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The digital environment afforded by social networks has created an opportunity to understand more clearly the impact of social media native advertising on advertising processing outcomes. Thus, the current study integrates native advertising with engagement literature to compare engagement outcomes between feed and banner placements before analyzing engagement outcomes of sponsored social media posts by advertising objective. This work aims to contribute to advertising effectiveness literature arguing for the importance of engagement as a measure of effectiveness.

Facebook advertising data were collected from a convenience sample of 10 Facebook advertisers that accounted for roughly $414,000 in advertising spend. Panel data, which are also called longitudinal or cross-sectional time-series data, used 26 months of data from the 10 advertisers to measure relationships between native advertising exposure and digital consumer engagement with advertising by advertising objectives of brand awareness, link clicks, conversions, post-engagement and video views.

Exposure to native advertising was a strong predictor of advertising processing and consumption using the three variables of interest: clicks, comments and shares. Ads reaching consumers while natively consuming content in their feed resulted in statistically significant improvements in impressions and clicks when compared to banner ads. Exposure to native ads was significantly related to all engagement outcomes of interest, except for advertisers who chose post-engagement as their advertising objective.

The results suggest that for advertisers seeking clicks, post-engagement objectives should likely be avoided. For this group, impressions were not related to link clicks but were related to comments and shares. Native advertising placements in the feed, however, are generally more effective than banner ads on Facebook for advertisers seeking engagement.

This research is one of few studies to use longitudinal advertising data to explore engagement effects using real-world data collected from a diverse set of Facebook advertisers over a 26-month period. This study shows that interactive marketers using a social media feed to reach consumers can expect positive outcomes in advertising consumption, affective and cognitive processing and advocacy, but those outcomes may vary by advertising objective.

Given the uniqueness of the data set, the findings contribute to native advertising literature and to the literature on digital consumer engagement with advertising in social media. The study also provides empirical support for the efficacy of native advertising.

The purpose of this study is to understand how perceived micro-celebrity-product image congruency and product type affect native advertising effectiveness on Instagram. Additionally, the study aims to understand how advertising skepticism and persuasion knowledge affect the effectiveness of native advertising featuring micro-celebrity.

This study was administered online using a 2 (product type: high self-expressive vs low self-expressive) × 2 (micro-celebrity and product congruity: congruent vs incongruent) between-subjects factorial design to test the hypotheses. A total of 186 participants, all Instagram users living in the USA, were recruited using an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). After screening out 14 respondents who were not Instagram users or did not fully answer the questions, a total sample of 172 valid and complete responses were included for hypotheses testing.

The results revealed that when native advertising featured highly self-expressive products and micro-celebrities with good product image fit, consumers had a more positive attitude toward the ad and the brand, higher source credibility and higher electronic word-of-mouth intention. In addition, advertising skepticism was found to moderate the effect of micro-celebrity-product fit on source credibility.

This study is the first to examine the effect of micro-celebrity and product congruence on native advertising effectiveness. Moreover, the study provides a better understanding of the advertising skepticism and its influence on source credibility. It discusses why a micro-celebrity’s image is a critical factor in shaping attitudes toward native advertising. This study contributes to both the native adverting and influencer marketing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to test hypotheses on the effects of native advertising on young media consumers. First, it aims to discover whether the young audience activates news-based schema or advertising schema when exposed to different themes of native advertising. Second, this research tests whether there is a relationship between the theme of native advertising and the credibility of the media in which it is placed and the ability of young media consumers to recognize the advertising. Third, it attempts to seek a possible relationship between the recognition of native advertising and the credibility of the advertiser.

An experimental study was carried out using 186 university students in the greater Jakarta area whose ages ranged between 18 and 22 years. Participants were randomly assigned to six groups (2 × 3 experimental design) and asked to respond to a set of questions related to their awareness of native advertising. They were also asked their opinions on the advertiser’s credibility before and after they were told that the content was native advertising.

Results show that most of these young media consumers could not spot native advertising and have difficulties in recognizing political native advertising. The findings also point out a more profound decline in advertiser credibility among groups exposed to political native advertising compared to nonpolitical native advertising.

Results show that most of these young media consumers could not spot native advertising and have difficulties in recognizing political native advertising. The findings also point out a more profound decline in advertiser credibility among groups exposed to political native advertising compared to non-political native advertising.

This research shows that the theme of the native advertising has a significant influence on the ability of media consumers to recognize native advertising. The results indicate that non-commercial native advertising is highly deceptive. This finding is valuable for the improvement of advertising regulation, especially on non-commercial native advertising.

The purpose of this study is to figure out the factors (i.e. ad type and ad personalization) that diminish the detrimental advertising clutter effects in terms of ad attention and ad clicks.

To fulfill the purpose, an eye-tracking study using real-time Facebook accounts of the participants was conducted.

The findings suggest that not all types of ad format face attentional competition. Consumers have a tendency to selectively care of native advertising area, where clutter becomes a significant issue. Additionally, personalized advertising is beneficial for attracting consumer attention regardless of the clutter level.

This less-artificial study setting with an eye-tracker makes up for the findings from previous ad clutter studies based on self-reported data; this study was able to observe real-life interaction between consumers and social media. The personalized native format may benefit advertisers in grabbing more attention. However, the careful use of native ads is recommended, because excessive ads could increase the attentional competition among native ads.

This paper aims to explore content-related factors that can foster beneficial consumer responses to one kind of native advertising: in-feed sponsored articles. Specifically, studies examine how informational versus entertaining content interact with the content’s brand image congruity to affect brand attitudes through brand trustworthiness and identify the roles played by advertising value and perceived deceptiveness.

Experimental survey-based research with a between-subjects design was conducted, manipulating the content type (entertaining/informational) and brand image congruity (low/high) and measuring brand attitude, brand trustworthiness, advertising value and perceived deceptiveness. Participants were recruited via Amazon’s MTurk, and data were collected via online surveys in Qualtrics.

Results reveal that high brand image congruity generates more favorable brand attitudes for informational in-feed sponsored articles, and low brand image congruity generates more favorable brand attitudes for entertaining in-feed sponsored articles, through perceptions of brand trustworthiness. Enhanced brand trustworthiness results from increased advertising value for informational in-feed sponsored articles that are high in brand image congruity. Reduced brand trustworthiness results from increased perceptions of deceptiveness for entertaining in-feed sponsored articles that are high in brand image congruity.

While much academic research on native advertising focuses on its negative aspects, the present research identifies content-related factors that foster beneficial consumer responses to in-feed sponsored articles, including enhanced perceptions of brand trustworthiness and more favorable brand attitudes, due to differences in consumers’ perceptions of advertising value and deceptiveness. Managerially, this work can help branded content creators design effective in-feed sponsored articles.

This study aims to achieve broad insights into perceptions and attitudes of Turkish digital immigrants (DI) and digital natives (DN) toward native advertising (NA) format.

Based on extant review of literature, semi-structured interview questions helped to solicit subjective interpretations, perceptions and attitudes of Turkish consumers toward NA format. In-depth interviews with 36 participants were conducted.

The study gains new knowledge on issues related to NA format, such as self-determination of viewing, privacy and accuracy of information. Findings provide whys and wherefores for these undiscovered issues, as well as for preexisting themes such as format recall and recognition, disclosure, communication/marketing aims, attitudes toward NA format, brand and publisher, NA placement and “nativity” of the format. In terms of perceptions and attitudes of DIs and DNs, both similarities and differences exist. DNs consider viewing NA content under their own initiative, so their perceptions and attitudes toward NA are shaped accordingly.

The interviews were carried out in a single setting; with a convenience sample of consumers living in Izmir, Turkey. Certain age and education levels were considered desirable as main criteria for selection.

The study identifies consumer concerns on the NA format and content; and provides suggestions for advertisers, publishers and ad professionals on disclosure, relevancy and frequency of exposure, which can be applied in practice. Implications for public policy are also discussed.

This is the first known study to explore perceptions and attitudes of DIs and DNs toward NA format in the Turkish context. This study uncovers and discusses insights into underlying reasons of DI/DNs’ perceptions and attitudes. The study extends prior findings of quantitative research on NA, offering fruitful insights for future research.

Research on social media advertising reactance (SMAR) is in the early stages. This paper intends to present a full picture of SMAR studies, introduce a comprehensive theoretical model (the social media advertising reactance model, SMARM) and provide insights into research and practice.

This review adopts the concept-driven systematic review approach, identifying 92 articles from four primary academic databases – EBSCO, Elsevier, Web of Science and Google Scholar.

First, this review offers overviews of five topics: publication trends, the journals publishing research, research methodology, targeted platform and the main theories. Second, based on the framework of psychological reactance, this study proposes the SMARM, identifying and elaborating on four components of the nomological relationship to SMAR: related concepts, antecedents, moderators and consequences.

This research has implications for advertisers, social media platform operators and policymakers by providing a whole picture of SMAR. Moreover, the SMARM could guide the stakeholders to adopt a user-friendly advertising design for the sustainable development of social media advertising (SMA).

By presenting an up-to-date review of SMAR-related research, this paper contributes to the literature of social media, advertising and marketing. Through a comparison with traditional advertising, this paper makes the characteristics of SMA clear. Meanwhile, the SMARM is developed to systematically elaborate on all related elements of SMAR and explain their underlying causal relationships. Future research directions are proposed.

Sponsored social media content is one of the advertising strategies that companies implement so that ads appear as native to the delivery platform without making consumers feel that they are directly targeted. Hence, the current study examines whether prominently featuring corporate information on social media ads affects how consumers perceive them. It also investigates whether an ad's evaluation metrics on Twitter (e.g. number of likes/comments) influence its persuasiveness and consumers' behavioral intentions towards the sponsoring company. Underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms through which sponsored content operates are also investigated.

A 2 (corporate credibility: low vs high) by 2 (bandwagon cues: low vs high) between-subjects experiment was conducted.

The findings showed that corporate credibility and bandwagon cues can influence social media ad effectiveness. Sponsored content from high-credibility companies – evoked more favorable attitudes and behavioral intentions – is perceived as less intrusive, and elicits less anger than equivalent posts from low-credibility companies. Furthermore, it was found that bandwagon cues work via different pathways. For high-credibility corporations, a high number of bandwagon cues improved ad persuasiveness by mitigating consumers' anger towards intrusive sponsored content. Conversely, for low-credibility corporations high bandwagon cues enhanced ad persuasiveness, and this triggered more positive attitudes towards it.

This paper is the first to test corporate credibility and bandwagon effects in social media ads, while also exploring consumers' cognitive and affective responses to sponsored content. Implications for how companies with varying popularity levels should promote products on social media are discussed.

Grounded in uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and relying on the congruence/incongruence approaches, the current research aims to contribute to the study of interactive marketing by measuring the effectiveness of social and personal sponsored post message appeals on consumer psychological and behavioral engagement. A conceptual framework is suggested.

Data were collected during a field experiment conducted on Facebook, consisting of two sponsored Facebook post campaigns, followed by a survey distributed to consumers who were exposed to the experiment.

A structural path model suggests that the congruence of the social message appeal of sponsored Facebook posts leads directly to psychological engagement that follows affective response. This path elevates an indirect effect toward behavioral engagement. Additionally, it was found that the incongruence of the personal message appeal of sponsored Facebook posts leads directly to behavioral engagement.

The novelty of the current research focuses on the unexplored subject of sponsored Facebook post message appeal effectiveness. Based on U&G theory applied to social media and the (in)congruence approaches, the study suggests a new dichotomy of message appeal for digital advertising, i.e. social vs. personal message strategies. Consumer engagement with the two appeals adds value to theory and practice by conceptualizing the effect of sponsored post content strategies on consumer engagement in Facebook while incorporating ad content with a hierarchical process.

In April 2017, FINRA issued a regulatory notice addressing the use of social media and digital communications by broker-dealers. The notice expanded on previous FINRA guidance on these topics. This article provides clarity regarding how social media and digital communications fit within the requirements of various FINRA rules and provides guidance to firms and their registered representatives.

The principal topics addressed by FINRA’s regulatory notice are: (a) text messaging, (b) personal versus business communications, (c) third-party content and hyperlinks, (d) native advertising, (e) testimonials and endorsements and (f) links to BrokerCheck. This article presents an overview of each of these topics, respectively.

Under recordkeeping requirements, firms must ensure that they are able to retain communications made through text messaging and chat services. Business communications, which relate to the products or services of the firm, are subject to filing and content requirements, while personal communications are not. Under certain circumstances, third-party posts on social media sites established by the member and testimonials may be attributable to the firm. Native advertising, while permissible, must comply with content requirements. Firm-created electronic applications do not have to provide a link to BrokerCheck.

Firms and their registered representatives will gain a better understanding of what is permissible pursuant to FINRA and SEC rules as they communicate digitally and via social media.