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what is native advertising? A quick, simple definition: It's an ad whose form and delivery is identical to the content environment in which it is served. The opposite, in other words, of interruptive advertising: billboards, takeovers, and big banners that take up space on the page but don't otherwise relate.

Native advertising is not without its controversies. A big one is the learning curve: Marketers must master each potential advertising environment and learn its intricacies, from Tumblr users' love for animated GIFs and the phrase "fuck yeah," to Twitter's peculiar language of retweets and replies to Facebook's maddening algorithms.

say ads that are disguised as content have higher click-through and engagement rates than intrusive banners because they’re contextual and have quality conte

a new survey due out today by Harris Interactive for MediaBrix, a social and mobile ad firm, says otherwise. Harris asked online adults what they thought about three native ad formats—Twitter’s promoted tweets, "Sponsored Stories" on Facebook, and video ads that appear to be content. According to the survey, a majority found the ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.

45 percent found promoted tweets misleading, while 57 percent and 86 percent said the same about sponsored stories and video ads, respectively.

Facebook users will sit still for ads that, per current reports, will take over your desktop screen and run for 15 seconds, up to three times a day per user. What are the odds of that? 

Initially, the 15-second autoplay ads will appear on Facebook's desktop site; the social network is still working to bring them to its mobile app as well.

Facebook is expected to offer four daily "slots" for its video ads, each targeting a very large demographic: Women over 30 Women under 30 Men over 30 Men under 30

brands will be able to use historical affinity behavior of consumers to target more precisely than ever before. It’s clear that the database of affinity is a prize of gigantic proportion, and ultimately, Nate concludes that Google will end up the winner in that battle because they have the broadest data to draw upon and best chance of making sense of it.

not long ago, I bought a pair of jeans online from Bonobos. A little while later, I was shown an ad for Bonobos in my Facebook feed. I was perplexed by the timing of it, until I read an article that described brands’ practice of providing Facebook with customer email addresses that were then mapped to Facebook logins so that targeted ads could be shown to brand customers. This is technically more targeted, but I responded negatively since I had never opted into their feed. I think the question this raises is this: when it comes to targeting, is there a point of diminishing returns? Maybe there is such a thing as just enough targeting and no more.

In search, I am in research mode: in entering a query into the search box, I am announcing my intent to accept “bids” for my attention from all takers, and I’m prepared to act upon the provider of the best information in the search results to that query. In social, I am in a very different state of mind. I expect content from my closed network, and unless I have invited a brand in by Liking or following them, their presence is very much viewed as an uninvited intrusion. It’s the loud, slightly drunk guy at the party that keeps interrupting your conversation with the interesting guy/gal.