Native Advertising Market Share by Network: The 2026 Creative Census
Network share of 725,882 live native creatives across 49 networks: Microsoft, Taboola and Outbrain hold roughly 82% of observed volume. Full table, methodology and caveats inside.
Measured by live creative volume, native advertising is a three-platform market with a long tail: in OpenAdLibrary's index of 725,882 live native creatives across 49 networks (July 2026), Microsoft Audience Network accounts for roughly 39% of observed creatives, Taboola for 28%, and Outbrain — now merged with Teads — for 15%. That's about 82% of observable creative volume on three platforms. MGID (approximately 9%) and Revcontent (2%) lead the mid-tier, and the remaining 41 tracked networks combine for around 5%. This is the recurring share snapshot we publish from the index; the numbers are creative-count share of an independent capture corpus, not revenue share, and the difference matters — read the methodology before quoting the table.
Methodology: creative share, not revenue share#
The underlying dataset is OpenAdLibrary's continuously refreshed capture index: 725,882 live native creatives from 29,257 advertisers, backed by 6.9 million ad observations and 1.3 million landing-page captures across 49 networks (July 2026). Every creative is observed on real placements, deduplicated, and attributed to the network that served it.
"Share" here means each network's percentage of live creatives in that index. Four caveats apply, and we'd rather you know them than quote us naively:
- Creative counts measure activity, not dollars. A network full of direct-response advertisers testing dozens of variants generates more creatives per dollar than a network carrying brand campaigns.
- Coverage varies by geo. Capture concentrates on the markets we crawl hardest; a network whose strength is in regions with lighter coverage is undercounted.
- Churn differs by network. High-turnover demand inflates a network's live-creative count relative to slower-moving demand.
- A snapshot is a snapshot. These figures reflect the index as of mid-2026 and shift with every quarterly refresh.
With that framing, creative share is still the most honest independent proxy available — networks don't publish comparable revenue splits, and self-reported reach numbers are marketing. It also has a property revenue estimates lack: it's verifiable. Every creative behind these counts is a real captured ad you can open, with its advertiser, first-seen date and landing page attached, so the table can be audited rather than taken on faith.
The mid-2026 share table#
| Network | Live creatives | Share of index |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Audience Network (MSN) | 281,839 | 38.8% |
| Taboola | 206,145 | 28.4% |
| Outbrain (Teads) | 108,573 | 15.0% |
| MGID | 62,765 | 8.6% |
| Revcontent | 15,789 | 2.2% |
| MediaGo | 6,571 | 0.9% |
| Yahoo (DSP / native) | 5,926 | 0.8% |
| Teads-branded placements | 113 | <0.1% |
| All other tracked networks (41) | ~38,200 | ~5.3% |
A note on the two Teads rows: since the Outbrain–Teads merger, the combined company operates under the Teads name, but the feed-style demand we observe still overwhelmingly serves through Outbrain infrastructure — the small Teads-branded row reflects separately captured placements, not the merged company's true footprint. Did Outbrain become Teads? untangles the naming.
The big three, briefly#
Microsoft Audience Network is the single largest surface in the index — the native feed across MSN, Edge and Windows placements. Much of its volume is resold demand entering through multiple ad platforms, which is partly why its creative count runs so high; its classified volume leads in ecommerce (9,978 creatives), finance (9,029), travel (8,830) and insurance (8,406). The MSN native ads guide covers how that supply chain works.
Taboola remains the largest classic content-recommendation network, with health (11,982), finance (8,200) and insurance (7,422) leading its classified creatives. Its advertiser mix — and what it says about the network — is broken down in who advertises on Taboola.
Outbrain (Teads) holds clear third place at 15%. Insurance (4,345), finance (3,990) and health (3,102) lead its classified volume, consistent with its premium-publisher positioning. The head-to-head with Taboola is covered in Taboola vs Outbrain.
The mid-tier and the long tail#
MGID is the mid-tier anchor at 8.6%, with a distinctive profile: entertainment-classified creatives (13,987) — mostly content arbitrage — dwarf every other vertical on the network, and a large share of its volume runs outside Tier-1 English-speaking geos. Revcontent (2.2%) concentrates on health direct response. MediaGo (0.9%), Baidu's international DSP, skews insurance, gaming and ecommerce. Yahoo (0.8%) is the remnant-and-rebuild story after Gemini's retirement — what happened to Yahoo Gemini explains where that demand went.
Then the long tail: 41 more networks combining for roughly 5.3% of live creatives. The strategic read is consolidation — the "chumbox" market's volume has collapsed toward a handful of platforms, and a media buyer can reach the overwhelming majority of native inventory through three to five demand relationships. Our ranked breakdown of which networks deserve a spot on a media plan is in best native ad networks.
What to watch in the next refreshes#
Three movements are worth tracking quarter over quarter. First, post-merger consolidation: as Outbrain's and Teads' operations integrate, demand may migrate between the serving paths we observe — a shift in the split between the two rows above would signal the merged stack rolling out, not a market-share change. Second, the Microsoft feed's resold composition: because a large share of MSN volume arrives through intermediary platforms, its creative count is sensitive to reseller relationships being added or dropped, making it the most volatile of the big three. Third, the mid-tier squeeze: MGID's share is the bellwether for whether independent mid-tier networks hold their ground or continue ceding volume to the platforms with the largest owned-and-operated surfaces. When a refresh moves a number materially, the interesting question is always which of these mechanisms moved it — a share table without that decomposition is trivia.
Vertical composition differs sharply by network#
Market share tells you where volume is; vertical mix tells you where your competition is. Health, finance and insurance are the index's biggest classified verticals overall — 24,472, 24,068 and 22,427 creatives respectively — but they distribute unevenly: Taboola and Revcontent are health-heavy, Outbrain leans insurance and finance, MSN leads in ecommerce and travel, and MGID's volume is dominated by arbitrage content. A health advertiser and a travel advertiser looking at the same share table should reach different network shortlists; top native ad verticals in 2026 has the vertical-first view of the same corpus.
Why creative share ≠ revenue share#
Ranked by revenue, this table would reshuffle. Premium networks clear higher CPCs, so a creative on Outbrain can represent several times the spend of one on a mid-tier network. Brand demand — especially the video and display business the merged Teads runs — produces few creatives per dollar relative to direct-response testing farms. And high-churn DR demand inflates live-creative counts on the networks most exposed to it, including MSN's resold supply. Treat creative share as an activity and liquidity measure: where ads, advertisers and iteration actually concentrate. For revenue, only the networks' own disclosures — where they exist — are authoritative.
How to use this data#
- Buyers: volume is liquidity. Big-share networks offer scale and competitive auctions; mid-tier share means cheaper tests and thinner brand competition. Match the shortlist to your vertical's actual concentration, not the headline table.
- Competitive research: if you only monitor Taboola, you're watching 28% of the market. Track your competitors across every network they run on with the ad intelligence platform — advertiser profiles unify creatives across all 49 tracked networks.
- Publishers: the share trend across refreshes signals which demand partners are growing before the sales pitch tells you.
One more cut of the same corpus is worth keeping in mind: the 725,882 creatives come from 29,257 distinct advertisers, which means the average advertiser runs roughly 25 live creatives — but that average conceals the same concentration as the network table. A small class of high-iteration direct-response advertisers accounts for an outsized slice of creative volume, while thousands of advertisers run a handful of ads each. Share tables built on creative counts are therefore also, quietly, maps of where the heavy testers operate.
We refresh this report as the index grows; for the wider trend analysis around it, see the state of native advertising and the full native advertising statistics roundup.
