The Current State of Premium Native Advertising

By Anders Engbjerg Vinderslev on May 16, 2016
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What makes a reader click on a headline? What devices get the most clicks? Which advertisers have the most success in native? That's exactly what the good folks from Polar set out to investigate in their latest benchmark on native advertising.

So far, they have collected data from 2000+ Publisher Brands, 6000+ Campaigns and 45,000 Creatives using their platform to gain insights on premium native advertising. The data speaks for itself in this report.

If you are not up for reading the report from one end to the other, here are some of the insights gleaned from the full report.

Smartphone clicks handily beat all other devices in premium native ads

Mobile monetization remains top of mind for publishers looking to modernize their revenue and content programs and the data backs up these efforts. Smartphone and tablet clicks on native advertising blows desktop out of the water, and these numbers dwarf those of users clicking on traditional display advertising.

Key Takeaways:

  • Smartphones and Tablets both outperform the average
  • Smartphone CTR is 137% higher than Desktop CTR
  • Tablet CTR is 6% higher than average of 0.31%
  • Desktop Premium Native CTR performance is almost half that of the average

Headlines with numbers give premium native ads an edge

Promotion of sponsored content is the key to its success and publishers use any advantage they have to ensure their readers are clicking through to the content page. Numbers in headlines, question marks, character length and more all impact the effectiveness of a premium native ad's promotional unit. Using the data mentioned above, we are able to look at the big picture when it comes to headline performance in premium native.

Key Takeaways:

  • Headlines with numbers have a .27% average CTR
  • Headlines without a question mark perform 18% better than those with
  • Headlines with fewer than 30 characters and greater than 70 characters have lower relative performance than those in between

Which advertisers have the best performing native ads?

When pitching direct sold native advertising and sponsored content to potential brands and marketers, it's important to know which advertisers have the most success with native. Choosing the right partners when it comes to premium native, and making sure they align with a publisher's brand goes a long way to establish constant success in CTR, time-on- site,

Key takeaways:

  • Discretionary Consumer Goods perform 28% better than the next best performing category
  • Industrial goods perform relatively poorly with a CTR 3 times worse than average
  • Energy, Financials, and IT slightly stronger with the same 0.13% CTR

These are just some of the many takeaways from Polar’s in depth look at the State of Premium Native Advertising.

Photo credit: whiskeyandtears