Commerce Media:
The Ultimate 2026 Guide

Commerce media is reshaping how retailers, marketplaces, and publishers approach advertising—and native formats are leading the shift. Ads that blend seamlessly into shopping and content experiences now represent the fastest-growing segment of digital ad spend, with the native commerce media market projected to reach between $346B and $400B by the early 2030s.

Privacy regulations, cookie deprecation, and shopper expectations have made one thing clear: intrusive banner ads and third-party tracking don’t work anymore. Publishers need customizable, privacy-safe native advertising that protects user experience while delivering measurable results for advertisers.

But what exactly does native advertising look like in 2026? Why has it become essential to commerce media—and how can your business integrate native ads without compromising trust, brand identity, or site performance?

This guide breaks it all down.

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What Is Native Advertising in Commerce Media?

Native advertising is the practice of embedding sponsored content directly within the user experience — appearing as feed units, search results, homepages, product detail pages, deal modules, editorial content, and more. Rather than interrupting users, native ads are designed to feel like a natural extension of the surrounding environment.

In commerce media, effective native ads typically:

• Match the look and feel of existing content and site design
• Are fully customizable, allowing publishers to control formats, logic, and placement
• Include clear disclosures such as “sponsored” or “promoted” to maintain transparency
• Protect the user journey by avoiding disruptive layouts, pop-ups, or intrusive tracking

Across commerce media environments—including retailers, marketplaces, mobile apps, fintech platforms, travel sites, and content publishers—native advertising has become the preferred monetization approach. By prioritizing relevance, transparency, and experience, native formats help preserve shopper trust while still delivering meaningful performance for advertisers.

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Who Uses Native Ads Today?

Native advertising is now the dominant format across a wide range of industries and use cases:

• Retailers & marketplaces. Sponsored listings, featured sellers, boost-to-top placements, and branded collections
• Content platforms. In-feed native units, promoted articles, and embedded commerce offers
• Utilities & productivity apps. Homepage native placements, branded skins, and contextually relevant promoted units
• Fintech & travel platforms. Dynamic native ads that surface timely, personalized offers tied to user intent

One example of successful native advertising is WeTransfer, which uses Kevel to power privacy-safe native ad skins. These placements allow the tech company to monetize free users without degrading the user experience—demonstrating how thoughtfully implemented native advertising can balance revenue, trust, and usability.

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“With Kevel, we built an ad platform that’s engaging and profitable — and which doesn’t share or sell our users’ data.” – Natascha Chamuleau, former WeTransfer Chief Advertising Officer

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Why Native Ads Are Critical to Commerce Media in 2026

Commerce media budgets surpassed an estimated $150B globally in 2025, and native formats accounted for the fastest-growing share of that spend—particularly server-side native advertising. As the channel matures, retailers and publishers are under pressure to monetize more inventory without sacrificing experience, performance, or privacy.

Native ads have emerged as the foundation that makes this balance possible.

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1. Native Ads Protect Shopper Experience

Commerce media has reached a point where retailers can no longer trade user experience for short-term revenue. Poorly designed ads erode trust, slow pages, and ultimately reduce conversion.

Native ads solve this by design. They:

• Match organic content, avoiding visual disruption or ad fatigue
• Maintain page speed and reduce layout shift by loading predictably
• Scale cleanly across mobile web, apps, and responsive layouts
• Give retailers full control over design, placement, and frequency

When publishers preserve a frictionless shopping experience, performance improves—and advertisers invest more. A study analyzing 100 million page views across 20 B2B and B2C websites found that fast-loading pages delivered 2.5x to 3.0x higher conversion rates than slower alternatives. In commerce environments, UX is no longer separate from monetization—it is the monetization strategy.

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2. Native Ads Are Privacy-Safe by Design

With third-party cookies disappearing and regulatory scrutiny increasing worldwide, commerce media requires ad solutions that minimize privacy risk while maximizing control.

Server-side native ads offer a fundamentally safer approach by:

• Eliminating third-party JavaScript tags, a common source of hidden tracking
• Preventing unknown cookies from being dropped on users
• Reducing exposure to unauthorized data sharing
• Enabling deterministic, first-party targeting fully controlled by the publisher

This was a key driver for WeTransfer, which moved to a server-side native model after its JavaScript-based third-party ad server shut down. Tag-based systems couldn’t provide the data governance required for GDPR compliance, so WeTransfer turned to Kevel’s server-side ad APIs to build a custom native ad product in under a month—allowing users to send files freely without being tracked.

In 2026, privacy-safe native ad serving isn’t just preferred. It’s table stakes.

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3. Native Formats Drive Higher Engagement and Revenue

Native units consistently outperform traditional banners because they align with user intent and context rather than competing with it. Across commerce environments, native ads deliver:

• Higher click-through and conversion rates
• Improved relevance for shoppers
• Longer dwell time and deeper engagement
• Reduced banner blindness

Performance data continues to validate this shift. At 2025’s Amazon unBoxed, Amazon shared that video-based native formats generated higher click-through rates than static image ads. Retailers building comparable rich native placements with Kevel also report meaningfully higher CPMs compared to standard display units.

Sponsored listings, in particular—the backbone of Amazon’s booming advertising business—continue to outperform nearly every other retail ad product, reinforcing the central role native formats play in scalable commerce media revenue.

Common examples of native commerce formats include:

• Sponsored products and listings
• In-feed native ads
• Native skins and homepage takeovers
• Native video placements
• Featured sellers and branded collections
• Contextual cards and recommendation units
• Fully custom commerce-driven ad experiences

Together, these formats illustrate why native advertising isn’t just part of commerce media in 2026—it is the engine powering it.

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How to Integrate Native Advertising: The 2026 Options

In 2026, there are three primary paths to launching native commerce media. Each approach offers different trade-offs across speed, control ,cost, and long-term scalability.

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1. Build a Native Ad Platform From Scratch

Large, well-resourced platforms such as Amazon, Pinterest, and Walmart build their advertising technology entirely in-house, owning everything from ad serving to reporting and billing.

Pros

• Full ownership of data, infrastructure, and IP
• Total customization across formats, logic, and roadmap
• No vendor or usage fees

Cons

• Multi-year build timelines
• Significant engineering cost and operational complexity
• Delayed monetization and slower time to market

This approach makes the most sense for companies with massive scale, deep technical resources, and the patience to defer revenue.

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2. Use a Third-Party Ad Server or “Native” Ad Network

Common examples include Google Ad Manager, Taboola, Outbrain, Sharethrough, and Criteo.

Pros

• Fast initial setup
• Immediate access to existing advertiser demand

Cons

• Client-side JavaScript tags introduce latency and layout shift
• Limited customization—ads rarely match brand or UX standards
• Privacy risks from third-party tracking and cookie dropping
• Ads often look generic or out of place
• Susceptible to ad blockers
• Not designed for true commerce media use cases
• Often associated with clickbait or low-quality demand

While these platforms are easy to test, they rarely support a durable, premium commerce media strategy.

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3. Use Server-Side Ad APIs (Best for True Native + Commerce Media)

Ad API platforms like Kevel provide the underlying infrastructure to build fully custom native ad experiences—without requiring teams to build everything from scratch.

Pros

• Launch in weeks, not years
• Up to 90% less engineering effort than building in-house
• Fully customizable native formats
• Server-side, privacy-safe, and cookie-free
• Extremely fast response times (as low as ~35ms)
• Immune to ad blockers

Cons

• You bring (or sell) your own advertiser demand
• Requires some engineering effort (but far less than a full build)

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A Real-World Native Commerce Media Example

Delivery Hero, which operates food delivery platforms including foodpanda, foodora, and talabat across 15 global markets, uses Kevel’s server-side APIs to create brand-specific native formats. As Travis Taylor, Group Product Manager at Delivery Hero, explains:

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“We didn’t have to work so much to define a look and feel because it already existed. All of the code already exists in the app. Brands can say they want to launch in a certain market, fill in brand color, and then build the app—already equipped with all of the code.”

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Why Google Ad Manager and Ad Networks Don’t Work for Commerce-Grade Native

Traditional ad servers and tag-based networks rely on client-side execution, which introduces fundamental limitations for commerce media.

Problems with Client-Side Ad Serving

• Slower load times (often adding 400–700ms)
• Increased malware and security risk via third-party scripts
• Uncontrolled cookie dropping
• Limited formatting and layout flexibility
• Easily blocked by ad blockers
• Visual inconsistency with first-party content

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Approximately 42% of global internet users use ad blockers. Because blockers recognize client-side ad tags, as much as 30% of potential impressions may never render—directly reducing monetization from those users.

Benefits of Server-Side Ad APIs

Server-side native advertising avoids these issues entirely:

• Fully native and fully customizable formats
• No third-party scripts, ensuring privacy safety
• Faster pages that drive higher conversion rates
• Ad blockers cannot detect server-rendered placements
• Complete control over design, logic, and placement
• A cleaner, safer shopper experience

Server-side integration ensures ads are indistinguishable from organic content, preserving trust and cohesion. Research from the Native Advertising Institute consistently shows users respond more positively to sponsored content that feels like a natural extension of the browsing experience.

In 2026, server-side is the standard for commerce media monetization.

To learn more about server-side ad serving download Kevel’s eBook here.

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Building Native Formats: Real-World Implementation

Retailers using server-side infrastructure can build native formats that match their exact brand and product requirements:

• Creative template design: Retailers define which elements appear in native placements—brand assets, product arrays, text fields, and video components. Kevel offers starter templates via Kevel Studio or full customization through its Creative Templates API.
• Product catalog integration: With Kevel Catalog, native ads connect directly to product feeds, enabling dynamic product selection and SKU-level attribution. Ads automatically surface the most relevant products for each shopper.
• Flexible placement: Server-side delivery enables native ads across every surface—search results, category pages, homepages, PDPs, mobile apps, and even in-store displays.
• Granular tracking: Retailers track engagement at the component and product level using metadata on impression and click URLs, feeding directly into optimization and advertiser reporting.

With Kevel, Delivery Hero uses custom targeting parameters to precisely control when and where native formats appear. As Travis Taylor, Group Product Manager at Delivery Hero notes, the ability to pass additional parameters into placement requests and target them has been “really powerful.” The platform now spans 15 markets across three portfolio brands, driving 8% year-over-year GMV growth and 16% growth in total segment revenue.

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Native Commerce Media: FAQs

Q: Is Native Advertising FTC-Compliant?

Yes—when implemented responsibly.

FTC Compliance Checklist

• Provide clear “Sponsored,” “Ad,” or “Promoted” disclosures
• Ensure ads are visually distinguishable or clearly labeled
• Avoid misleading design patterns

For example, WeTransfer’s native skin ads for American Express are clearly identified as ads while remaining visually integrated, meeting FTC requirements for transparency and distinguishability.

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Q: How Much Revenue Can You Make?

Native commerce formats consistently outperform traditional display:

• Native display: $3–$10+ CPM
• Sponsored listings: $20–$80+ CPM equivalent ROAS
• Native skins & high-impact units: $10–$40+ CPM
• Programmatic banners (for comparison): $0.50–$1.50 CPM

Commerce media CPMs are especially strong because advertisers value first-party shopping intent. Compared to standard programmatic banners, the revenue upside is substantial.

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Q: What Is the Difference Between Native and Non-Native Ads?

Native ads are designed to blend seamlessly with the surrounding content. They match the look, feel, and format of the website, app, or commerce platform, making them feel like a natural part of the user experience.

Non-native ads, on the other hand, are typically more intrusive or clearly labeled as advertising. Examples include banners, pop-ups, and interstitials. While non-native ads can generate revenue, they often disrupt the user experience, increase bounce rates, and are less effective for commerce-driven monetization.

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Q: What Are Examples of Native Advertising?

Native commerce media can take many forms, including:

• Sponsored products/listings on retail marketplaces
• In-feed native ads on content platforms and social feeds
• Native skins or homepage takeovers in apps and websites
• Native video placements embedded in content or commerce flows
• Featured sellers or branded collections
• Contextual cards or dynamic recommendation units
• Fully custom commerce experiences tied to product catalogs

These formats are effective because they integrate naturally with user behavior and shopping intent.

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Q: Are There Other Names for Native Advertising?

Yes—native advertising is also commonly referred to as:

• Sponsored content
• Partner content
• Sponsored or promoted listings
• Branded journalism

Regardless of the label, the key principle is the same: ads are paid placements that appear in the style and format of the surrounding content, creating a seamless experience for the user.

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Launch Native Commerce Media Quickly with Kevel

Building native commerce media no longer requires years of development or massive engineering teams.

Kevel’s Solutions Architecture and Customer Success teams help retailers design templates, integrate catalog data, configure placements, and launch quickly. For deeper partnership needs, Kevel’s Strategy & Services group supports commercialization, packaging, ad operations, reporting, brand strategy, and cross-team rollout planning.

Retailers using Kevel move faster and deliver native formats brands are willing to pay premium CPMs for—powering commerce media programs for companies like WeTransfer, Delivery Hero, Chairish, and more.

If you’re ready to launch customizable native formats, maintain a privacy-safe, cookie-free environment, protect shopper experience, and scale a profitable commerce media business in weeks rather than years, now is the time to get started.