Native vs. Display Advertising: What Are the Differences?

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The first display ad was published in 1994. It was a banner ad, produced for AT&T by McCambley, and it looked like this:


According to Mashable, the first online ad ever featured no advertiser's logo. This is because AT&T had not yet fully signed on at the time of publication. Interestingly, the first display ad had something in common with what would become the native ad of the future: it was not easy to discern who the advertiser was, nor was it visually associated with the brand.

Battle of the ads: Native advertising gains market share
While display ads have been around for nearly 30 years, the term “native advertising” wasn’t coined until 2011. Still, in recent years, native ads have gained ground, overtaking display ads as the leader in online advertising. According to this study , native ads are viewed 52% more than display ads, and also contribute much more brand lift than display ads.

Native advertising spending is skyrocketing, with $85 billion spent globally in 2021, and spending projected to reach nearly $190 billion by 2028.

To understand why native advertising is outperforming display advertising, let’s take a closer look at both types and the differences between them.

What are display ads?
Simply put, display ads, popularly called Google ads, are advertisements placed software managers email database in the digital environment. The earliest display ads were “banners” – hyperlinked, image-based ads in a strip-like format, typically located at the top of a web page. Later, as web design became more complex and creative, display ads evolved into a variety of shapes and sizes, including videos, interactive elements, pop-up features, and more. Today, banners simply refer to a specific size – 468 x 60 pixels.

Click-through rates on display ads are typically low – just 0.05 % across all formats and platforms . However, while CTR is important, it’s not everything. When you factor in other metrics, display ads influence brand awareness and purchase intent. Despite statistics about “banner blindness” – when consumers are so tired of online ads that they no longer “see” them – display ads work, and performance marketers use them as an important part of their online strategy, especially in retargeting campaigns.

Display Ad Size: A Visual Discovery
display ad sizes

What are native ads?

Native ads appear as part of the layout and flow of the web page they're on and tend to have an editorial feel, with a softer commercial approach. Native ads typically appear as sponsored posts on premium publishers across the open web, such as Outbrain, in social media news feeds, and as listings in search results on search engines like Google or Bing. In recent years, standard native ads have expanded to accommodate a wide range of formats and experiences to engage audiences, such as native video ads, clip ads, app install ads, and more.