Wait… what year is this?
Jokes aside, think about the time native ads were popular. Meta was still Facebook, Instagram didn’t even have Stories, let alone Reels—and TikTok didn’t even exist.
But native ads are bigger than ever, it’s just that they’re not new so people discuss them less. Even looking at data online, most native ads data or sources are five to ten years old.
The lack of more recent data is one of the reasons why we partnered with Native Hub—to try and fetch some. Especially on how much native ads cost, what products get the best results with them.
Let’s see what we’ve found.
📺Broadly speaking, native ads are all ads that feel “native” to the platform and blend in with non-paid content.
However, as a separate channel, native ads are placed in the middle or at the bottom of an article of big digital properties—or website aggregates like Apple News. They’re usually blended with editorial content as paid promotions in “Read More” section, where users will most likely engage with them.
Advertisers are still spending on native ads
It’s not easy to find data for proper native ads spending online.
For example, this chart shows ad spend of all ads that EMARKETER considers native—”reflecting form, feel, and function of the content:”
This data however, includes social media ads on platforms like Meta and X. In any case, we can still see that native ad spending, regardless of the definition of “native,” is rising.
However, to understand how this reflects on native ads as a separate channel, it’s best to look at the growth of the most popular native ads platforms.
Here’s Taboola:
The popular native ads platform has seen a 32% growth in 5 years.
This can suggest that advertisers are still spending on native ads—and spending more. A good sign.
Now let’s see Outbrain, the “second in command”:
The platform peaked in 2021, when it broke the $1B threshold. However, there seems to be a slight decline since—albeit it’s still a 36% increase from 2019.
Overall, that’s a rise from $1.7B to around $2B revenue from two biggest native ad platforms in five years—telling us native ads have something to offer.
🤝 Taboola announced a 30-year strategic partnership deal with Yahoo last year, opening a huge ad inventory to the platform.
With this, Taboola is expected to keep chewing into the traditional native ads market cap—so it will be interesting to monitor the revenue charts in the coming years.
Which countries are spending most on native ads?
Native ads cost differ depending on where you are and who you target.
And since platforms allow you to target publishers in different countries—it might be good to see how much you’d have to spend depending on your targets.
Let’s check the map:
The top doesn’t surprise us… much.
You’d expect the United States to top it, but apparently Canada edges it by a cent—both averaging half a dollar cost-per-click (CPC).
In other words, you can expect to pay around $500 for 1000 native ad clicks in these two countries. Makes sense, as it is considered a source of high-quality traffic.
[A good native ads ROI] depends on the industry, but in general 20-30% is what’s considered good. We’ve seen 2.5x ROAS for brands but you’d need some combination of a product relevant for senior audience, good copy, lack of competition, right pricing, and time.
-Andrey Kravchenko, Native Hub
Surprisingly, the United Kingdom’s cost-per-click is half the price, while most EU countries like Spain, Austria, or Italy cost even less.
💸 Native ads cost, besides location, is dependent on the industry and the concurrent ad CTR. Brands with higher CTRs have lower CPC costs, but usually buy loads of the available native inventory.
According to native ads experts, the channel drives you to outcompete other brands and have your ads appear on the biggest websites with the most premium traffic.
That’s opposite of Meta, for example, where you want your CPMs to be lower.
Are native ads rising year-over-year?
That’s easy to see by comparing last year’s average CPCs with this year’s.
Here’s what we found:
It appears advertisers upped ad spend in some countries by a lot.
And knowing that CPC varies depending on competition, we can look at a few things.
France might be driven by this year’s big events like the Olympics, so a lot more French traffic was sold to brands.
The same goes for Canada—which might indicate a surge of big advertisers in a short period of time that pushed the costs up.
CPC also went up in the US by 30%. Which says that competition for native ad inventory keeps increasing.
Another interesting stat comes from mobile year-over-year increase:
The spike in spending is much more obvious on mobile.
Most countries have seen CPC increase by some amount, with Brazil, Canada, and Belgium leading the pack.
It appears that the increasing use of mobile phones to access publishers has greatly increased competition for native ads inventory in most countries.
🤦What are the biggest challenges when running native ads according to experts?
1. Higher entry budgets: Native ads is a network where every website has its own engagement rates, unlike e.g. Facebook. You need more data, and data costs money. Lots of brands are too impatient to invest time and money required to collect it, as they hold the same expectations as they would from social.
2. Native traffic is incredibly stable, but can get 20-30% more expensive at the end of each financial quarter. Why? Branding agencies tend to drive CPCs so they can buy more clicks. Unlike performance advertisers, who care about costs per lead or acquisition, branding advertisers aren’t as performance constrained since their KPIs are top of the funnel.
3. Good copy. Native is cold traffic, so people don’t really want your product. You need a good story that the audience would buy into. No one thinks of buying vitamins or collagen when reading the news about the politics, for instance. But an ad looking like a news piece… that usually works.
How much do native ads cost in your industry?
The higher the competition, the bigger the cost.
Here’s what it looks like:
Some interesting stuff.
It appears that IT and software had the highest average CPC compared to all other industries. In 2023, CPC was almost $1—which decreased to $0.7 this year.
We’ve seen lead generation brands—such as big insurance agencies—having most success with native. On the D2C side, we work with a variety of brands, and the most successful are either wearables, gadgets, and health & beauty products for men & women over 45.
-Andrey Kravchenko, Native Hub
Overall, most industries sat around $0.5 CPC on average. But in 2024, video gaming surged from $0.51 to $0.76, the highest jump of all industries.
But if you’re in most industries, you might not expect much fluctuation in CPC, making it one of the more predictable channels.
What times of the year are best for native ad spending?
It depends on your industry.
For some verticals, seasonality is a big thing, while others are evergreen—spending the same amount for the entire year:
It looks like home improvement works well and is in-demand around New Year time and during the summer—both periods when we have more time.
Insurance sees a surge at the beginning of the year, when people usually think about renewing their policies.
Another interesting thing is the health & supplements niche—which sees a boost in spend during the first half of the year.
On the other hand, some boosts depending on variables throughout the year—so they’re not quite consistent, but more depend on a case-by-case basis:
- Class action: depending on when the action takes place
- Content arbitrage: depending on world events
- Search arbitrage: depending on world events and type of niche chosen for search
On native you can bid on the most engaging & premium inventory in the world – like Yahoo, CNN, MSN, BBC – for a very reasonable price. Both Taboola & Outbrain have reserved some of the most premium inventory for this purpose, e.g. High Impact Placement & Onyx, while other traffic sources are also developing their solutions.
-Andrey Kravchenko, Native Hub
The Crew’s opinion: Seasonality can work both ways in native advertising.
You can either try and outcompete other brands when the demand is super high and there’s a bigger chance to attract customers.
At the same time, you might be tempted to increase your spending during off-season when there’s not much competition, to try and grab the attention of users you otherwise wouldn’t due to budget constraints.
Going native could pay off, just…
What we’ve learned? First of all, that native advertising continues to be a valuable channel for brands, with ad spends going up and promising returns in various industries.
On top of that, platforms like Taboola show substantial growth, suggesting sustained advertiser interest to have their campaigns promoted on major online publications.
There’s challenges though. High entry budgets, fluctuating costs at the end of financial quarters, and the need for compelling copy are major challenges in native advertising.
Turns out, native ads can be super effective but require strategic planning and investment, as well as understanding that you’re mostly speaking to an audience above 45.
But overall, this channel grows, works, and can act as your main awareness and conversion driver, or supplement your omnichannel efforts. Not bad.
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