The most popular kid on the block these days is native advertising. And for good reason. These days, due to oversaturation, a lot of ads get the cold shoulder. So how can you reach today's savvy consumer? The answer is native advertising.

In a nutshell, native ads are designed to emulate the editorial content on a trusted media site. This allows you to capitalize on your host's reputation, offer more helpful and engaging content, and build trust with potential customers. Adding native into your mix can be very rewarding, but it requires a new kind of strategy.

What is ad blocking? From the perspective of consumers, the prospect is win-win. Not only can they bypass content they didn't elect to see, but they can save on data costs by not loading it. However, for marketers, this can seem like a zero-sum game. It's easy to get frustrated by this behavior, but taking a hard look at where ad blocking is happening (and where it is going) can help you get in front of this growing trend.

What Is Ad Blocking?

Most marketers know that ad blocking is add-on software that users seek out and download with the intent of stopping display ads from loading on a requested page. While the concept is pretty straightforward, the "add-on" part of the equation is somewhat mystifying. Many consumers simply don't bother to seek out browser extensions, making it less of a pressing issue than some marketers might fear. In fact, data reported by Fortune shows that only 6 percent of Internet users around the world are actively blocking ads. Although that figure is low, the same report shows that ad blocking is on the rise, particularly among millennials.

Pre-roll ads can be a divisive topic among marketers. With an over 90% skip rate (according to sources speaking with AdWeek), it can be easy to dismiss pre-roll video ads as inherently ineffective and not worth the cost of production. However, the actual effectiveness of pre-roll ads is a little more complex than initial statistics might suggest, with recent research finding that recall and impression can be boosted substantially by the best pre-roll ads.

So how can you make sure that your pre-roll ad is performing as well as possible? While there's no set formula, here's what the best pre-roll ads have in common.

Advertisers will agree — native advertising is hot! By presenting content that matches the appearance and tone of a trusted media site, you can build trust and engagement for your brand with potential customers, especially locally.

Native Advertising Works

Essentially, native is sponsored content that promotes your brand and is placed to emulate editorial content on a media site. It's designed to look similar to the "native" media content, such as news editorials and feature articles. The result is great brand-building tool that gives you a chance to deliver more credible, helpful information. According to an article on LinkedIn, 53 percent of users say they are more likely to look at a native ad than a banner ad, and 32 percent said they would share a native ad.

Digital marketing trends can be difficult to forecast day to day, let alone for an entire year. New platforms and companies are driven by the changing preferences of the continuing influx of new users. The risk of jumping onto what may be just a passing fad, however, is offset by the knowledge that failing to adapt your marketing tactics is never the strategy for customer retention. These five digital marketing trends will continue to dominate in 2016 and will be an important part of any marketing portfolio.

1. Content Marketing

Back in the day, brands merely posted a few coupons and engaged with any random audience, and then their content would practically share itself. Consumers today are savvier and more discerning than ever. Creating content with a focus on SEO (rather than actual human readers) can cause content fatigue, which makes it tough to attract, let alone convert, potential customers. Particularly when you consider the trends to follow, brands that will break through will be the ones that continue to find relevant ways to talk to their customers. KFC has done this with clever, viral videos, but it also works for smaller brands, like Intelligentsia Coffee.

Right before the 2015 holiday season, the FTC released new native advertising guidelines. These new regulations may sound restrictive initially, but they're really just building on existing recommendations, moving toward the goal of transparency in native advertisement. Here's everything you need to know about these newly released guidelines.

Ads Clearly Labeled

The goal of the new FTC guidelines is to help marketers ensure that consumers recognize a native ad as an ad. The FTC recommends that all ads be labeled as advertising using a font that is different from the surrounding content, and that the text's shade should stand out against the background.

Though the death of banner ads was predicted long ago, 2016 is set to defy expectations and actually be (and you'll have to pardon the expression here ) a banner year for banner ads, as display advertising is set to eclipse search advertising for the first time ever in the U.S. According to eMarketer, marketers will spend more on banner ads than any other type of digital advertising this year. In order to fully take advantage of this blockbuster year for banner ads, take a quick look at some banner ad best practices for 2016.

No Flash, No Problem

Though Flash was an essential plugin back in the early 2000s, times have changed, and Flash is getting more outdated by the second. Almost every one of the major desktop browsers has stopped natively supporting it. These browsers' users now need to manually enable the plugin to view Flash content. Though nearly one in 10 websites still uses Flash, according to Web survey site W3Techs, Ad Age reports that if all the major browsers were to disable Flash suddenly, roughly 84 percent of banners across the Internet would not be viewable on desktop browsers. To avoid issues with Flash's decline, marketers should switch over to HTML5 as soon as possible to ensure that their banner ads are viewable for all browsers in the new year.

Every year is marked by huge innovations and emerging trends that change the digital marketing landscape. With 2014 in the rearview mirror, it's easy to look back and see that many of the changes that altered best practices were forecast in 2013 and even earlier.

Although new trends have dramatic implications for how marketers do business, savvy professionals don't need to feel blindsided. The top digital marketing trends for 2015 have already taken root, and there's no good reason to be skeptical about their bright futures.

By accepting the changes yet to come and planning to attack these trends head-on, marketing departments can get a nice head start on their competition. Here's what to look for this coming year.