<b>"Sponsored" labels work — against you</b>

<b>"Sponsored" labels work — against you</b>

<b>Myth:</b> Native works because readers don't notice the "sponsored" disclosure.

No. Modern readers have trained ad-blindness specifically around that label and the visual grammar of the footer widget. They don't get fooled; they get filtered out. The people clicking past the disclosure-blindness aren't your prospects — they're the small slice who click everything.

FTC pressure made labels more prominent year over year. So the "seamless" native that supposedly blends in actually flags itself harder than the banner you abandoned.

Native's pitch was camouflage. The regulators took the camouflage away and nobody updated the pitch. You're paying a blend-in premium for inventory that no longer blends in.