Nearly three quarters of U.S. publishers offer online native advertising opportunities on their sites, according to new research released by eMarketer from the Online Publishers Association and Radar Research. Just 10 percent of publishers say they don’t have and aren’t considering adding native advertising to their sites.
In taking the pulse of how publishers define native advertising, the study seems to hit on some consensus. Over 90 percent agree that native advertising is an ad’s “integration into the design of the publisher’s site.” Interestingly (and somewhat bewilderingly), 21% of publishers did not indicate that native advertising must have “clear delineation and labeling as advertising content.”
The fact that just 54 percent define native advertising as ad content such as “sponsored stories, publisher tweets, etc.” is probably more a function of the mindset among publishers who view native advertising from a content perspective in the vein of BuzzFeed and Forbes.com.
In May, eMarketer released estimates from BIA/Kelsey on the growth of social media ad spend. While not expected to eclipse social display advertising, native advertising is predicted to see continued year-over-year growth at a faster rate of growth than display. By 2017, social native ad spend will grow to $4.57 billion, and its share of social spending will inch up a few percentage points to 41.7%. It’s no wonder just a slim segment of online publishers are still sitting on the sidelines. We can probably expect that 10 percent minority to shrink even further as native advertising continues to expand across social channels as publishers follow the revenue streams.
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