Samenvatting

The purpose of this dissertation is to find out how Sanoma Media Netherlands B.V. is improving their customer engagement by using online native advertising. There are several measuring methods on how to examine the degree of customer engagement. The methods are based on the purpose of the advertisement. The most popular measuring methods are: the amount of views on an article, the duration of the visit of a customer and the Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR outlines a number of customers who actually redirect himself or herself to the company’s website after reading a native advertisement. Nevertheless, through literature review is found that studies have been conducted before on how to measure the effectiveness of native advertising on customer engagement, though no one knows specifically. The conduction of interviews with two Sanoma marketers and an expert affirm this fact. The outcomes of these interviews show that to measure the effect of native advertising on customers more effectively, the privacy legislations concerning data collection should be less strict. These statements were presented to a focus group, including seven customers of Sanoma. The outcomes of this focus group show that customers are not willing to relinquish more privacy than the already do. They stated to be anxious about what marketers are doing with their personal information. Heretofore, no expert, previously conveyed research or marketer could give the answer to how effectiveness can be measured. Nevertheless, when investigating the international use of native advertising, one company stood out: Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is an American company, famed for its use of online native advertising. Buzzfeed creates native advertising with the purpose for it to be shared by readers on their social media platforms and measures the engagement by counting the amount of shared articles. The reasons why they do so are: firstly, because sharing content on social media is an effective way of word of mouth. Secondly, customers who are willing to share your native content are feeling engaged with the brand. Studies show that an engaged customer buys more products, more often and less concerned about pricing.
Therefore, the recommendation for Sanoma based on these findings would be for them to increase the shareability of their article. By doing so, they will get a more specific answer to how engaged customers are without breaking the Dutch law.