If your marketing strategy focuses on creating and distributing content, native advertising has to be on your radar by now.
But what might not be on your radar is programmatic native advertising, a new trend that hopes to bring the scale, transactional ease, and hyper-targeting of display advertising to sponsored content.
In April, we ran a story detailing the pros, cons, and costs of the top 10 distribution platforms, which included several leading native-ad tech options. A new study by The 614 Group, a digital solutions firm and consultancy, delves even further into nine native advertising tech vendors, extracting key information content marketers should consider when weighing their investment in this young but promising technology.
Key takeaways
The 614 Group’s “Native Advertising Technology Vendor Study” examines “nine core questions publishers should ask to ensure the solution you implement meets your revenue-generation criteria.” Combining interviews with nine leading vendors in the native space with survey results from over 400 marketers, the report offers high-quality intel for marketers and publishers interested in this fast-rising technology.
I would definitely recommend reading the results of this study for yourself. But, in a nutshell, here’s some of the key highlights you’ll learn:
1. Sixty-seven percent of marketers are interested in pursuing native advertising more actively going forward, but 47 percent are frustrated with the targeting capabilities currently available.
2. While as much as 93 percent of publishers are already offering some form of native advertising, there continues to be a disconnect between what is being offered and what marketers are looking for.
3. Over the next 12 months, content distribution will receive the greatest increase in marketing budget share, with 52 percent of marketers listing it as their top priority.
4. Up to 87 percent of marketers use their own websites, social media, and SEO to distribute their own content, but only 7–24 percent are using native offerings or content discovery engines.
The nine vendors interviewed for the study cover a range of native offerings:
Content discovery
In-stream social media advertising
Cross-channel native advertising
- Solve Media
- Nativo
- Polar Mediavoice
- AdsNative
- ShareThrough
- TripleLift (focused exclusively on visuals)
Each vendor has a unique value proposition and differentiation that can help brand publishers focus in on the options that are most valuable to their unique audience and content distribution challenges. Differences in size, scale, and audience are discussed as well, offering a well-rounded basis for further discussion.
The 614 Group’s “Native Advertising Technology Vendor Study” is well worth your time to read and absorb. Whether you’re planning to invest in native advertising soon, or just want a better understanding of the lay of the land, you’ll be smarter for having read it.
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