Native advertising is often misunderstood — it’s not simply display, social, or search marketing, but a different channel entirely that requires a tailored approach. When advertisers understand this, they begin to see significant improvements in CTR, conversion rate, and ultimately ROAS.

We’re joined by Nadim Batista-Kuttab of Xevio, a leading expert in scaled native performance, creative testing, and open-web optimization. Nadim has managed millions in monthly spend across global markets, with the Xevio team known for diagnosing funnel problems with clarity and creative innovation. Here, Nadim breaks down how advertisers can use Realize to identify why creative isn’t converting and how to fix these issues through structured diagnostics, smart testing, and platform-specific best practices.

The Native Creative Philosophy: Storytelling and Filtering

Native advertising operates on a creative philosophy that’s fundamentally different from platforms like Meta or TikTok. On social, users are scrolling for entertainment and are used to seeing polished, aggressive sales messaging. On the open web, users are consuming content for information — think reading articles, researching solutions, and comparing options when looking to buy something.

As a result, native creative needs to look different. Clicks here are high value, and Xevio routinely sees two minutes longer engagement on pages when using Realize — that’s a significant signal that users are deeply engaging with content. But, to earn a click, advertisers must build curiosity and filter for the right users, rather than trying to sell to everyone.

Nadim puts it simply: “The image is a stop sign to stop people from scrolling, and the headline is the reason they click.” This shift in thinking reframes how marketers should be building, testing, and optimizing creative. The goal isn’t to push every benefit into a single image: Instead, it’s to attract high-quality users who will convert after the click.

The Filter

Filtering is the foundation for any native creative strategy. On the open web, you can’t rely on tight audience targeting like you can with a platform such as Meta, and you can’t assume that a publisher will deliver your ad to a highly refined segment, so your creative must do this work for you.

Headlines aren’t clickbait, but rather, segmentation tools — they speak directly to your audience and the problem they’re trying to solve. Users know whether the message is relevant to them, and those who aren’t interested will simply scroll by, which saves on budget. Those with genuine interest will click. Some examples include:

• “Seniors do this to ease back pain”
• “Parents are shocked by this new sleep solution”
• “Men over 40 are using this simple morning routine”

On Realize, headline variations contribute to ad-level policy labels and targeting signals that the algorithm uses to optimize delivery. That’s why it’s essential to get your headlines right and use them as an audience-refining tool.

The Hook

While filtering addresses who should click, your hook is persuading them why they should click. Aggressive claims like “click here to cure back pain” are often flagged. Instead, neutral and educational framing works well, as it mirrors why people are browsing online in the first place — to find a solution to their problem, or to learn something new.

Nadim explains that the best native ads “aren’t particularly clear on what they’re selling,” and instead present an invitation that hooks the curiosity of the reader. Remember, the conversion happens after the click, not within the ad itself.

Hooks should be intriguing but always truthful, with a problem-focused base that’s broad enough to appeal while remaining focused on the target audience. This is where Realize works well, with the creative dashboard making it easy to test dozens of compliant headlines and automatically identifying the ones that are working best.

CREATIVE TESTING AND ITERATION VIDEO HERE

The 4-Pillar Diagnostic: Isolating Funnel Breakdowns

When a new campaign is underperforming, many advertisers default to scrapping their plan and starting again with new landing pages, new ads, and new audiences. Nadim warns against this approach, though: Instead, remember that native funnels are a complex web of ad signals, publisher behaviors, site contexts, and more. If you change everything at once, you lose the ability to truly isolate a single failing element.

Instead, try using a 4-pillar diagnostic method, with each step representing a stage of the funnel where a conversion could fall off. The goal is to identify where the problem is before making changes to campaigns.

Innovation vs. Imitation: The Cost of Stealing Creatives

One of the most common and damaging mistakes in native advertising is copying someone else’s creative. Nadim sees this constantly — a successful ad going viral in a competitive category and dozens of companies rushing to copy it. These replicas almost never perform well because the original has already established itself. The algorithm knows them best, and users are accustomed to seeing that version. Their position is stronger and their placement prioritized, so engagement is higher.

The copycats only get the leftovers after this, the low-intent clicks and expensive CPCs that waste budget. As Nadim says, “If somebody’s running something and you take that something to run yourself, you will be left with whatever’s left in the pot.” Innovation wins here, not imitation.

Realize amplifies that advantage with the freedom to generate and test an unlimited number of creative concepts. With AI support, advertisers can create original, attention-grabbing images that outperform competitors. “We can, as advertisers, really throw a lot at the wall and see what sticks,” says Nadim. “One of our top solar ads in Germany was floating solar panels in space.” This is native creativity at its best: unexpected, striking, and story-driven. While not realistic, it was visually compelling and earned the curiosity of users.

Beyond Native: The Power of New Formats

While classic native ads with a headline and thumbnail remain the highest volume format, expanding into additional formats can unlock new channels of ROI. Realize supports these formats with unified tracking, cross-format creative insight, and asset reuse features.

Motion Ads

Motion ads introduce movement to otherwise static creative through GIFs, micro animations, or short, silent video clips. Movement is one of the best ways to stand out against static content, capturing attention without feeling intrusive.

Nadim notes that motion ads often outperform static creatives placed directly next to them. Realize supports this with the ability to convert imagery into lightweight motion variants.

Display Inventory

Display advertising within Realize’s network surprised even an experienced marketer like Nadim. When Realize expanded its inventory to more display publishers, Xevio initially expected limited results due to Google’s dominance in this space. Instead, performance exceeded expectations.

For one large e-commerce brand, he says, display spend on Realize now outperforms native ROI, all because the advertiser expanded from native to display with proven creative themes, filtering, and storytelling. Display shouldn’t replace native, but be used as a building block to expand into multiformat advertising at scale.

Key Takeaways

Native advertising requires a fundamentally different creative strategy to social or search. Filtering, storytelling, and curiosity are key, rather than aggressive product-pushing. To identify low-converting elements of campaigns, advertisers must use the 4-pillar approach rather than guessing, or rebuilding entire funnels from the ground up each time there’s a problem.

Realize accelerates this process by providing structured creative management, automated variant testing, policy-safe headline generation, and multiformat scaling across native, display, and motion ads. For advertisers looking to scale, using tools like Realize makes this process simple and effective.