Moving the Middle: How Nativo Powers Purposeful Storytelling at Scale

Jordan P. Kelley, Content Director, BrandStorytelling

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In today’s noisy digital landscape, attention alone isn’t enough - brands need storytelling strategies that not only capture interest but also build lasting intent. That’s where Nativo steps in. As a platform purpose-built to activate the mid-funnel, Nativo helps brands scale meaningful content in high-quality environments and measure its real impact.

BrandStorytelling caught up with Rachel-Jean Firchau, Managing Director Client Partnerships at Nativo, to discuss how the company is solving one of the biggest challenges in modern marketing: connecting discovery to decision. From content formats and targeting to distribution and data, Vanessa walked us through Nativo’s holistic approach—and broke down how a purpose-driven campaign with Travel Alaska shifted perceptions, elevated voices, and moved audiences one step closer to action.

To start, can you give us a high-level overview of Nativo and what sets your approach apart in the world of branded content and advertising?

Nativo is a storytelling technology solution that allows brands to better connect their advertising objectives with their audiences by using the content they already have at their fingertips. We combine premium storytelling formats with quality publisher environments and measurement capabilities so brands can not only scale their content but understand its impact every step of the way.

One of the biggest challenges brands face is bridging the gap between awareness and conversion. How does Nativo specifically address this mid-funnel challenge?

The disconnect between the top and the bottom of the funnel is one that we’ve positioned our entire ethos around solving for brands. In general, scaling content in a meaningful way is a challenge. Historically it has been time consuming, costly, or impossible to measure in a meaningful way. Our platform has addressed each of these issues across 4 pillars: The first is ensuring we offer high quality storytelling formats that mirror the content brands already have at their disposal – things like articles, videos, high quality photos, and informative landing pages. The second is figuring out a way to scale those formats in high quality environments. We have a team dedicated to securing high-quality publisher agreements and are proud to offer the highest rate of publisher-direct inventory on the market, much of which is exclusive-to-Nativo. The third is helping brands reach and scale better audiences through our proprietary SPARC predictive targeting solutions. And last but not least, measuring the impact of this effort through actionable insights and recommendations that ladder up to tangible business outcomes. 

This four-pronged approach allows brands to easily and quickly activate the midfunnel in an unparalleled way, and offers a solution that connects the dots missing from their media mix.

Nativo emphasizes the power of content in moving audiences from discovery to action. What are the key ingredients of an effective mid-funnel content strategy?

1. Quality content that adds value through informing, educating, entertaining, or all of the above 

2. A distribution plan that allows those great stories to intercept readers in the right times and the right environments 

3. A targeting strategy that enables brands to waste fewer impressions on the readers not likely to engage, and that optimizes in real-time. Additionally, one that serves as the glue between tactics through strategic retargeting and pixeling. 

4. A measurement approach that looks beyond vanity metrics (page views, impressions) and paints a picture of audience preferences, needs, desires, and buyer/booking journeys. 

A great example of this in action is your work leveraging purpose-driven storytelling to inspire travel to Alaska. Can you walk us through how that campaign was designed and executed?

Yes! With Travel Alaska, they are an amazing destination that offers a breadth of really unique opportunities for travelers – spectacular natural scenery and adventures, wildlife viewing, and cultural identity. If you’ve been to Alaska, you know just how wild and special it is. But if you haven’t, odds are, you only associate Alaska with one aspect of all it has to offer: summer cruising. 

Because of this, we were tasked to help expand travelers’ understanding of how they can experience Alaska. From shifting perceptions to view Alaska as a year-round destination, to promoting non-cruise travel and tap into different ways to explore the state, to encouraging travelers to visit responsibly and learn a bit about Alaska’s Native Peoples, we uncovered a variety of angles worth exploring with this goal in mind. 

With the collaboration of Miles Partnership and the team at the Alaska Travel Industry Association, we created a campaign that leveraged our Native Article format to reach travel intenders across publications where they were already consuming similar content about travel across the web. Our Custom Content Studio produced a body of work – four custom articles – that each touched on different topics designed to shift the perception of Alaska travel one by one. 

One of the four articles in particular, our Native Peoples Profile, consisted of a series of interviews and imagery from different Native Peoples across the state as they shared their culture and their can’t-miss experiences travelers should seek out once they arrive in Alaska. By creating and scaling this piece, we were not only able to help increase consideration for Alaska travel, but simultaneously amplify the voices of Alaska’s first peoples, bolstering the DMO’s position as a steward of their incredible state and the people who inhabit it. 

What made this particular approach—brand journalism with a purpose-driven angle—so effective in engaging audiences and driving interest?

Travelers are increasingly discerning and are no longer enticed by brochure-style content. The brands and destinations that thrive in the digital world are the ones leaning into meaningful storytelling that invites readers into their world and allows them to picture themselves there. What’s more, if a brand can manage to weave their values in, they will only increase their odds of attracting travelers whose values align. 

In the case of this Travel Alaska campaign, not only did we tap into some well-known Alaska misconceptions and questions, we addressed these topics through a framework of responsibility, mindfulness, and cultural sensitivity. We went beyond the brochure. As a result, we saw incredible engagement and shifting perception from an audience hungry to dream of their next great adventure (and feel good about their choice while they’re at it).

How did you measure success for this campaign? What signals showed that the content was moving people closer to a decision?

Our article-driven campaigns focus on content engagement and attention and proxies for consideration. High Time Spent is an indicator that the content is resonating and tapping into readers’ needs to be informed and entertained. In this case, we observed nearly 60s (1 minute) of active Time Spent with our articles, which is 2x higher than our benchmark for tourism campaigns. 

Taking it a step further, actually getting readers to click through from the article to the Travel Alaska website is a strong signal of intent. We measure this with a metric called Call to Action Rate. Throughout this campaign, we saw a 3.32% CTA Rate, meaning 3.32% of all page views resulted in an action taken. This is 33% higher than our tourism benchmark. 

In addition to media metrics, we also ran a Content Testing Study which is a panel-based study designed to uncover qualitative feedback on content and how effective it is at shifting awareness, favorability, consideration, and recommendation intent. This study uncovered that purpose-driven storytelling not only made nearly 80% of respondents feel more confidently knowledgeable about Alaska, it also resulted in a 16% lift in intent to visit or recommend to a friend.

Were there any unexpected insights or learnings from the campaign that other brands can take away when thinking about their own mid-funnel strategy?

The stories worth telling aren’t always going to seem obvious. Aiming to attract travelers doesn’t mean every article should focus on why travelers should come. Purpose-driven storytelling is an important supplement to the foundation of any content program because it helps to solidify a halo effect of value alignment and affinity in travelers long after they have read the piece. While our Native People Profile article drove the lowest CTA Rate, it had one of the highest levels of Time Spent of the entire campaign, demonstrating that readers value when brands go deeper. Travelers are constantly shortlisting and reranking their preferences for brands and travel destinations every single day as they consume content. Shifting the message from “why you should visit” to “how you should visit and what you should care about while you’re here” helps to continue the conversation in a meaningful way that will no doubt have ripple effects felt long beyond any media campaign.

Looking ahead, how do you see mid-funnel strategies evolving, and what should brands be thinking about as they refine their approach to content-driven engagement?

Brands should invest in a body of content that showcases different aspects of their identity and priorities. One article can’t serve every interest and touch on every need. A strong mid-funnel strategy covers a variety of topics and perspectives through quality storytelling, and holistically works in tandem to shift the perception of a brand. Beyond that, a sound measurement strategy must look beyond page views and other vanity metrics to really understand how readers are engaging with their content and what this means for the stories they should continue to tell. It’s an evolving, breathing, symbiotic approach to media that, when leveraged correctly, will help boost engagement across every step of the funnel. 

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Learn more about Nativo

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About Rachel-Jean Firchau

Rachel is a tourism marketer, creative, and communicator. Rachel's expertise lies in content, branding, social media strategy, SEO, digital advertising, copywriting, and team + project management - operating within multiple facets of the digital storytelling marketing landscape, overseeing media buys as an Account Exec in ad tech, and creating content on her travel website RachelOffDuty.com.