Native advertising on the rise

ONLINE ADVERTISING Native advertising is becoming increasingly important for revenue in the digital advertising industry. Traditional display campaigns are set to lose significant value as a source of income for publishers in the future. This is the result of an expert survey conducted by marketer Seeding Alliance.The sources of revenue in the digital advertising business will change by 2020. The vast majority (93%) of respondents agreed with the thesis that the share of native advertising in the digital advertising market in Germany will more than double within the next four years. More than 80 percent anticipate that traditional display campaigns will significantly lose value as a source of income for publishers. The industry representatives thus confirm that native advertising is a high-growth segment in the online advertising business that has the potential to overtake display advertising in the future. "The industry representatives' forecast is in line with current developments on the market, as native advertising is in high demand as a young form of advertising and has extremely positive growth figures. The price spiral for classic display ads is on a downward trend, meaning that publishers have to look for new sources of revenue. As the link between the advertising industry and portal operators and publishers, digital service providers, marketers and agencies have a duty to build up this part of the digital economy in a solid way. In the future, everything will revolve around good content - both editorial and advertising," comments Cevahir Ejder, Managing Director of the Seeding Alliance, on the results of the expert survey.95% of the respondents agreed on the importance of content, which plays a key role in native advertising. 95 percent of the experts agreed that the advertising effect of native advertising mainly depends on high-quality content. Publishers in particular would benefit significantly from native advertising. According to 83 percent of the experts, advertising content no longer looks like a foreign body in the overall editorial context.

With regard to the authenticity of native advertising, 74% of respondents were of the opinion that labeling it as an "advertisement" is completely sufficient to distinguish it from editorial content. Only 14 percent consider this not to be the case. Another six out of ten experts (61%) believe that only industry-wide market standards and advertising labeling can generate the necessary authenticity and create trust in native advertising. In just over 19 percent of cases, respondents reject this thesis. Only just over half (55%) believe that the advertising company behind a native advertising campaign should be recognizable to consumers. Once again, 19 percent tend to reject this claim. Only a quarter agreed with the assertion that only the labeling of advertising campaigns makes the difference between native advertising and surreptitious advertising. For the majority (63%), labeling is not enough to make the difference.The Seeding Alliance industry survey was conducted as part of the Native Ads Camp. Around 300 industry representatives from the digital economy came together at the conference to discuss the future of the digital advertising market. Publishers, marketers, agency representatives and advertisers were surveyed.