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Editorial vs. Advertorial Content: Differences + Digital Marketing Insights

Learn the key differences between editorial and advertorial content and when to use each type to advance your digital marketing content strategy.

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The primary difference between editorial and advertorial content used to be all about whether it was paid (sponsored) content: advertorial was paid for, while editorial was not. 

This distinction stems from traditional print media, where editorial content was objective, journalistic writing, and advertorial content was a brand’s advertisement delivered in the style of a news piece: part ‘ad’ and part ‘editorial.’ 

In modern digital marketing, with brands publishing content on their own platforms, the distinction is no longer about paid placement. A company blog post isn’t paid media, it’s owned media. 

Today, the primary distinction between editorial and advertorial content lies in the writing style, journalistic approach, and underlying intent.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR):

  • Advertorial vs. editorial isn’t just a matter of paid vs. free. The real difference is in the content’s approach and intent.
  • Editorial content is audience-focused and follows journalistic practices, and doesn’t focus on promoting a brand, product, or service.
  • Advertorial content weaves brand messaging into valuable content to guide readers down the sales funnel.
  • Both editorial and advertorial content types are valuable in a content marketing strategy when they deliver high-quality information. 

How Advertorial Content Has Changed in Digital Marketing

Paid advertorials still exist in print and online publications. You’ve likely seen them in a newspaper or magazine as a brand advertisement, presented as an article.

Typically, they are designed to blend right in with features, columns, or blog posts, sometimes, they may have “sponsored article” noted on the page. 

For instance, an online lifestyle magazine might publish an article about a skincare routine sponsored by a beauty brand, or a travel blog might feature a destination guide paid for by a tourism board. 

If it looks editorial, but is clearly pushing a product or service, you’re looking at a modern-day paid advertorial. 

So, while there are still paid advertorials on third-party digital publications, the type of advertorial growing in content marketing is a bit different, and may include a blend of both editorial and advertorial content styles. For instance, content created by brands on their own platforms. 

The difference between the three types of media:

  • Paid media: Paying for coverage on others’ platforms
  • Owned media: Using your website, blog, and social media channels
  • Earned media: Organic coverage by others

Modern advertorials typically incorporate engaging educational content designed to inform readers, while also weaving in promotional content that directly highlights a brand’s products or services.

Advertorial vs. Editorial: Key Differences for Marketers

Because advertorials can look a lot like editorials in how they are presented, it’s important for content marketers to understand the fundamental differences behind the content itself. 

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It’s important to note that editorial and advertorial content share common features beyond appearance. 

They both follow inbound marketing principles, drawing audiences in and building brand authority through valuable, relevant information rather than salesy, promotional messaging. 

While advertorials may have a promotional lean, they still prioritize audience value. 

How to Identify Advertorial Content + Examples

To identify advertorial content, it’s best to first understand what editorial content is. 

Editorial content 

In content marketing, what defines editorial content is its underlying purpose: to inform, educate or entertain its audience with relevant, helpful, and valuable information. 

While maintaining this purpose and adhering to journalistic standards, editorial content can take many forms

  • Blog posts, how-tos, and guides
  • Thought leadership articles
  • Email and newsletters
  • Podcasts
  • Infographics 
  • Ebooks
  • Videos
  • Social media
  • Webinars

Example:

A project management company might publish “The Annual State of Remote Work Productivity Report,” featuring relevant insights for managers. It could include industry research, expert interviews, productivity statistics, and free tools or templates for improving team workflow. As an objective piece of editorial content, it would not promote their brand, product or tool as a solution. 

Advertorial content

Advertorial content might appear in an editorial format: a blog post, an ebook, or an industry-focused study, for instance. But it goes a step further, serving the dual purpose of providing valuable information while weaving in messaging that favors the brand and subtly guides the audience toward a lead, sale, or other business goal. 

Example:

A project management software company might publish “A Manager’s Ultimate Guide to Remote Team Productivity,” featuring workflow tips, employee monitoring methods, and free project templates, all the while featuring their project management tool as the recommended solution for top team performance. 

Good advertorial content still respects its audience by providing genuine value and helpful information. 

Final Thoughts

Understanding these style and intent distinctions helps content marketers make smart decisions about when to use each type of content in their overall strategy. 

Use editorial content to build authority and trust or establish thought leadership, and advertorial content for lead generation and conversion-focused campaigns. 

Both are strong elements of your content marketing plan, as long as they are high-quality and keep the audience experience at their core.  

Sign up to try Originality.ai’s full suite of editorial tools today!

Learn more in our top resources:

Melissa Fanella

Melissa Fanella is a writer, editor, and marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in content and messaging for businesses and nonprofits. Her expertise is in crafting authentic, people-first content that is compelling and engaging for audiences and positioned for business goals.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

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Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

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Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

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Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

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There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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