The Native Ad Tech Landscape Is Growing at Rapid Pace

By Jesper Laursen
Founder of Native Advertising Institute
Copenhagen, Denmark
Connect

In 2017, we at the Native Advertising Institute took on an ambitious project to map the entire native advertising technology landscape. The number of vendors was then 272.

This year's landscape has grown with 48% and now counts an impressive 402 vendors, all of whom you can get to know in our new ebook "The Global Guide to Native Advertising Technology 2018". With this ebook, we hope to help marketers, publishers, and communications professionals navigate the native advertising technology landscape.

One of the interesting developments from last year is the introduction of a whole new technology: blockchain. A technology that eliminates waste, fraud, and abuse. Another prominent change is the growth of the category 'Influencer Advertising', which is now the fastest moving category with 12 new influencer advertising vendors, up 50% from 2017.

And the native advertising technology landscape itself has not become less important.

One might argue that this was old news as the organic reach of brands on Facebook has been gradually diminishing for years now, to a point where it is very close to zero.

Paid media is more important than ever

Just a few weeks before we launched this year’s Native Advertising Technology Landscape, Facebook announced that brands and publishers will be much less visible in the newsfeed of their two billion users. As it turns out, Facebook was referring to the organic visibility as the paid visibility seems to be working in the same way, so far.

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One might argue that this was old news as the organic reach of brands on Facebook has been gradually diminishing for years now, to a point where it is very close to zero. Whether old or new news, the announcement was a powerful reminder that social media has increasingly become a pay-to-play game for brands.

Now, it is, of course, annoying having to pay for something that, at least to some extent, used to be free. In return, however, Facebook has given marketers some extremely powerful tools to get their commercial content in front of the right audience at the right time.

What we are seeing now is an unprecedented opportunity for brands that want to take matters into their own hands.

An unprecedented opportunity for brands

Facebook is far from the only platform or service that is empowering brand marketers to leverage paid content distribution. Other social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter are working hard to improve their tools and services. Many other platforms and providers such as Outbrain and Strossle are building smooth self-service solutions and completely new technology vendors are popping up at a breathtaking pace.

RELATED: The 2018 Native Advertising Technology Landscape

In other words, what we are seeing now is an unprecedented opportunity for brands that want to take matters into their own hands and be in control of their own paid media.

With "The Global Guide to Native Advertising Technology 2018" we want to give you an overview and better understanding of the many, many options available. It will not make you a native advertising ninja overnight, but it will hopefully give you an idea as to just how many exciting tools are out there. If you follow our blog, we will do our absolute best to share how you can make the most of them.

But for now, indulge yourself in the more than 400 vendors we were able to find. There should be plenty of opportunities in there for any brand of any size looking to leverage native advertising.

Download "The Global Guide to Native Advertising Technology 2018" right here: