The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has recently released the results of a survey that was taken by client-side marketers in the fourth quarter of last year. The survey asked questions about what these marketers were expecting to see throughout 2015.
63% of the respondents reported that they will be spending more money on native advertising in 2015 than they did in 2014. This is quite a significant number, especially considering that this type of advertising had already gone up throughout last year.
It seems that there is starting to be some consensus about native advertising between the marketers and the publishers. In the past, many publishers were hesitant to show paid content in the same way as their editorial content. Over the past year, however, there has largely been a ‘silent agreement’ between the groups that the content can appear the same, as long as there is a clear disclaimer somewhere within the content itself.
In most cases, this will come right near the title or author area. It may say that the content is, ‘sponsored content’ or ‘paid-placement’ or something similar. This is enough to ensure readers know that it is an advertisement, but still subtle enough to ensure that viewers won’t just ignore the entire page before giving it a chance.
In addition, it seems that this is enough of a distinction to remain in line with all the FTC regulations regarding paid placement of ads. There hasn’t really been any major activity from the FTC in this area, or from other regulatory agencies.
What this essentially means is that the stage is set well for a big bump in native advertising throughout 2015. If you are a publisher, this may mean having more ads displayed, or being able to demand higher prices. If you’re a marketer, you’ll likely be putting more effort into this very effective type of advertising throughout this year.
