76% of OPA branded sites run native executions with newly created publisher content

New York, NY (July 10, 2013) The Online Publishers Association (OPA) has released “Premium Content Brands Are Native Naturals” a research study of native advertising offerings by premium content brands which includes marketer goals, metrics and best practices. Among the findings are that 81% of OPA members find marketers are primarily using native advertising on their sites to increase consumer engagement with advertiser brands and 81% also want to leverage publisher brand equity to achieve brand lift. The study, which includes quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews with OPA members, was conducted by Radar Research in May 2013 and is available now on the OPA website.

The study also reveals that 73% of OPA members surveyed currently offer native advertising solutions, with the potential to reach 90% by the end of 2013. OPA members concur that the definition of native includes integration into the main site (93%), content running within the editorial stream (86%) and clear delineation and labeling as ad content (79%).

“Native advertising is a natural outgrowth of the kind of collaboration OPA members have done with marketers for years in the form of custom programs,” says OPA President Pam Horan. “Our research reveals that marketers continue to look to partner with OPA brands to leverage their expertise in content creation and to take advantage of the brand halo that our members offer.”

For the measurement of campaign impact, marketers are primarily adopting the metrics employed by digital content brands, with 57% of OPA publishers reporting that marketers are using “engagement” and “time spent” as the most important measurement criteria, followed by 43% indicating “traffic.”

OPA members also shared best practices for editorial, sales, marketing and legal, which include:

• Provide as much value to the reader as regular content
• Label native advertising content to guarantee transparency and clarity
• Ensure that native content mirrors discoverability of editorial through search and social media
• Develop clear editorial standards and practices, for instance training marketers if they are providing content, or for monitoring audience posts or comments

“The findings underscore the fundamentals, namely that successful native advertising programs rely on an inherently compelling destination with a dedicated audience to thrive and that the content itself has to reflect the quality expectations of that audience to warrant engagement,” says Horan.

To download the report, please click here.

About the OPA
Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) is a not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to representing high-quality digital content brands before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. The OPA produces proprietary research on advertising and media consumption online for our members and the public, creates public and private forums to explore and advance key issues that impact content brands, and works to educate the public at large on the importance of quality content brands. Members of OPA represent the highest standards in online content creation with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA’s membership has an unduplicated audience of 220 million unique visitors or 100% reach of the U.S. online population (comScore Media Metrix, January 2013). For more information, visit www.online-publishers.org.

Media Contact:
Elizabeth Luke
HIGH10 MEDIA
212.918.2026
[email protected]