Native advertising has been a popular option for the past several years, but it appears that many advertisers are starting to question its effectiveness. A new report from MediaRadar has found that just 33% of native advertisements were renewed in 2016. Add that Medium just fired their entire native staff, this isn’t good news.
Todd Krizelman, the CEO of Media Radar, wrote in an interview with Real-Time Daily, “While native is ubiquitous, this does not mean campaign performance is so equally widespread. We see and forecast renewal rates on native to polarize. Some publishers are much better implementing and measuring their impact. Strong performance will list renewal rates for publishers who are consistently showing their advertisers results.”
This is borne out by the data, which shows some of the top publishers that take on native advertisements are bringing in renewal rates of 60-80%, which is a strong indication of the success of them to make money for the publishers.
Publishers need to learn how to attract the right companies to buy native ads on their sites, and then publish high quality ads that will drive the traffic advertisers need. When done properly, native ads are still a great option. As this report shows, however, just tossing up native advertising everywhere won’t have the desired effect.
