Due to stricter moderation across platforms, native ad networks have emerged as the top traffic source for affiliate marketers. In fact, according to our partners at OMNI CPA, native networks now rank #1, with Google in second place and Facebook in third.
Given this shift, our friends from OMNI CPA and Anastasiia Shulga, Adskeeper Senior Acquisition Manager, teamed up for an exclusive interview to uncover the secrets and nuances of running successful native ad campaigns.
You can read the original of this interview in Ukrainian here. In the conversation, our Native Advertising expert dived deeper into strategies for scaling Nutra offers, shared practical insights, and revealed what makes native the go-to channel for serious affiliates.
👉 This article is packed with actionable tips. Let’s dive in! 🚀
What Performs Best in Native Ads for Nutra?
— Hi! Let’s get straight to the point — what kind of Nutra offers do affiliates run in native ads? Are they still using the classic teaser tricks with lemons and garlic to spark curiosity, or have the approaches evolved?
— Hi! Native Nutra ads have definitely evolved, but the core principles remain unchanged: grab attention, trigger emotions, and warm up the user before a purchase. While older methods have faded due to stricter moderation, new approaches are delivering strong results. Here are some key strategies:
🔹 News-Style Teasers. People trust news content, so if an ad resembles a report or research study, the likelihood of a click increases. Headlines like “Eat a Banana for 7 Days and See the Results” or “Experts Reveal How Lard Affects Your Body” perform well. However, avoid using logos of well-known media outlets or referencing doctors and celebrities — many publishers will block such ads.
🔹 Shock Factor Approach. This involves surprising or emotionally engaging headlines paired with strong visuals. Examples include an image of a 90-year-old man with the caption “Arteries Like a 30-Year-Old!” or a dirty kettle with the text “This is What’s Happening in Your Blood Vessels.” The key is not to overdo it—excessively graphic content (pus, ulcers, gore) will get your ad rejected by moderation.
🔹 Success Stories. Headlines like “How a Simple Woman Lost 30kg Without Dieting” or “Doctor Shocked: My Cholesterol Dropped Without Medication” grab attention, especially when the pre-lander includes real testimonials. The visuals should be convincing: before/after photos, problem area highlights, traditional remedies, real people, and even video formats work best.
🔹 Expert Recommendations. Featuring doctors in lab coats, charts, graphs, and references to herbal remedies creates a sense of credibility and increases trust.
What No Longer Performs?
❌ The old-school tricks — lemons, garlic, spoons of tea, or fingers with petroleum jelly — are outdated.
❌ Over-the-top promises (“100% guaranteed results in 3 days”) are instantly rejected by moderation.
❌ Shocking medical images no longer work — they irritate audiences, and publishers tend to block them.
Top Nutra Niches in Native Ads
— Which Nutra verticals perform best in native ads? Since younger audiences don’t typically visit native ad placements, should offers be tailored for users aged 45+?
— Yes, the primary audience for native ads is 45+, so the offers should match their interests. The best-performing categories are:
✅ Weight loss
✅ Joint health
✅ Hearing & throat issues
✅ Blood circulation
✅ Prostate health
✅ Hair loss
✅ Diabetes
✅ Vision improvement
✅ Smoking cessation
✅ Skin conditions (warts, varicose veins, anti-aging, etc.)
However, the best niches vary by GEO. For example, weight loss performs well in Italy, while joint health offers convert better in Germany. To avoid wasting your budget, always check SPY services for top offers in your target region and consult with ad network managers for the latest recommendations.
It’s also crucial to consider seasonality and local factors. Political or economic shifts can influence demand, particularly for health-related offers like diabetes and hypertension. That’s why analyzing trends and regional demand is essential when choosing a GEO and offer.
What Can and Can’t Be Advertised?
— Let’s clarify: what types of offers are allowed, and what’s restricted? Do you accept adult offers? If so, how should they be packaged to pass moderation?
— We work only with mainstream traffic and native formats, so we follow strict moderation guidelines. The allowed verticals include Nutra, e-commerce, finance, and iGaming.
For Nutra, we accept:
✅ Weight loss products
✅ Skincare & anti-aging solutions
✅ Health-related products (potency, joint health, vision, parasites, hypertension, prostate health, diabetes, varicose veins, fungal treatments, etc.)
What’s Forbidden?
❌ Explicit adult offers: erotic products, 18+ content, shocking imagery, sexual themes, violence, or gore.
❌ Clickbait & misleading claims such as “100% guaranteed results in 3 days.”
❌ False medical endorsements, for example, “Approved by doctors” (unless verified).
❌ Celebrity endorsements: only allowed on a limited number of sites with explicit approval.
How to Package an Offer to Pass Moderation?
✔ If an offer is borderline (e.g., potency, breast enhancement), it can be adapted. It’s best to consult with a network manager in advance for landing page adjustments.
✔ Images should be high quality, without watermarks, distortions, or excessive graphic elements (e.g., red circles, arrows).
✔ Headlines must not contain: ALL CAPS for attention-grabbing, Misleading claims, Contact details, Profanity
Each offer undergoes individual moderation. If unsure, consult your Adskeeper manager before launching your campaign.
Metrics and Finding a Working Combo
— What is considered a good CTR for creatives in native ads?
— A good, stable CTR forms after 100+ clicks. Before that, the sample size is too small, and even if the system calculates the CTR, it won’t be accurate. To get more relevant data, the teaser should get at least 10,000 impressions and 50-60 clicks, or better yet, more.
CTR strongly depends on the niche. For example, teasers on sexual health usually have a CTR of 1.2%+, while offers on joints or weight loss are around 0.5–0.7%. The higher the CTR, the lower the average bid for the auction, and vice versa.
Speaking about supplements in Germany, for example, anti-aging offers have the lowest CTR — 0.3%, which causes the average CPC in this niche to reach $0.27.
— How many impressions/clicks are needed in native ads to determine if the creative or landing page is working?
— It depends on the niche and GEO, but the minimum test budget for a campaign is around $100. Spending $50 or less will provide too little data for an accurate assessment. If the teaser gets clicks worth 20-30% more than the target conversion cost (e.g., the cost of a sale or registration) but doesn’t lead to results, it’s worth pausing and testing a new one. Also, if after 2-3 days the conversion cost cannot be reduced to an acceptable level, it’s better to replace the teaser.
The logic is the same for widgets: if a widget spends a budget equal to your maximum target conversion cost (CPL/CPA) but doesn’t bring results, pause it. If traffic is coming in, but the conversion cost is too high and doesn’t drop with optimization, also disable the widget.
To determine if the landing page is working, you need to check the metrics in the tracker. If users leave quickly or read but don’t take the desired action, it means the landing page isn’t performing well, and you should either change it or test splits.
— What targeting options are available in your network? For example, if I need to target people 40+ for joint-related offers — is that possible or is it only broad targeting?
— In Adskeeper, there are various targeting options: you can choose devices (desktop, mobile, tablet), GEO, cities, regions, time, browser, language, OS (Android, iOS), IP, phone price segment, retargeting, premium sites, and work with white lists (WL) and black lists (BL).
If you need an audience 40+, it’s best to use several methods:
1️⃣ Localize the funnel as much as possible for the target GEO.
2️⃣ Work with creatives and headlines to filter out irrelevant users. For example, teasers with “pain points” (age, health, doctor recommendations) tend to attract an older audience.
3️⃣ Run campaigns on a narrow WL, using widgets that have already shown good results in similar campaigns.
4️⃣ Filter BL to exclude sites that aren’t suitable for a 40+ audience.
Additionally, you can test video creatives. This is a relatively new option in native ads, but it already shows a high CTR in the supplements niche. It’s better to split-test both static and video creatives to see which works better for a specific offer.
Budget, Bids, and Optimization
— What is the relationship between bids and successful traffic acquisition? What should you keep in mind when setting a bid? Should you bid according to the recommended bid? How do you determine a good bid? How can you tell when you’ve found the right bid? Is it worth starting with a low bid and gradually increasing it if the budget is limited?
— There are three main strategies: start with the minimum bids (“slow and steady wins the race”), aim for the average bid in the system, or start with +20% above the average to capture the highest-quality traffic. All three are effective, but the choice depends on your budget, payout levels, and readiness to test.
We recommend not setting a bid below the average, or your campaign won’t get traction on widgets with high competition. The first 2–4 days will give you an idea of reach and show at what price point you can scale. The system will automatically calculate and suggest the optimal bid in the dashboard, but the key indicator is the actual traffic you win and the results on conversions.
If even with the minimum bid you get enough clicks, but the affiliate network limits registrations/sales, there’s no point in raising the bid. The same goes for conversions—if raising the CPL or CPA doesn’t improve results, it’s better to lower the price back.
A working bid is a balance between CTR, CPC, and the widget’s performance. If these parameters are set correctly, you’ll get optimal traffic volumes per day and the best conversion cost.
The option “Apply CPC for all regions” means that the specified bid will be applied to all GEO targets.
How much traffic is needed to collect black/white lists? Do black and white lists for desktop and mobile differ? What other optimization options exist in native ad networks?
— Typically, we provide clients with ready-made black lists to start with. Many begin with these, and then they collect their own white lists based on their campaign performance. This approach works better because the white list is tailored to a specific funnel and offer. To build a white list, you need to spend at least $500 or more, and it’s important not to pause the campaign during this process. Good widgets should be immediately identified and added to a separate campaign within the white list.
Black and white lists for desktop and mobile differ. Many websites are optimized for mobile devices, and desktop traffic is less common. Right now, 65–75% of all traffic comes from mobile, so it should be prioritized.
Optimization in native ad networks depends on GEO and accumulated statistics. For example, in Germany, filtering by browser language works well. After a few days of traffic, you can analyze phone models, regions, and browsers, and turn off underperforming ones. But it’s important to note that each new filter reduces the available traffic volume, so sometimes it’s worth slightly increasing CPC to maintain your position.
Another point is that teasers quickly burn out. If creatives aren’t updated, CTR starts to drop, so it’s important to periodically add new variations to the rotation.
Minimum budget for traffic acquisition: what strategy would you recommend for working with your ad network?
— As mentioned earlier, the minimum entry into the system is $100, but for additional help with campaign and creative setup, it’s recommended to start with $500.
It’s crucial to consider the GEO, offer, and target payout, as these factors affect the minimum test budget. If the offer is complex and the GEO is highly competitive, a $500 test may not be enough—you’ll need 3–5 days of traffic with different teasers to gather relevant statistics.
If the target payout for a sale is $80–100+, it’s advisable to allocate more budget; otherwise, the test might not be representative. For payouts of $50+, we recommend setting a daily budget of about $150 and running the campaign for 3–5 days to get a sufficient amount of data.
To make it easier for new webmasters to enter the platform, we’ll offer them a little bonus for testing.
P.S. If you’re running traffic on OMNI CPA, use the promo code “OMNI25” (you need to mention the code to the manager) and get +5% on your first payout. Also, if you spend $1000, you’ll get +10% to your payout (up to $5000).
How does the advertising platform work? Are there “smart algorithms,” optimization, and how does the auction work?
— Optimization is available not only at the creative level but also across widgets. In the dashboard, you can set up auto-optimization — for example, automatically blocking widgets that exceed the budget limit but didn’t bring any conversions (as mentioned earlier).
This is an example of advanced-level settings. The simplest option would be to set up one blocking rule if a widget spends more than the target amount without achieving the goal. There are also more advanced methods that can be manually configured or connected to external optimizers via API.
As for the auction, all new creatives initially receive a small priority in the delivery until they achieve their CTR (usually within the first day). After that, the auction takes into account two factors — the bid price (СPC) and CTR. The better the balance between these indicators, the higher the chances of the teaser getting impressions and clicks.
Auto-rules in Adskeeper allow you to immediately exclude ineffective placements.
We recommend keeping the СPC at a balanced level or slightly above average. The highest bid is not always the best option because it can lead to higher lead or purchase costs.
If something is unclear or you want to dive deeper into the settings, we have guides available at help.adskeeper.com.
— There’s an opinion: “Native ads are more about small ROI, but with large volumes.” Can you comment on this? What ROI do your clients/buyers typically see, taking spend into account?
— Native traffic is indeed more about volume and long-term play rather than quick x10 ROIs like in Facebook. However, with the right strategy and optimization, ROI in native ads can consistently stay at +50–80% over time.
At the start, ROI is often negative or weak, but after optimizing the campaigns, testing creatives, and widgets, you can reach a stable +40–80% ROI and higher. The long lifespan of campaigns allows for scaling without sharp cost spikes, but this requires extensive testing with varied approaches. To achieve consistent profit, it’s important to:
1️⃣ Work with affiliate programs that offer a wide range of offers and strive for higher payouts based on volume.
2️⃣ Test different native ad networks, compare performance, and scale successful campaigns.
3️⃣ Run split tests for creatives, landing pages, funnels, and monitor news trends in the target GEO.
4️⃣ Stay in contact with your native network manager — they can provide insights on current volumes, prices, and other details that can help make your tests more successful.
Choosing a Native Ad Network and Working with Adskeeper
— What are the differences between major native ad networks? If a webmaster is deciding between several networks, what metrics and tools should they focus on? Or is it really just about testing?
The differences between major native ad networks come down to the type of traffic, moderation policies, targeting tools, minimum entry requirements, and the level of support for webmasters.
There’s an opinion that Taboola and Outbrain are premium, expensive traffic sources for white offers, while Adskeeper offers a broader range of approaches, including testing with gray and aggressive creatives. In reality, AdsKeeper also works with large websites, but the key difference is access to smaller local widgets, where competition is lower, CPC is cheaper, and there’s more freedom for testing. Additionally, Adskeeper offers stronger support from account managers.
Key features of Adskeeper:
🗝️ Native traffic with strong presence in EU, LatAm, Tier-1, and Asia.
🗝️ Flexible moderation ready to review disputed cases. Through the account manager, you can check landing pages in advance, get creative recommendations, and even see examples of acceptable modifications.
🗝️ Broad targeting options: devices (desktop, mobile, tablet), GEO, regions, time, browser, language, OS, IP, phone price segments, and retargeting.
🗝️ Access to premium sites and websites where more aggressive approaches can be used (blacklist landing pages), such as offers related to potency.
🗝️ Ability to test creatives from white to gray segments (PG → B).
You should also pay attention to auto-optimization tools. In the case of Adskeeper, this includes working with white/black lists, A/B testing across different site categories, and postback integration with trackers.
Additionally, we help with GEO analysis, offer selection, and funnel construction to ensure smooth moderation. We provide recommendations for traffic volume and CPC, and assist in launching your first campaign and creatives when you spend at least $500. We also help with tracker setup to monitor key metrics and offer optimization suggestions.
— A question that will definitely come up: How is bot traffic tracked in native networks? How can a webmaster know if they paid for a batch of bot clicks (apart from the lack of conversions)?
All networks try to minimize bot traffic, but it’s important to understand that “bots” can include not only automatic click fraud but also irrelevant clicks from live users through VPNs, as well as technical bots (e.g., Google crawlers checking content for keyword relevance).
The main indicator for webmasters is user behavior on the landing page. If, out of 100 clicks, there are no visits to the offer page, the traffic is either poor quality or the problematic site was targeted. In such cases, you should immediately pause the campaign and send it for additional review.
We use tools like Forensic, Anura, and internal algorithms to identify and block suspicious sources. Dishonest publishers are penalized, and sites with abnormal activity are excluded. If you suspect bot traffic, feel free to reach out to us — we are also interested in quality traffic and will conduct an additional review.
Conclusion
Native ad networks have evolved from being just an “additional source” and have become a full-fledged channel offering opportunities for scaling and stable profits. While they may not provide immediate x10 ROI, with a smart strategy, you can reach +50–80% ROI over time through volumes and the long lifecycle of campaigns.
If you haven’t tested Adskeeper yet, it’s high time to drive more traffic, get additional support from managers, and grow. To start, follow the link below the article and sign up.
Also, don’t forget to test offers from our partners OMNI CPA. In OMNI CPA, you will get +5% bonus on the first payout (and if you spend over $1000 – +10%!). To test your nutra offer, follow the link here.
Test native traffic for nutra, optimize, and scale up!🚀
