• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, January 17, 2014

Programmatic media-buying and native advertising have been flirting with one another for months now, but is it time they made it official?

Respond, a native advertising platform, claims to have achieved a 100% seen rate for sponsored native header ads. That’s different than 100% viewable; Respond used Sticky’s eye-tracking technology to know whether or not their ads were actually seen.

That’s impressive -- and potentially groundbreaking -- but there is one caveat: only 300 people were tested for this study on November 21, 2013. In addition, there was only one test page of content.

“The research was conducted as a controlled study, whereby the respondents were given a link to a single test page of content, featuring Respond’s sponsored banner, and which exactly matched the typical look and feel of a national newspaper’s site,” a Respond representative told RTM Daily.

The source couldn’t share the brand or publisher involved in the testing, but did confirm that the publisher was a daily national newspaper and the ad featured an airliner. However, he said the test ad was “very similar” to an actual ad that Respond ran in New Statesman (pictured below).

Per a statement, the 300 respondents’ eyes were drawn to the sponsored header 150% faster than an average digital ad.

I must admit that the first thing I looked at in the above picture was the sponsored banner ad. But maybe that’s because it’s ginormous, bright orange and, in my opinion, clearly a foreigner.

Still, any digital advertising method that can lay claim to a 100% seen rate is worth mentioning. And while I’m not entirely sold on the term “native,” it appears to be worth its salt and here to stay.

So with that in mind, it might be time to make it official between native and programmatic. There are still technological hurdles to clear before that can happen on a large scale, but a combination of the two could answer viewability questions and raise banner ads from their supposed deathbed.