Digital publishers looking to maximize their revenue should consider folding native advertising into their monetization model.
A study conducted in 2017 found that native ads could help publishers boost click-through rates (CTRs) by as much as ninefold (PDF download). More recently, native ads have become one of the dominant forms of display advertising, with 64% of the total display ad budgets in 2021 going towards native ad placements. Spending on native ads is projected to climb another 14.9% year on year in 2022 to hit $87.6 billion.
Native ad networks place ads on a site that match the style and consistency of the publisher’s existing content. The best native advertising networks make use of 100% of a publisher’s inventory, optimizing potential ad revenue.
Networks will take a cut of the ad revenue, usually around 50%. Each native ad network has its own agreements, and it’s possible that these terms may change from publisher to publisher.
Before we dive into our list of the 15 best native ad networks in 2022, let’s quickly review what native ad networks are and the various types of native advertising.
What Are Native Ad Networks?
Native ad networks are the distributor of native ads, which seamlessly blend into the rest of the publisher’s content. Native ads are designed to be unintrusive and many native ad networks develop ways to integrate ads into content without disrupting the flow or the user experience (UX).
These networks provide another source of revenue for publishers without compromising their site’s look and feel. Content recommendation-based native ads can be particularly useful as they provide the feeling of scrolling through a social media platform, keeping audiences engaged.
As stated above, native ads can command higher CTRs than display ads. This lift in CTR can be attributed to the audience’s experience with a publisher’s site. Because native ads are less intrusive than other ad formats, audiences are not as frustrated by them as some other interruptive ads (PDF download).
Native ad networks can also simulate content syndication platforms, offering publishers the chance to share their content with other places on the web, while also providing a backlink back to their site. This can help optimize the original article’s search engine ranking and reach new audiences, especially as the top native ad networks help reach those audiences through features like live monitoring and A/B testing.
Types of Native Advertising
While there are many different types of native ads, with some ad networks creating unique varieties, four types of native tend to be used across all native ad networks: content recommendation, in-article native ads, video ads and in-feed native ads.
Content Recommendation
Content recommendations tend to appear at the bottom of an article and showcase suggested articles for individual users. They tend to appear as a list and are usually highlighted as sponsored content.
Here’s an example of a content recommendation panel pulled from a CNN article.

In-Article Native Ads
An in-article native ad comes between two different paragraphs in the middle of the article. It will usually appear in a list similar to the content recommendation ad.
These are useful for audiences to view ads as they scroll through the article, while still allowing them to control the amount of time they view the ad. If they want to ignore it, they can just scroll past.
Here’s an example taken from Forbes.

Video Ads
A native video ad doesn’t act as a barrier for users looking to consume a publisher’s content, in the way a pre-roll video would.
Instead, the videos are click-to-play, meaning they start playing at first without sound, and then a user can opt into the ad by clicking the video.
Taboola provides the following example on their site, though the original post appears to be a Microsoft social media ad.

This is also an example of the in-feed native ad as it appears in a social media setting. However, video ads can also appear natively in sidebars and in content recommendations.
In-Feed Native Ad
The in-feed native ad appears in the middle of a social media feed. These are designed to reappear in the infinite scroll of social media and blend in seamlessly with the feed. Typically, these appear as posts sponsored by advertisers.
Here’s a typical example of an Facebook in-feed ad.

Note how it acts exactly as any other post would — people can comment, share and leave likes. The similarities between the ad and regular posts are the hallmark of native ads.
15 Best Native Ad Networks