Programmatic native offers small, unpredictable revenues and is fundamentally at odds with both regulators and consumers, the CEO of Polar warns.
In a recent post on LinkedIn, 30 Under 30 alumnus Kunal Gupta (pictured) wrote at length about what he sees as the challenges of a business model that, in his words, optimizes clicks over quality and could alienate marketers from their target audiences. Polar offers a product, MediaVoice, to manage premium native campaigns.
“Programmatic native will only further the trend of users pushing back on advertising with the increased adoption of ad blockers,” he writes. “I do not see how programmatic native is going to lead to a better ad experience for the web.”
In an interview with Marketing, Gupta said he wants to clear up some of the confusion around programmatic native and help provide guidance for customers who may not realize the pitfalls they could encounter. That starts by having a common definition: Gupta describes programmatic native as display-style advertising delivered as in-feed formats that match the look-and-feel of the surrounding content, that click-through to an advertiser’s website and are often sold by programmatic ad technology companies.
“I think the days are gone where I have to do [digital marketing] for the sake of doing it. Now everything has to be objective-based,” he said, adding that those objectives may get obscured in programmatic native among choices like lead generation and other forms of performance-based advertising. In contrast, “premium native is very clear.”
Gupta isn’t alone in calling out the challenges with programmatic native. In a recent interview with AdExhanger, Assembly vice-president of marketing Jamie O’Neill expressed his own doubts.
“I think native programmatic is here due to technology built by the likes of TripleLift and Nativo, but the problem on the buy side is the creative specs are very unique and it’s difficult to relinquish control over the assets without knowing how they will truly be deployed in all circumstances,” O’Neill told the publication. “We’ve gotten our clients on board, but it takes a bit of hand holding to start.”
Gupta suggests they shouldn’t even bother. “If a marketer is trying to drive higher-funnel activation and education, premium native is a better way,” he said. “It’s less about clicks to drive the audience but trying to influence that audience.”
Not everyone agrees, however. Just two weeks ago, CBS Interactive announced a plan to move aggressively into programmatic native across many of its websites.
