Native Ad Spend Will Make Up Nearly 60% of Display Spending in 2018

Thanks to the massive growth of advertising on social networks and mobile devices, two areas where native ads dominate, native advertising now accounts for more than half of all digital display spending by US marketers. According to eMarketer, this year they will allocate $32.90 billion to native digital display ads, up 31.0% over 2017.

In 2018, 58.3% of US digital display spending will be for native placements, which match the form, function and feel of the content in which they appear. That’s up from 54.0% in 2017. Almost three-quarters of US native display ad spending is on social ads, partly because almost all social advertising is native and because social ads account for a huge portion of display advertising as a whole.

Native advertising is even more likely to be mobile than it is to be social; more than 90% of native display dollars go to mobile placements, thanks to sites and apps designed specifically to include native ads. Meanwhile, programmatic native display, especially for nonsocial placements, continues to gain scale but remains ripe for innovation and further growth.