Publishers about to hit a wall with native ads

The native ad gold rush peaked last year, with the likes of USA Today, Politico and The New Republic setting up units to develop ads that look like editorial articles and videos. Publishers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, known for their heavily designed campaigns, ran more in 2015 than in 2014. At the Daily Beast, the RFPs asking for native or branded content figure grew 50 percent last year, president and publisher Mike Dyer said.
But the good times can’t last forever. Native advertising has lost its shiny-new-object status and is now, like any form of marketing, under scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission is finding disclosure practices too lax, and its remedy to tighten them — by, say, calling native ads, well, ads — will likely undermine effectiveness. What’s more, native ads are now a dime a dozen; just about every publisher offers some form. That will likely drag down pricing as options proliferate. And perhaps more worrying, marketers are starting to ask tough questions about just how effective native ads are.
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