This is a good point. I often take for granted how quickly I can recognize advertisement from non advertisement. I attribute most of it to spending my early days on the Internet reading marketing forums and running ad campaigns myself. Nowadays marketing is very subtle. Often you find yourself reading content and don't even realize somebody paid for that content to build their brand, drive traffic, etc. Look at recipe sites for example. If you watch your ad blocker count the ads, recipe sites always have one of the highest numbers. Who would ever think that if they didn't know what to look for?
My rule of thumb is "if nobody would write this without getting paid for it, then somebody probably got paid for it."
My rule of thumb is "if nobody would write this without getting paid for it, then somebody probably got paid for it."