Best Platforms For Native Advertising In 2024

Native advertising has become one of the most effective ways for brands to engage with audiences in a non-disruptive manner. Unlike traditional ads, native ads blend seamlessly into the platform’s content, appearing as part of the user experience rather than standing out as overt advertisements. With consumers becoming increasingly wary of banner ads and pop-ups, native advertising offers a more subtle, content-driven approach that resonates with audiences and generates higher engagement.

If you're considering native advertising for your marketing strategy, choosing the right platform is essential to reaching your target audience and achieving your business objectives. This blog post will explore the best platforms for native advertising in 2024, highlighting their strengths, targeting capabilities, and how they can help boost your brand’s visibility.

What is Native Advertising?

Before diving into the platforms, it's important to understand what native advertising is. Native advertising is a type of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience on the platform where it is placed. These ads are designed to be less intrusive and more engaging by providing valuable content that fits naturally within the user interface, whether that’s in the form of articles, videos, or social media posts.

Native ads can take many forms:

• Sponsored content: Blog posts, articles, or news stories that are promoted as paid content.
• In-feed ads: Ads that appear in the same format as regular content within a user’s newsfeed, such as Facebook or Instagram sponsored posts.
• Content recommendation widgets: Ads that appear as recommended content at the bottom of articles, like those on news websites.

Now, let’s take a look at the best platforms for native advertising.

1. Outbrain

Outbrain is one of the pioneers in the native advertising space and remains a top platform for distributing native ads across premium publisher sites. It specializes in content recommendation ads that appear on major news and media websites, such as CNN, BBC, and The Guardian. These ads are designed to look like organic content, encouraging users to click through and read more.

Key Features:

• Premium publisher network: Outbrain gives advertisers access to a wide range of top-tier publishers, making it ideal for reaching high-quality audiences.
• Engagement-focused: The platform is designed to promote content that encourages engagement and drives clicks, such as blog posts, videos, and long-form articles.
• Smart targeting: Outbrain offers advanced targeting options, including interest, behavior, and location-based targeting, to ensure your content reaches the right audience.

Best for: Brands that want to distribute long-form content or articles to a broader, high-quality audience across premium publisher websites.

2. Taboola

Taboola is another leading platform in the content discovery and native advertising space. Like Outbrain, it works with top publishers to serve native ads in the form of recommended content. With a network that includes sites like NBC, Bloomberg, and The Weather Channel, Taboola helps brands drive traffic and increase engagement through personalized recommendations.

Key Features:

• Massive reach: Taboola boasts an extensive network of publishers, giving advertisers access to millions of potential readers.
• AI-powered recommendations: Taboola uses AI algorithms to suggest content based on user behavior and preferences, increasing the chances of engagement.
• Video and content distribution: Taboola supports both content articles and video ads, making it versatile for various types of native ad campaigns.

Best for: Companies looking for large-scale content distribution with AI-driven recommendations to increase clicks and conversions.

3. Nativo

Nativo is a native advertising platform that focuses on automating the creation and distribution of native ads at scale. It allows advertisers to publish branded content directly within publisher sites, maintaining the look and feel of organic editorial content. Nativo’s platform offers full creative control, enabling advertisers to customize their native ads while ensuring they fit seamlessly into the publisher's environment.

Key Features:

• Customizable native formats: Nativo allows advertisers to create highly customized native ads that match the publisher's editorial style.
• High-quality publishers: The platform works with premium publishers, ensuring that your content appears in trusted and reputable environments.
• Performance analytics: Nativo offers in-depth performance metrics, allowing you to measure engagement and optimize your native ad campaigns in real-time.

Best for: Brands looking for a high level of creative control over their native ads, with a focus on premium placements within reputable publishers.

4. Facebook Audience Network

For advertisers looking to reach mobile users through in-app native ads, Facebook Audience Network (FAN) is an excellent choice. While Facebook is known for its social media advertising, FAN extends native advertising to third-party mobile apps and websites. This platform allows advertisers to place native, in-stream video, and interstitial ads in apps that are part of Facebook’s network.

Key Features:

• Massive mobile reach: Facebook Audience Network gives advertisers access to a vast number of mobile users across a wide range of apps.
• Seamless integration: Native ads served through FAN match the look and feel of the app or website, ensuring they blend seamlessly into the user experience.
• Precise targeting: Facebook’s advanced targeting capabilities are available within FAN, allowing advertisers to target users based on interests, behavior, demographics, and more.

Best for: Brands looking to extend their native advertising reach beyond social media and into mobile apps and websites while leveraging Facebook’s powerful targeting tools.

5. Yahoo Native (formerly Gemini)

Yahoo Native is Yahoo’s proprietary native advertising platform, which serves native ads across Yahoo’s vast network of websites, apps, and partner properties. Yahoo Native enables advertisers to create and distribute ads that appear as in-feed content or recommendation widgets.

Key Features:

• Yahoo’s content ecosystem: Yahoo Native gives advertisers access to the full Yahoo ecosystem, including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Sports.
• Search and native ad combo: Yahoo Native combines native advertising with search ads, allowing advertisers to run cohesive campaigns that drive traffic from both search results and content recommendations.
• Advanced analytics: The platform offers robust analytics and insights, enabling advertisers to optimize their campaigns based on performance data.

Best for: Brands seeking to combine search and native advertising for greater visibility across Yahoo’s network of content and search properties.

6. Revcontent

Revcontent is a native advertising platform known for its high-quality traffic and granular targeting capabilities. The platform partners with premium publishers to serve native ads that appear in content recommendation widgets, much like Outbrain and Taboola. Revcontent prides itself on providing a more selective publisher network, which helps maintain high engagement rates.

Key Features:

• Selective publisher network: Revcontent works with a more exclusive network of publishers, ensuring that ads are served on high-quality, reputable websites.
• Advanced targeting: The platform offers precise targeting options, allowing advertisers to reach specific audiences based on demographics, behavior, and interests.
• Flexible ad formats: Revcontent supports a variety of native ad formats, including in-feed, recommendation widgets, and video.

Best for: Brands focused on quality over quantity, looking to reach targeted, high-engagement audiences on premium publisher sites.

7. Sharethrough

Sharethrough is a native advertising platform that focuses on blending ads into the content of premium websites in a way that feels less intrusive and more organic. Sharethrough supports native ads across a variety of formats, including video, display, and in-feed ads, and is known for its emphasis on providing high-quality native advertising experiences.

Key Features:

• Quality native experiences: Sharethrough prides itself on offering native ads that don’t feel like ads, but rather an integrated part of the content on a webpage.
• Multi-format support: Advertisers can create and distribute native display, video, and in-feed ads through the platform.
• Real-time reporting: Sharethrough offers real-time analytics and reporting, helping advertisers optimize their campaigns for maximum engagement.

Best for: Brands that want to create immersive native advertising experiences that align with high-quality editorial content.

8. TikTok For Business

As one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, TikTok presents unique opportunities for native advertising through its TikTok For Business platform. TikTok’s native ads appear seamlessly within the feed as users scroll through videos, making them less intrusive and more engaging.

Key Features:

• Viral potential: TikTok’s algorithm favors highly engaging content, giving native ads the potential to go viral and reach massive audiences.
• Creative ad formats: TikTok offers a variety of native ad formats, including in-feed video ads, branded hashtag challenges, and branded effects.
• Younger audience reach: TikTok is particularly popular with Gen Z and millennials, making it ideal for brands targeting younger demographics.

Best for: Brands looking to reach a younger, highly engaged audience with creative, video-driven native ads.

9. Google Ads (Discovery Campaigns)

Google Ads offers native advertising through Discovery campaigns, which allow advertisers to place native ads in Google’s Discover feed, YouTube, and Gmail. These ads are designed to be highly visual and engaging, appearing in the form of in-feed content that blends with the organic content users are consuming.

Key Features:

• Wide reach: Discovery ads are displayed across Google’s extensive network, including the Discover feed, YouTube, and Gmail.
• Visual-driven ads: Discovery ads focus on imagery and video, making them more engaging and appealing to users.
• Intent-based targeting: Google’s advanced targeting capabilities allow advertisers to reach users based on their search history, interests, and browsing behavior.

Best for: Brands looking for native advertising solutions that are visually engaging and integrated across Google’s various properties.

Conclusion

Native advertising continues to grow in popularity as brands seek more engaging and less intrusive ways to reach their audience. The platforms listed above offer some of the best opportunities for advertisers to create native ads that resonate with their target audiences. Whether you're looking to promote long-form content, drive video engagement, or extend your reach across mobile apps, there is a native advertising platform to meet your needs.

By choosing the right platform, you can ensure that your native ads are not only seen by the right audience but also create meaningful connections that drive conversions and brand loyalty in 2024 and beyond.