Dive Brief:
- Because the growth of sponsored-content spending has exceeded expectations, eMarketer has revised its predictions.
- Previously, eMarketer predicted that advertisers would spend $1.88 billion on sponsored content, but advertisers are actually on track to spend $1.9 billion, a 24% hike from last year.
- With the new growth figured, eMarketer predicts sponsored-content spending will hit $3.2 billion by 2017.
Dive Insight:
The growth of sponsored-content spending is good news for publishers because they can charge premium rates for the spots and because the cost of display ads is being driven down by programmatic methods. The unpredicted growth in sponsored-content spending could be a nod to native ads' effectiveness. If it works, advertisers will spend more.