Native Ad or Editorial Content?

In the media buying space, it can be challenging to find symmetry between profitability and a genuine user experience. Adding more display ads may show a return on investment for a while, but not without heavy cost—the poor user experience will ultimately affect the value of your brand negatively. If you’ve been looking for a different way to more effectively distribute your content and find new customers—without disrupting the user’s experience—Native Advertising is the solution.

Move Over Banner Ads

Native advertising is now the standard digital ad channel garnering impressive consumer attention and engagement levels at a rate of up to 60% higher than traditional display ads. Especially when contextually relevant, native ads increase visibility, improve brand image, and promote user response. Compelling content that closely matches and integrates with the organic user experience on a given platform can generate 25% more consumer attention than banners ads.

Although native advertising has been around for a number of years as a means to distribute content and create brand awareness to a wide, targeted audience, the recent explosion of application development and digital media and mobile app use has ignited a native renaissance of sorts.

For those familiar with the terms “programmatic” and “native,” the concept of “programmatic native” probably sounds counterintuitive at first. After all, the success of native advertising relies on its ability to mirror exactly the form and function of its host publisher, while programmatic refers to automated buying and selling of digital ads However, the merging of automation and customization is achievable, and the benefits of doing so can be huge. Programmatic native advertising applies real-time data to individual ads, ensuring that they are placed on relevant and appropriate sites that will enhance the consumer’s experience.

Thalamus, the largest research database of ad vendor data in the world, recently interviewed Storygize CEO David Osman about programmatic native and the future of automated buying. 

Check out the full Storygize interview originally posted on Thalamus' blog June 27, 2016. Highlights follow.