Authors and Copywriters in Online Advertising: Which One Is Better?

And why you shouldn’t mistake one for the other

Once upon a time, one of our customers ordered a sponsored news piece for an online publication, and we wrote one. And from their reaction, it was clear they weren’t enjoying it in the slightest.

‘What you wrote won’t sell anything. It’s too dry,’ they said.

‘It’s a native ad. It doesn’t sell things directly. It just isn’t how it works,’ we replied.

‘Never mind that. We’ll hire a copywriter and he will write what we want. Just make sure it’s published,’ they said.

And so they did. The next day they brought us a text written by some guy they hired. He did exactly what they told him to do. And honestly, what follows is only a slight exaggeration on our part.

“Our service is the best in the world. We came up with it on our own, and it is truly ours. If you sign up with us, you will discover the true location of Atlantis and become the first human being on Mars. And Elon Musk will be shining your space boots there. Stop hesitating and bring us your money. Because if you don’t sign up, we will dress up as aliens, abduct your mother, and probe her.”

Of course, no publication would ever publish that even as an April Fool’s day joke.

‘What you wrote won’t sell anything. Nobody would ever publish that, and even if they did, nobody would want to go to your website after that,’ we said.

‘Your copywriter just did a bad job. Ours did it right,’ they responded.

‘We don’t have a copywriter. We have an author,’ we said.

‘Potato, potahto,’ they replied.

So, that is where it went wrong. Because copywriters and authors are two completely different jobs.

What Is Copywriter?

A copywriter is a specialist who creates advertising texts known as ‘copies,’ hence the name. They strictly follow the orders of their superiors or customers without questioning anything. The ultimate goal of their work is to create a sales pitch.

Most importantly, copywriters work in direct advertising. They write texts that directly ‘sell’ things. They come up with slogans. They praise the brands. In a word, they advertise straight to your face.

That’s not a bad thing. Without them, there wouldn’t have been any ads on TV or billboards. They do an important job. The problem is that their craft is inapplicable in native advertising. For that, you would need an author.

What Is Author?

An author is more of a journalist than an advertiser. When a native ad author needs to write some branded content, he or she does their best to avoid anything that would look like an ad.

An author does some research of the customer. Then they find their appealing points that would be interesting to the target audience. Then they write their piece in a neutral tone, as if it were a regular news feature.

While copywriters have to repeat that the customer is awesome over and over again, authors never do that. Instead, they carefully present the actual facts about the customer, and the audience comes to the conclusion that the customer is awesome. They do it on their own rather than perceive a ready-baked slogan. Your own conclusions are more valuable to you than something you’ve been told. And that is what native advertising is all about after all.

In the End

We convinced our customer that he didn’t need a copywriter in this case because he ordered a native ad, not a direct one. After a few minor alterations we sent our text to the publication and they released it. The customer got a few more clients, the publication had its reputation intact, and everyone was happy. Hopefully, the copywriter got paid before we had to explain that his services were sadly irrelevant to the task.

So, to sum it up, here are the key differences between copywriters and writers.

A copywriter:

• Good for direct advertising.
• Writes sales pitches.
• Does not research the customer.

An author:

• Good for native advertising.
• Writes articles, features, and longreads.
• Researches the customer.

Frankly, it’s very hard to mistake one for another, if you ask us. None of them is better than the other. They just do very different jobs, so there’s no sense in comparing then.

That’s all for today. Stay tuned.