Guide
Native advertising
How native advertising works, key concepts, types, benefits
Native advertising is a form of paid media that blends naturally into content without disrupting the user experience. Unlike traditional banner ads or pop-ups, native ads match the look, feel and function on the page where they appear. There are various types of native ads, including sponsored content, in-feed ads, paid search ads, recommendation widgets, promoted listings and native ad units.
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What is native advertising?
Native advertising is when ads are designed to match the editorial style and function of the content around them. Rather than interrupting the user experience, native ads provide value by delivering promotional content in a way that feels natural to its surroundings.
Why is native advertising important?
Native advertising is important because it allows brands to reach audiences in a way that feels natural and engaging, breaking through the noise of traditional ads.
According to Amazon Ads 2025 Higher Impact study, 91% of consumers want to be the ones who decide when and where they interact with a brand,1 highlighting the need for non-disruptive advertising approaches.
These ads may help brands see higher engagement because they do not interrupt the user experience and instead provide value by matching the context where consumers are already engaged. For example, native advertising with Fire TV ads reaches customers across 300 million devices globally,2 and campaigns that include Fire TV see a 4.1X branded search rate lift.3
How does native advertising work?
Native advertising works by creating content that aligns with the style, tone, and format of a platform, then integrating it for maximum reach and impact. Brands choose relevant audiences and placements to make native ads feel familiar and useful.
Content creation
Brands create native ads by designing content that matches the style, tone and format of the channel where they'll appear. This means crafting visuals, copy and messaging that look and read like the organic content users expect to see. The goal is to create ads that feel familiar rather than disruptive, ensuring they integrate seamlessly into the user experience while still delivering the brand's message.
Platform integration
Native ads fit into the places users expect to see ordinary content, such as social feeds, articles, recommended product lists or the home screen on their TV. For example, Fire TV ads appear as sponsored tiles within browsing rows, blending into the interface customers already navigate when discovering streaming entertainment. By blending into these familiar environments, these ads become part of the browsing experience.
Placement and audience targeting
Advertisers use behavioural insights about audiences to strategically place native ads where they’re most likely to engage, helping brands reach their ideal customers.
Labelling and disclosure
Disclosure is required so users know when content is paid; headlines and tags like “Ad”, “Sponsored Content” or “Promoted Listing” help maintain transparency and comply with regulations.
Types of native ads
There are several types of native ads, each with its own style and placement, including sponsored content, in-feed ads, paid search ads, recommendation widgets, promoted listings and native ad units.
Sponsored content
Sponsored content, also known as an advertorial, is paid content created to look and feel like editorial articles, videos or graphics on a publisher’s site. Brands often partner with publishers to share their story, product or message.
In-feed ads
These are ads placed directly in a user’s news feed or content stream, appearing alongside organic posts or articles.
Social media in-feed ads
Social media in-feed ads are sponsored posts or videos that appear directly in a user’s social media feed, designed to look like organic content from accounts they follow so they feel like a natural part of the scrolling experience.
Paid search ads
Native paid search ads appear in search results and are designed to look like organic search listings but are clearly marked as sponsored.
Recommendation widgets
Recommendation widgets show promoted content or products within lists, such as “You might also like” sections on websites.
Promoted listings
Promoted listings help products or services appear at the top of shopping or review sites, looking like regular results but labelled as ads.
Native ad units
Custom native ad units use images, headlines, and text to blend in with a site’s layout, usually powered by sophisticated ad platforms.
Benefits of native advertising
Native advertising offers several benefits for brands aiming to make an impact:
Improved user experience
Native ads do not disrupt browsing like banner ads do. Their match with surrounding content can help increase interactions and improve the user experience.
Higher engagement rates
Native ads can lead to higher click-through rates than traditional display ads, as their format encourages users to click and interact with paid content naturally.
Fights ad fatigue and ad blindness
With too much exposure and without measures like frequency caps in place, users can develop ad blindness and skip over traditional display ads. However, the contextual nature of native ads helps avoid this issue and maintain attention.
Scalability
Native ads can run on many different sites and social media platforms at once. This makes it easy to scale campaigns and use analytics to find the best places to reach a target audience.
Versatility of ad formats
There are many kinds of native ads – like sponsored content, promoted listings, and recommendation widgets. This versatility helps with optimization and allows brands to reach people in different ways.
Increases brand visibility
When native ads appear among surrounding content, it’s likely that more people will see the brand and message. This helps grow brand awareness and keeps the brand top of mind for the audience.
Reaches target audiences
Brands can use analytics and audience targeting to make sure native ads are shown to people who will be most interested. This can help brands spend less while reaching the right audiences.
Risks of native advertising
It is important to understand the possible risks of native advertising and plan ways to avoid problems.
Complex measurement
Native ads can be harder to track because they look like regular content. Brands need strong analytics and optimization to understand which ads work and how to improve.
Deception
If native ads are not labelled or have unclear disclosure, users might feel tricked. This can hurt brand trust and reputation. Always use headlines and clear labelling to help users understand what is paid content.
Limited control over placement
With some native ads, brands may not always choose exactly where ads show up. Using optimization helps, but there is always some risk of the ad not being in the perfect spot in the surrounding content.
Creation costs
Creating native ads often takes more time and resources than banner ads. Strong design, analytics and optimization are needed, but the reward can be higher engagement and better results.
Best practices for native advertising
To achieve success with native advertising, marketers should consider the following best practices:
1. Know your target audience
Understanding your audience’s preferences and behaviours will help tailor your native ads effectively.
2. Create high-quality content
The content of native ads should be engaging, informative and aligned with the interests of your audience.
3. Clear disclosure
Transparency is vital. Be clear about the nature of your sponsored content; this builds trust and avoids misleading your audience.
4. Optimize for performance
Use analytics tools to monitor the performance of your native ad campaigns. Regularly assess click-through rates and other metrics to optimize for better results.
The importance of transparency with native advertising
Because native ads blend so naturally with surrounding content, clear labelling is essential. Regulatory bodies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) require that native ads be clearly and conspicuously identified so consumers can distinguish paid content from editorial content. Publishers typically use labels such as “Ad”, “Sponsored”, “Promoted” or “Paid Content” to maintain transparency and build trust with their audience.
Examples of native advertising
Case study
Honda partnered with Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab to launch the 2024 Honda Prologue through the Honda Dream Generator, an AI-powered interactive tool featured in an Amazon.com homepage takeover. The campaign allowed audiences to create personalized, choose-your-own-adventure films across multiple devices – including Fire TV, mobile phones, Echo Show, and computers – offering more than 190 unique story variations. This creative approach – combining over 300 written prompts with 20+ custom AI models and 457 hand-drawn figures – drove widespread audience engagement and reaffirmed that customers want opportunities to participate in highly personalized advertising experiences they can help shape. The campaign achieved significant lifts across all key metrics, including unaided brand awareness and purchase consideration, while driving lifts in perception of the Prologue as family-friendly and environmentally friendly.
Case study
Nutrafol coordinated a three-tactic native advertising strategy across Amazon device ads – Fire TV Feature Rotator, Fire TV Screensaver and Alexa Home Screen ads – leveraging each format's seamless integration into the device home screen experience to reach customers without disrupting their viewing. Fire TV Feature Rotator, a native ad format integrated into the Fire TV home screen, delivered a 58% new-to-brand rate (163% higher than the brand’s evergreen benchmark), while Alexa Home Screen ads drove a $2.97 ROAS with a 337% improvement over baseline. Path to purchase analysis showed that exposure to all three native placements within the consumer journey increased purchase rates, demonstrating how coordinated native ads across connected TV surfaces can create compounding acquisition value.
Solutions from Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads offers a range of native advertising solutions to help you reach audiences across Amazon properties, devices and premium third-party content.
Device ads run across Amazon devices with screens (like Fire TV, Fire tablet and Echo Show) and on services (like Prime Video) to deliver high-impact, immersive and natively integrated ad experiences that make it easy for customers to engage and take action.
Introduction to device ads
Fire TV ads help you engage customers as they browse and discover streaming entertainment. These ads appear as sponsored tiles in dedicated rows on Fire TV, blending naturally into the interface with formats like Inline Banners, Feature Rotator, Sponsored Screensaver and Sponsored Tiles that match the device’s browsing experience.
You can reach streaming audiences with high-impact display and video ads on Fire TV through managed service or self-service options on Amazon DSP, including Feature Rotator, Inline Banner, Screensaver, Sponsored Tiles and Sponsored Content Row.
Feature Rotator
Feature Rotator is a carousel-like ad placement appearing above the fold of the screen, making it the most visible part of the Fire TV UI.
Feature Rotator on Fire TV
Inline banner
Inline ads appear as selectable rows in each major browsing section of Fire TV.
Inline Banner on Fire TV
Screensaver
Screensaver is a full-screen, content-forward placement integrated with the landscape image screensaver experience, displaying sponsored content during idle periods.
Fire TV Screensaver
Sponsored Tiles
Sponsored Tiles are ad placements within a row. When the ad tile is highlighted, the ad’s mini-details page is displayed.
Sponsored Tiles on Fire TV
Sponsored Content Row
Sponsored Content Row is a dedicated branded row showcasing 10+ video on demand (VOD) content titles, helping customers easily discover available content before downloading or subscribing.
Sponsored Content Row on Fire TV
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Features from Amazon Ads
With Asset Based Creative (ABC) on Amazon DSP, you can use your own ad components such as images, logos, headlines, body text and Call-to-Action (CTA) to serve native ads via third-party Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) like TripleLift.
With Responsive e-commerce Creative (REC), you can promote your products on third-party native supplies, such as TripleLift. To get started, simply add the ASINs of your products. REC will optimize to select the best ASIN for your target audience. It will then deliver live elements, such as pricing, deals, and star ratings of the chosen ASIN to the third-party supply sources for in-feed native advertising.
Alexa Native Ads offers Alexa as an Amazon Mobile Display supply source in Amazon DSP. If you sell on Amazon, you will see Alexa as an additional inventory supply that is checked by default for Amazon Mobile Display line items. If you’re using Responsive e-commerce (REC) creative templates in Amazon DSP, you can reach incremental customers seamlessly.
Key takeaways on native ads
As brands navigate the complexities of consumer behaviour in an attention-challenged digital landscape, native advertising represents a dynamic solution that fosters authentic engagement. By focusing on delivering value through contextually relevant content, brands can leverage this strategy to not only increase brand awareness but also build long-term relationships with consumers.
FAQs
If you have limited experience, contact us to request services managed by Amazon Ads. Budget minimums apply.
Additional Resources
Sources
1 Amazon Ads custom research with Environics Research. 2025 Higher Impact. Fielded December 2024. Data reflects CA, UK and US aggregated. Respondents by country surveyed: Canada: 1,042, United Kingdom: 1,036, United States of America: 1,033. Total n=3,111. Year-over-year comparisons reflect regional respondent sample changes with CA, DE, FR, IT, ES, JP, UK and the US being surveyed in 2023. In 2024, consumers in Canada, United Kingdom and the United States were surveyed.
2 Amazon internal data, WW, 2025, includes streaming media players; TVs made by partners like Hisense, Panasonic, TCL and Xiaomi; and Amazon TVs like the latest Fire TV 2-Series, 4-Series and Omni QLED Series.
3 Amazon Marketing Cloud, US, 1 Jan – 31 Mar 2025. Note: The analysis uses median of 72 AMC instances across Endemic and Non-endemic in the US. Analysis is based on historical campaign data and is not indicative/predictive of future results. The overlap and incremental reach of one product to another will vary across advertisers based on ad spend and targeting strategy between products.