Native Migration: Flocking to Form Fitting Ads

Better ad experiences foster better ad engagement. It’s a quintessential truth of digital advertising, and a central force behind a migration to native advertising.

Across the board, native advertising is expected to account for nearly 63% of total display ad spending in the United States this year. By next year, that figure is expected to climb to 65%, a marked increase from the 48% share it held in 2016.


Granted, some of this growth is driven by social media, where native now accounts for nearly 96% of ad spend. However, native is still growing in popularity outside of social.


Today, nearly 31% of non-social display ad spending is  currently devoted to native, a figure that was only 13% just 3 years ago.

Based on this, eMarketer projects that US advertisers will spend nearly $44 billion on native display ads in 2019, a 25% increase over 2018.

What’s driving this growth? In short, the answer lies in accessibility, scale, and convenience.

First, native advertising has become more accessible to advertisers. Over the last few years, an increasing number of trusted programmatic platforms have adopted & refined their native offering, making it easier than ever for more marketers to extend their campaigns to native placements.

Second, publisher success with native advertising has made more quality inventory available. Indeed, according to a recent study of US publishers, native advertising now accounts for 31% of programmatic ad revenues, besting video (28%) and closely following traditional display (34%).

Finally, native advertising is proving to be a convenient means of creating cohesion in  omnichannel digital advertising campaigns. Marketers already deploying social media advertising can easily repurpose their native ad units for programmatic native buys, allowing them to easily reach consumers across publishers & properties without much fuss.

In short, the native migration is a natural progression in the pursuit to captivate consumers in the moments that matter.

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Best Practices for Native Advertising

Download our Best Practices for Native Programmatic Advertising Guide for more tips & tricks: