Best Native Advertising Platforms to Discover in 2026

The projected outlook for the worldwide native advertising market -- it is expected to reach an impressive $650 billion by 2032.

At the same time, display ads have become a source of annoyance for many, and ad blockers are as popular as ever today. That is where native advertising comes in, which becomes especially effective with real time bidding.

Choosing the right platform has become a real challenge as it will define not only your reach but also ROI. Let’s review different types of native ad networks where you can display ads and implement a successful marketing strategy and review what makes SmartyAds DSP one of the most preferable solutions for this type of ads today. 

What is native advertising and what makes it different?

Native advertisements were designed to match the feel, format, and look of the platforms where they are displayed. Shortly, a native ad is paid content that looks like the website's organic content.

Such an ad may look almost exactly like other posts or videos (while indeed, those are sponsored content pieces). Exactly this makes natives the best choice for media buyers who also care about user experience. 

Why native ads are so popular and effective

The main benefit of native advertising is how non-disruptive it is, compared to banner ads and popups. That's why native advertising has high engagement rates. Ad blockers do not ban native content; users are less annoyed and are actually willing to take a look at native advertising.

Read more about paid traffic sources and how to use them.

When it comes to native advertising CTR - it may vary depending on the niche you advertise in as well as geo and channel (in-app, desktop traffic, mobile web, or CTV). Below are approximate numbers: 

Such formats like in-feed creatives fall within the most popular native advertising trends. 

Top native advertising platforms (Best fit for advertisers)

Before we dive into research conducted by industry experts, let’s talk a bit about the most popular formats in this niche, and most popular tech. This way you will know what features to look for in your selected option and how to use it to the fullest.

4 Native advertising formats to pay attention to

There are different types of native online advertising that you can find on the best native advertising platforms. 

Content recommendations (widgets)

At the end of the web page you can see content recommendations that can match what you are reading right now or what you have searched for.

Expert insight: Advertisers that improved their optimization score by 10 points saw 14% more conversions on average. Source – Google Ads Help.

Promoted listings

Promoted listings are a type of native advertising which is mostly available on eCommerce websites and on Google recommendations. When you search for some products, you may see that content appears as promoted items at the very beginning of the list. 

Native search

You have probably seen native content on Google search results: when you search for something, the first two or three results will be promoted. They have a title, link, and description like other results but have a small ad tag within. This way Google combines search and native advertising (Google AdSense offers search and native advertising). 

In-feed social media ads

These can be placed right among editorial content in social feeds. Native videos are part of this experience. Those videos can be placed in different environments and SmartyAds DSP supports the finest user experiences and resolutions.

Expert insight: This is the 4th most popular way for users to discover new products and small businesses. Native video advertising, meanwhile, has a CTR up to 8.8× higher than traditional banner ads. 80% of consumers remember native ads better than banner ads.  

3 Types of programmatic native advertising platforms

So, how do you get your native ads to show up on eCommerce websites, social media, or news outlets? Programmatic advertising platforms do everything for you.

Programmatic media buying means that the machine handles the connection between advertisers and publishers (read advertiser vs publisher comparison) in real-time through bidding. With such programmatic native advertising platforms, a publisher defines places where the ad is located, and an advertiser uploads creative content and defines their target audience.

There are three types of best native ad platforms to manage this interaction:

Demand-side platform

Demand-side platform, or DPS for short, is the native platform for advertisers where they can manage native advertising campaigns. Advertisers upload their creative, define their target audience, capping frequency, whitelist or blacklist of publishers (when needed), etc., and then the software takes care of the rest.

The DPS automatically finds a suitable publisher’s website (according to the user characteristics that match ad campaign criteria).

The supply-side platform

The supply-side platform or SSP is like DPS but for publishers. Publishers can open native ad space, set minimal prices for it, and connect their website to numerous ad exchanges, DPSs, etc. Read more about ad monetization solutions.

Ad exchange

It is a place that connects DSPs and SSPs. A native exchange is almost similar to a network in terms of functions (you can find what are ad networks in the article). If you specifically search for a native advertising network, check the list of the best native ad networks and how to choose them. It is an independent platform that connects top advertisers and publishers who are interested in native advertising. Ad networks can also play a crucial role here. Read about the best mobile ad networks in our previous article. 

Making a review of the top native advertising platforms 

Native advertising platforms can drive results for both top publishers and advertisers. Even though there are plenty of choices, users usually go for more renowned platforms like Google AdSense, Facebook, or Verizon media native option. We have found the best native advertising platforms that are quickly catching up in terms of native capabilities.

The overall pricing (or standard cost of the campaign) will be dependent on the pricing model, product features, campaign geo, and so on.

The important thing is, programmatic advertising platforms can effectively compete with top players in terms of traffic quality and prices. 

Also, read more about best traffic sources for affiliate marketing. 

SmartyAds

Solutions of SmartyAds fall within lists of best CPM ad networks, best video ad networks, and native advertising platforms as well. It’s a full-stack solution offering a DPS with high-quality traffic for advertisers. They are the only option offering full-stack infrastructure for both buyers and sellers.

SmartyAds DSP. The DSP allows advertisers to run high-quality native advertising campaigns on numerous channels, across different locations, formats, and business verticals. Due to the high number of publishers on DSP and a variety of native ad formats, you can reach all the target users you need on a desktop or mobile device.

Partnerships with Pubmatic, Smaato, AdColony, InMobi, and Cheetah Mobile strengthen their capacities and create more opportunities to elevate your brand awareness.

What's particular about SmartyAds DSP is that they have proprietary optimization mechanisms that always keep the bid price optimal and effective for advertisers. Aside from this, they have CPM optimizing features, click booster, and leverages for native campaigns adjusting that ensure seamless user experience for these ads.

Setting up native campaigns is just a matter of clicks:

Core features of SmartyAds DPS for native advertising:

• A wide selection of native formats and the highest traffic quality
• Lots of campaign creation and customization options
• Absolute top quality placements and advanced targeting options
• Robust campaign analytics (variety of campaign performance metrics)
• Premium websites, applications (inventory for mobile web, apps, desktop, CTV), and different operating system (os versions)
• Ad performance measurement with third party tags
• Campaign optimization tools like CPM optimizer, click booster, etc.

SmartyAds SSP. SmartyAds SSP allows publishers to monetize their traffic through native campaigns that don’t interrupt the viewer's experience and bring value to the website visitors. This platform gives them more control over native ad display and full transparency.

Core features of SmartyAds SSP:

• Opportunity to serve a wide selection of native advertising formats in different sizes and resolutions 
• Great campaign reporting options
• Header-bidding
• Complete control over monetization campaigns: filtering, floor price, (also creative size selection,  and other digital properties of the campaign).
• Tools to enhance revenue streams
• The assistance of the personal account manager

Taboola

Taboola was almost the first self service ad network to introduce native advertising and it has been thriving since then. Taboola partners with many publishers worldwide. This content discovery platform has partnerships with premium publishers like USA Today, NBC, Business Insider, Fox, etc. Taboola reaches around 1.4 billion unique monthly users.

The targeting options that Taboola offers span to location, device, operating system, etc.

Advertisers can enjoy a premium publisher market, audiences of 500 million daily active users, robust targeting options, boosted page views, audience segmentation, and data optimization. You can also see data from third parties to understand your users better, target look like audiences, and have an overall better viewer's experience.

Core product features of this native advertising platform:

• Access to premium publishers and premium sites
• Strong targeting options for native campaigns 
• Opportunity to get ad placements on the best publisher's content and options to fully control your campaigns
• Taboola Feed
• Opportunity to target people across geos and with non-obstructive native formats (including in feed ads)
• Budget-friendly lead generation leverages
• Precise campaign performance measurement
• Specialization in first-tier countries like UK, US, Japan, France

Nativo

Nativo is one of the best native ads networks aiming to help brands tell their story in a meaningful way and facilitate publishers’ revenue growth through advertisement with powerful tools and formats. 

The company also collaborates with the best native advertising networks.
Nativo has accumulated over 600 brands and 400 publishers, what's particular - 75% of the ads they serve do not rely on cookies.

The native network endorses native articles the most and offers a couple of unique features for advertisers, namely cookie-free ad delivery and Native IQ. Since many users clear their cookies often or decline cookies while visiting the website, the trend will only continue, considering how conscious users are about sharing their information.

Nativo native network delivers custom native ads no matter whether there are cookies or not. 

Core features of this native advertising platform:

• 600 brands and 400 publishers
• Cookie-free custom native ads delivery
• Deep campaign analysis to optimize your running ad campaigns  
• Partnership with native advertising networks  
• Header-bidding
• Optimization tools for publishers that ensure higher revenue
• Traffic estimations for successful campaigns  

Outbrain

Outbrain native ad network has been on the market for 15 years now and they surely know how to work with native advertising. Publishers that do not have a million visits per month can not sign up for the native advertising platform so you have to understand how high-quality their publishers are.

As well, Outbrain generates 9 billion conversions each year and delivers 290 million native stories to people each month.

They work with CNN, MSN, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc. As a result, the reach of this ad network is 1,3 billion users worldwide and provides a fair pricing per click. Their premium publishers are their main strength as well as a feature with lookalike audiences creation. Outbrain can be the right choice for those advertisers who look for premium traffic.

Core features of this native advertising platform:

• Impressive outreach with many leading niches and top publishers on the open web
• Diverse targeting options, including lookalike audiences
• Strict quality policy for both ads and publishers to ensure best user experience
• Numerous targeting options (geo targeting, device type, operating system, browsers, interests, advanced audience targeting, retargeting (custom audiences))
• Analysis and custom recommendations for improvement of your creatives (so that you can make ad layout optimization)

TripleLift

TripleLift is one of those native advertising platforms that aim to deliver ads to the users in the right way, on the right channel, and at the right time. It’s one of the best native ads platforms that have strict quality guidelines for publishers and works with top companies like BuzzFeed, eBay, and BBC.

This native ad platform has a strong feature for native ads specifically – computer vision. The native advertising platform analyzes advertisers’ creatives for the main elements that should always come up. 

Core features of this native advertising platform:

• Many native formats (in article, in the feed, and videos, and increasingly popular format like carousel) all units are seamlessly integrated into web pages.
• Placing ads is cost-effective thanks to the optimized bidding algorithm 
• No requirement for minimum traffic (thus you can find publishers with 10 million visitors here as well as those only with 500 thousand visitors)
• Real-time templating for advertiser’s creative components
• Real-time insights about the user experience

Adyoulike

Adyoulike is a leading native advertising platform in Europe and it is also the right choice if you look for premium publishers. After 10 years on the market, they won over big players and publishers of high standards like Rolling Stone, Bloomberg, AOL., The Guardian, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue.

Their unique features are native stories format that has become so popular among the users as it is advanced advertising technology. Artificial intelligence helps with semantic targeting: it looks for topics, semantics, and feelings to deliver ads with contextual relevance helping you reach your marketing goals, boost page views and reduce the cost per click.

Core features of this native advertising platform:

• 50 DSPs connected for higher fill rates
• 200 million unique visitors
• Top tier traffic and traffic from other countries
• Platform works based on AI-powered targeting options
• Direct relationships with publishers and networks 
• Defining semantic context for native ads
• AI recognition of keywords in editorial contents

Sharethrough

Sharethrough is an omnichannel and omni-format native advertising platform with powerful technology. They offer dynamic captions, analysis of the creative and recommendations for improvement, content discovery tools, and automatic creative matching to the publisher’s website.

Their SmartSuite will also test and choose the best floor for placements and connect publishers with the highest-paying advertisers. Publishers and advertisers this way can rest assured that they reach desired outcomes. As a result, this platform won top-quality websites as their clients: New York Post, CNN, Rolling Stone, Forbes, etc. 

Core features of this native advertising platform:

• Native ads analysis
• Numerous ad formats to attract potential customers
• Provides experts in setting up, monitoring, and troubleshooting for better ad campaign results
• Automatically optimized bidding algorithm (maximum and minimum bid) so that it gets easier to compete for impression with other advertisers
• Targeting is available based on this and first-party data. 

Engageya

Engageya is a digital web content engagement solution and native advertisements platform that focuses on non-English speaking users. Like other platforms, this ad network has a unique network of partnerships. It has already reached 40 unique monthly impressions and 5,000 publishers, the vast majority of those are represented by Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Haber Turk, Sporx, and CNN Greece among them.

Advertisers can fully enjoy localized campaigns in emerging markets. They have geo targeting, their content appears on widgets, and they use real-time statistics. The native advertising platform has won over such big clients as Unilever, Microsoft, Vodafone, etc.

Core features of this platform for native advertising:

• Maintenance-free widget
• Vertical targeting
• Various ad types supported (in different resolutions) 
• Leading ad verticals
• Focuses on non-English speaking markets
• More control over ad campaigns and ad formats (ad performance measurement)

Revcontent

Revcontent is an emerging native advertising network that still offers close attention to both advertisers and publishers giving them more control. Publishers can enjoy increased page views, consistent and predictable ad revenue, and better revenue (the self service platform promises 80% more revenue than its competitors). The ad network also pays extra attention to the user experience to make sure that your website is not disturbed by native advertising.

With native advertising platforms like Revcontent advertisers get such benefits as no dependency on cookies for targeting. Plus, the platform offers automatic A/B testing and brand safety. 

Core features of this platform for native advertising:

• Fair relationship with both advertisers and publishers
• Protection from low-quality websites
• Native formats that maximize engagement of potential customers (interactive included)
• It has a direct deals feature for premium users
• Ad fraud protection and ad revenue maximization features
• Header bidding

MGID

MGID is one of the first self service native advertisements platforms. It also can be positioned as a mobile advertising platform as it supports mobile native ads. It’s a great option catering to publishers and top advertisers worldwide.

MGID's traffic spans (200+ countries) but its strongest presence is in Europe. Like other good native ad networks, the platform offers different types of native ads: native videos, native widgets, smart widgets (ads that appear when it is relevant to the user), and in-content impact widgets. Advertisers can also gain access to precise targeting, content discovery tools, and deep analytics for increasing page views.

The main great feature of this native platform is that it is very friendly towards publishers and affiliate marketers. 

Core features of this native advertising technology:

• Smart and in-content impact widgets and open web inventory
• Good for affiliate marketers (and it positively distinguishes this option among other platforms in the market)
• Selective bidding
• Numerous formats of ads are available (for mobile devices included)
• Geo and carrier targeting, dynamic retargeting
• Artificial intelligence-based programmatic optimization

Yahoo Gemini

Yahoo Gemini is a native advertising platform that is positioned as an ad network that specializes in both search and native kinds of traffic. Monthly, it gets around 60 billion ad impressions that come from premium publishers and their exclusive inventory. 

The reach of the platform is 2 million daily impressions, as well it has 1 billion monthly available active users. All this translates into 165 billion intent signals per day.

This native advertising platform features a variety of native formats that can work equally well in different environments including mobile. Additionally, they are the only platform that supports importing the data from Google ads or from Excell files. 

Core features of this native advertising platform:

• Native advertising formats for all environments (that can raise purchase intent, online sales, or promote an app)
• A plethora of targeting options 
• Automatic traffic estimation
• Google Ads/Excell data import for more precise targeting 
• A broad network of publishing partners
• Robust analytics of the campaigns in real-time

So, how to choose the right platform?

• Traffic & scale → Taboola, Outbrain, Revcontent
• Branded storytelling → Nativo, Sharethrough
• Creative-heavy campaigns → TripleLift
• Regional reach → Engageya, MGID, and other platforms
• Programmatic + cross-channel reach and performance → SmartyAds
  Additionally, if you have more than one goal at once, you likely need a DSP, not a single native network.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Focusing solely on reach, instead of taking into account optimizations that save your ad budgets.
2. Limiting campaigns only by native ads – different platforms allow you to complement those by different options and channels that may bring even better results. 
3. Ignoring cross-channel attribution.
4. Focusing only on one environment instead of trying mobile, desktop, CTV, DOOH, and more. 

Tips to maximize revenue with native platforms from SmartyAds

1. Test multiple native inventory sources to find the best-performing placements.
2. Optimize campaigns continuously using real-time performance data.
3. Align creatives with the publisher's content for higher engagement.
4. Combine native with display and video to expand reach and improve campaign performance.
5. In case you need to scale beyond one ecosystem, and you need centralized reporting across all traffic sources then you need a DSP instead of a network (like SmartyAds DSP).

Summing it up

There are many exciting options for native ad platforms beyond Google AdSense, Facebook, or, let's say Verizon media native network. Most native advertising platforms solve one part of the ecosystem, traffic acquisition inside a single network.

Still, performance is no longer just about isolated channels. It’s about connecting native, display, video, and CTV into one optimization system. In case you plan to scale campaigns beyond one network, improve ROI through unified bidding, reduce manual optimization work, and combine multiple inventory sources on top of that, then a standalone native platform is not the final step. It’s the starting point.

SmartyAds DSP helps advertisers to move from single-channel native buying to full-stack, AI-optimized programmatic performance across major formats.

Connect to numerous publishers and serve ads with AI-powered campaigns and omnichannel presence. Get your free demo today!

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