Recently it was announced that Google would be rolling out native ad solutions products. While Google is often ahead of the ad tech pack when it comes to advertising products, native advertising has been one area that smaller players such as Outbrain and Taboola have been ahead of Google.
Native advertising has become a hot commodity in the media world. Rather than serving ads from 3rd party sponsors, native advertising products help publishers serve up additional content from the publishers in-house content team that might be relevant to a reader. Initial tests have been conducted with partners such as Buzzfeed as a way to pull and recycle content from the publishers extensive content management system.
One advantage that Google will have over it's smaller competitors is the ability to offer both a distribution tool and a content management system in one. By providing these two tools linked together, Google can provide a superior product that allows publishers to better track the performance of each piece of content to better optimize.
Native advertising is just one example of how advertising products are becoming more sophisticated and the line between editorial and advertising is becoming increasingly blurred. Now, it's virtually impossible for a visitor to know the difference between an organic suggestion and an ad-served suggestion for the next piece of content.
On the other hand, a case can be made that native advertising is really a benefit to readers. By using an ad exchange, content can be optimized in real time resulting in the "best" content being served the most often so that readers can influence the content that gets circulated - thereby democratizing what articles get talked about and shared around the internet.
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