Native advertising may be the talk of the town, but not all the recent talk has been salutary.
“It turns out that this ad type may be leaving users feeling burned,” according to a story at Marketing Land. “Contently, a content creation company, took a deep dive into how native advertising is perceived by audiences. The short answer — not well.”
What’s the rap on the bad rep?
A recent survey tells the tale. An initial finding was that “sponsored content” came with a very wide array of opinions as to what it actually is.
While 48.2 percent of respondents believed that the sponsor paid for and influenced the article, another 20 percent believed that the news site wrote the content (but that the sponsor’s money allowed it to happen), 18.0 percent believed that the sponsor simply pays to have their name next to the ad, and 12.6 percent thought that the sponsor both paid for and wrote the article.
Sadly for native advertisers, Contently found that 66.42 percent of respondents would be less likely to click on that article. A minor 0.74 percent said that they would be more likely to click and 32.84 percent said it would have no impact.
“It turns out that the majority of users across all age groups and demographics would rather see banner ads,” explained Contently researchers. “The more educated a respondent was, the less they wanted to see a sponsored story. While native may be effective, it’s not a welcomed ad type.”
For the full results, charts and breakdowns from Contently, click here.
