A Reuters Institute study found native advertising delivered success as an alternative revenue source for 15 publishers in the UK, Spain and France.
Native advertising – also known as advertorial or sponsored content – is a form of content that combines the characteristic of both advertising and editorial content. Many high-quality news publishers like The New York Times have used native advertising as a revenue source.
Unlike ads on third-party platforms like Google, Facebook or algorithm-driven ad exchanges, native advertising gives more control to the publishers. Publishers can merge native advertising with ecommerce as well as social activities to improve its functionality.
But, publishers should choose advertisers whose values align with theirs and maintain the quality of native advertising content similar to high-quality journalism. They should also clearly label native advertising content as “sponsored” to maintain credibility. To improve transparency further, use different typography for native advertising.
[6 minute read]