops, after ad costs and all. And honestly, it felt like a grind for not much. Outbrain was a little worse, CTR was similar but conversions felt even lower. The clicks looked good but the actual sales barely trickled in. I keep seeing people saying native ads are still king for scale, but honestly, I think it's more luck than skill, especially for smaller spends. Anyone else notice native ads giving kinda meh results lately? Or am I doing something wrong?

Native can be kinda tricky with small spends, imo, it's more about volume and the right offer than pure native magic. CTRs look decent but if conversions don't follow, it's probably on the offer or targeting, not native itself. I've seen cases where native works well but only after a lot of testing and optimization. Don't give up just yet, just gotta tweak and maybe look for higher quality traffic

yeah totally, native ads seem to be all about the grind and testing. sometimes u gotta pump so much into it just to find a decent combo. it's like fishing, not just casting and hoping for a catch. 100% luck+skill mix, but man, it can be super frustrating when the results don't match the effort.

native ads are like dating apps, fam, sometimes you gotta swipe a lot before you get a match. maybe your offer or targeting needs some tweaking, or just not the right fit atm. keep testing, don't blame native just yet.

careful with ROI claims, sometimes those numbers look better before fees, gotta really track net profit not just revenue. native can be a grind for small spends, yeah, but don't write it off just yet.

last month i spent 2k on native and got similar meh results, but the op said 1.5k and only 3 sales, that's like, way off on the numbers. maybe a typo?

Initially, the CTR looked decent, around 0.8% but 80 clicks for 1.5k spend? That sounds off unless your traffic was super niche or bots. My native runs usually need higher CTRs to get decent conversions, especially in health. Could be a targeting or offer mismatch, ymmv but I'd double-check your data.

Careful with thinking native ads are magic, I blew a lot of money testing and learned it's all about the niche and targeting. Your post says Outbrain but most of my good results came from Taboola, but only when I really optimized my creatives and landing pages.

Last month I ran some native tests myself and honestly I think it's more about how you craft the creative than which network you pick. Outbrain gave me some decent results but then I tweaked headlines and images and boom, better conversions. ymmv but don't sleep on the creative angle.

bruh, you said Outbrain but it's all about the targeting and creative. Don't get lazy thinking one platform's gonna save ya

different angle: I remember I once ran some native ads, thought Outbrain was gonna be the magic button, but turned out the secret was in the hooks and images. spent a week just tweaking creatives and suddenly CTR shot up, didn't even touch the network much. rn just focusing on creative is way more impactful than platform choice sometimes.

Haha, exactly, man. ppl forget it's all about the creative juice and targeting. platform's just a tool, not a magic wand.