Native advertising is defined as ad strategies that allow brands to promote their content into the endemic experience of a site in a non-interruptive, integrated way. If you need an example, think about Promoted Tweets from Twitter or Facebook’s Sponsored Stories.
While these large social media players are extremely important, here at Sharethrough we see these strategies as the future monetization strategy for all publishers and content aggregators across the web. In addition, we believe that native ads provide a unique opportunity for brands to create and provide excellent content that consumers will choose to view.
Sidenote: For a deeper dive on the concept of native advertising and an overview of the companies in the space, check out our “Native Monetization Framework” post on TechCrunch.
Today, we wanted to highlight one independent publisher that is utilizing native ads exceptionally well: TechMeme. TechMeme, a social content publisher that helps provide individuals discover the most popular technology and business news of the day, includes Sponsored Posts on their homepage. These posts have strong visual integration with TechMeme’s look and feel and do not pop-up or annoy users who are trying to navigate the site without interruption. Instead, the ad acts as standalone content. For a visual, take a look at the two examples below:
How Techmeme features ads now
How TechMeme would look with display ads
Side note: if you want to buy native ads on TechMeme, shout out to Heather Ulich.
The steps taken by influential publishers such as Techmeme are bold, and Sharethrough believes that other publishers will continue to follow suit.
At Sharethrough, we’re betting on video being at the center of native advertising movement, as we help publishers generate new revenue with native video ads from top brands. Our platform distributes video content from the likes of Nike, Old Spice, Pepsi, Microsoft, and Nestle across choice-based, native video ad placements to drive views and sharing at scale. Web platforms like WordPress, Cheezburger, and major websites like Forbes, The Awl, ThoughtCatalog, Breaking Media, and Devour have all committed to native video advertising using Sharethrough.
Sharethrough native video ads featured on Devour
From day one, Sharethrough has been committed to uniting two forces: great video content from top brands and high quality, native ad experiences on publisher sites.
The native advertising revolution has just begun, and there’s no stopping it.
And for those of you still reading, you just clicked on a native ad on TechMeme, to a post about Native Advertising on Sharethrough, the native video ad company, who paid to post this blog post on TechMeme’s native ad system.
Mind = Blown.
