Welcome to the continuing coverage of our ZenithOptimedia’s 2016 Trends report, this time focusing on the second trend, native advertising.
With the rise of adblocking and the growing ineffectiveness of banners on mobile, native advertising is becoming a vital tool for communicating with mobile audiences, particularly the young and other mobile-first consumers.
Native ads match the form and function of the editorial environment in which they appear and are designed to integrate with the user experience. While standard ad formats are relegated to advertising-specific placements on websites and in apps, native ads are intertwined with content. ZenithOptimedia estimates native ads will represent one third of display advertising by 2017.
Native advertising is a way to circumvent adblockers, which have been used by 27% of the global internet population according to ZenithOptimedia’s recent research with GlobalWebIndex. Although adblockers have long been around on desktop browsers, Apple’s iOS9 operating system now allows mobile users to download adblocker apps. The initial impact of iOS9 will be limited, as the majority of mobile adblockers work on only mobile browsers, while 84% of mobile time is spent using apps instead of browsers. However, native advertising has the potential to be even more valuable in-app than in-browser, since it can be fully integrated with the user interface. This gives users a better experience, and generally yields better results for advertisers. Initial results give native advertising click-through rates of 2%-8% compared with 0.07%-0.1% for banners.
Native advertising can drive brand awareness as well as generate leads across the consumer journey, but some brands will have to reassess the way they work with publishers to create compelling native content. Brands will have to agree on broad content themes and be flexible about how the ads are custom-fitted within the editorial environment. Brands and publishers have the opportunity to marry the data they both hold on their audiences to provide truly customised and relevant content to targeted individuals.
Click here for a summary of ZenithOptimedia’s 2016 Trends: Empowering the Mobile Consumer, and a link to the full report.
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