Forget transparency, or the fear of losing consumers’ trust. What’s really keeping more marketers from going native is a lack of quality content, continued measurement issues and the category’s perceived inability to trade programmatically. That’s according to new research from DMR and TripleLift, which included input from over 100 digital media buyers from Starcom MediaVest, MEC, Carat, Mediacom, Mindshare and other agencies. While a clear majority of marketers (68%) believe in the promise of native, roughly 27% of digital media buyers said they abstain from the category for various reasons. Quality creative is a big issue -- particularly appropriate images. When it comes to engagement, 80% of respondents said an ad’s image is more likely to affect a consumer taking an action then an ad’s copy. Scale and measurement were also cited as problem areas, as well as various other reasons like “focused on TV,” “not enough knowledge on it,” and “not seen as a DR tool.” In particular, a full 40% of buyers surveyed said measurement of native remains a challenge. Many buyers are not sure whether native will mesh with the rise of programmatic advertising. All told, 60% of buyers said they don’t believe native can be bought programmatically, and 67% remained on the fence about trying. On the bright side, 86% of respondents said native is more likely to be shared versus other forms of digital advertising. Also of note, when it comes to where native campaigns are running, media buyers prioritize audience as the most important factor in evaluating media. The context in which the ad lives was cited as the second-most-important factor, followed by ad placement. Earlier this year, J.P. Morgan predicted that native would take over digital channels in 2014. “We believe native ads are quickly becoming the de facto ad format on mobile and increasingly moving into desktop,” lead analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in J.P. Morgan’s annual “Nothing But Net” report. eMarketer has predicted that the native niche would hit $2.85 billion this year.