Atempo Growth

A Tale Of Two Natives: How Publishers Approach Sponsored Content And Programmatic Native

An industry-wide look at how publishers balance sponsored content and programmatic native. The article contrasts high-touch sponsored content with scalable programmatic native and cites publishers such as The Globe and Mail, ALM Media, Trusted Media Brands, The New York Times and The Economist. Programmatic native players include Outbrain, TripleLift, Sharethrough, Taboola, and Yahoo Gemini. Globe and Mail and ALM Media guard subscription revenue by avoiding outside links or programmatic native in some cases, while BuzzFeed is highlighted as an exception with a sponsorship-focused model. Globe and Mail measures sponsor-content performance with CTR and engagement metrics from Moat, Polar, Chartbeat and Omniture and is shifting toward brand KPIs. Reader’s Digest and Taste of Home illustrate contextual native placements, with Taste of Home adding shoppable recipes. Rich Sutton of Trusted Media Brands advocates a hybrid native strategy that combines brand-created content with publisher-owned positions and brands’ internal content creation.