Sharethrough Reports Significant Growth in Usage of Native Advertising Software by Publishers in 2015

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sharethrough, a leading software company that enables publishers to create, sell and monetize native ads on their websites and apps, today is reporting major growth in the use of its platform by digital publishers over 2015. Native ads, popularized by Facebook and Twitter, are a form of paid advertising that automatically adapts promotional content to match the form and function of the site in which it is placed. Sharethrough saw 518 percent growth in direct­-sold impressions run through Sharethrough for Publishers (SFP) since the beginning of the year, with the largest growth coming on publishers' mobile websites and apps. Video was one of the fastest growing creative types for impressions sold directly by publishers with sponsored editorial also seeing very strong gains.

As mobile traffic and overall time spent eclipses desktop for the majority of digital publishers, challenges have arisen in driving revenue from legacy online advertising formats such as display and pre­roll on their mobile properties because of issues with performance and negative consumer response. Content publishers are now turning to native ads to drive revenue on their mobile properties -- Sharethrough reported 551% growth in native mobile ad impressions sold by publishers and that 62 percent of all direct­-sold native ad impressions through Sharethrough were delivered on mobile websites and apps in 2015.

"Warner Bros. Digital Media Sales has been aligning brands with seamless integrated opportunities for years on our digital platforms such as TMZ.com," said Chris Lindquist, SVP National Sales at Warner Bros. "Our partnership with Sharethrough now allows us to have more meaningful distribution of native offerings across our growing mobile channels due to the elegant solution that Sharethrough brings and the relevant context to surround that content."

To increase total revenues, publishers are now also using Sharethrough's platform to manage multiple forms of native advertising revenue, including Real Time Bidding (RTB) and "mediating" advertising from third party platforms. Mediation allows publishers to monetize unsold advertising impressions by creating an automated auction among advertising platforms, such as ad networks or Demand Side Platforms (DSPs).

"Sharethrough's vision is for a world where all advertising fits into the natural user experience of wherever it is placed," sad Dan Greenberg, CEO and Co­founder of Sharethrough. "We believe that done well, ads can be features, not foreign objects. The huge growth in usage of SFP is a testament to that vision becoming closer to reality."

While native ads are often associated with paid editorial content, native video ads proved to be a key area of growth for publishers. In 2015, Sharethrough saw a 435 percent increase in publisher­sold native video views since the beginning of the year. Similarly, Facebook has reported a 41% increase in revenue, largely attributed to mobile and video ads. Facebook said in November that more than 8 billion video views happen on its network every day. Sharethrough anticipates video to be the largest growing creative format within the native ad category in 2016.

Sharethrough, the largest independent software platform for native ad monetization, is used by major publishers including Forbes, Men's Health, People, Thought Catalog, Scripps Networks Interactive, Warner Bros. and USA Today Sports, to create, manage and sell native ads on their website and apps. Major brand advertisers, including Microsoft, Intel, ConAgra and hundreds of others, use Sharethrough's native ad buying platform, Sharethrough Ad Manager (SAM), to promote their content directly on Sharethrough publisher customers' websites and apps. Combined, SFP and SAM led to more than $100 million in native revenue managed by Sharethrough software products in 2015.

SOURCE Sharethrough

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