ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE

OUTBRAIN

Bianes, Janinne A.
Introduction
History
About the Author
What is Outbrain
How to use Outbrain
Relate Outbrain to your course
References/resources
Researcher bibliography

INTRODUCTION
HISTORY
Outbrain
first marketed its content discovery platform in 2006.
It was founded by Yaron Galai and Ori Lahav, who were both officers in the
Israeli Navy. Galai sold his company Quigo to AOL in 2007 for $363 million.
Lahav worked at Shopping.com, acquired by eBay in 2005.
The company is headquartered in New York with 13 global offices in London,
San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Paris, Munich, Milan, Madrid,
Tokyo, São Paulo, Netanya, Singapore, and Sydney.

Financing
The company, as of 2014, had undergone five rounds of funding for a total of
$99 million and is backed by Index Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Gemini Israel
Funds, GlenRock Israel, Rhodium, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and
HarbourVest Partners. HarbourVest Partners led Outbrain's most recent round
of funding in October 2013, raising $35 million.

Acquisitions
Outbrain has acquired four companies—related content recommendation
platform, Surphace (February 2011), content curation platform, Scribit
(December 2012), and predictive analytics company, Visual Revenue (March
2013). In early 2016, Outbrain acquired technology company Revee. In July
2017 Outbrain acquired Zemanta. In February 2019 Outbrain acquired Ligatus.

Business Model
Outbrain pays publishers to put its links on their sites. External sites that employ
the traffic acquisition service pay on a daily pay-per-click or cost-per-click basis
with links to third-party content appearing as recommendations alongside
editorial content from the web's biggest publishers. Approximately half of that
revenue is paid to the site which presented the Outbrain link.
Brands and publishers, for example, News media websites, are able to engage
their audience on-site by surfacing their own editorial content that they have
published in the past, displayed conspicuously as "You May Also Like..." or "We
Recommend" often leading unsuspecting users into thinking of click-bait
advertisements as original editorial content. These take the form of tracked
links that are routed through Outbrain's servers. The Outbrain "From Around
the Web" tool also provides a way for publishers to buy and sell traffic by
providing third-party links to remotely relevant and unverified content.

Reception
Outbrain has often been compared with competitor Taboola. One way that
Outbrain claims to distinguish itself from Taboola is that it tries to pre-filter
spammy links before displaying them, whereas Taboola has a feature called
Taboola Choice, where users can offer feedback on what recommendations
they do not like.
Both Outbrain and Taboola have been described by Internet commentators as
alternatives to Google AdSense that content publishers could consider for
revenue streams.
In November 2012, in response to criticism of it for showing spam links,
Outbrain decided to cut off showing spam links and stated that doing so would
cause it a 25% revenue cut, but that it was important for its long-term reputation
with publishers and users. However, there has been continued criticism of the
quality of recommendations offered by Outbrain.
In August 2014, an article in Fortune noted the fierce competition between
Taboola and Outbrain and both of their problems with spam recommendations
and nearly all their clients promoting known scams.
In a 2016 episode of a British stand-up comedy show, Dave Gorman: Modern
Life is Goodish, the comic ridiculed Outbrain for displaying a link to an article
that suggested the falsehood that Tim Allen had died at the bottom of an
otherwise reputable online newspaper. He went on to criticize the article that
the link led to, which did not match the advertisement in its content. He
compared the newspaper displaying inaccurate Outbrain-advertised articles to
himself mocking the newspaper while a footnote reading "opinion of Barry"
appeared at the bottom, suggesting that unless the newspaper acknowledged
they claimed Tim Allen had died, they could not claim that he insulted them.
 Outbrain Inc.

Type Private

Industry Internet

Founded 2006; 13 years ago

Founders Yaron Galai

Ori Lahav

Headquarters New York City, New York, U.S.

Key people Yaron Galai, David Kostman, CO-CEO

Products Content Discovery Platform

Number of 850
employees

Website www.outbrain.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yaron Galai
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

PROFILE
Yaron Galai is an Israeli entrepreneur. He started 4 companies in the online
ad/publishing space, among them Quigo (acquired by AOL) and Ad4ever
(acquired by Atlas). He is currently CEO of Outbrain, a company co-founded
with Ori Lahav. He currently lives in New York City.
COMPANIES AND INVESTMENTS
Quigo (Founder) Ad4Ever (Founder) Outbrain (Founder)
LESSONS LEARNED
Say No and Focus Yaron started Outbrain to recommend digital content to
readers while helping media outfets spread their content. Instead of caving in
and chasing ad dollars, Outbrain focused on providing a genuinely useful
service. Yaron states that he turns down plenty of revenue to stay true to this
focus in order to build trust with readers that the links he provides are good
content instead of just another ad. This has enabled Outbrain to be quite
successful: it is installed on more than 100,000 websites, and serves over 130
billion recommendations and 15 billion page views per month. Through its
recommendations, Outbrain reaches over 87% of the U.S. Internet population.
Sell the Crisp Yaron believes the biggest challenge any entrepreneur faces is
selling a crisp product story. If you pack a lot of features into a product just
because it's easy, people are less able to focus on what makes your product
the very best and it ends up unfocused and unwelcome.
 What is Outbrain

Outbrain (www.outbrain.com) is the leading content discovery

platform reaching a highly engaged audience through distribution on
top publisher sites including CNN Fox News Hachette Filipacchi
Media Mashable MSNBC and Slate Outbrain provides publishers a
service for recommended links to increase traffic and generate
revenue Outbrain also works with brands and agencies including
Starcom Digitas Mindshare American Express P.

Outbrain is a web advertising platform that displays boxes of links to

pages within websites. It displays links to the sites' pages in addition
to sponsored content, generating revenue from the latter.
How to use Outbrain for your business

If you’re here, we’ll assume you’ve seen one of those sponsored story
posts at the end of one news site or another and wondered how it works.

It’s fairly simple to be honest, but it opens up the ability to put your advert in front of billions (yes
billions) of people each day.

Remember when people in your industry used to place an ad in the local rag? Get a few
hundred thousand eyeballs and hope for the best?

Outbrain (and others) enable you to do this on mass, in real time and generate a skip full of
customers in minutes if you’re good.

Below is a long-winded description of how Outbrain works, if we’re being honest, it’s only there
to get this page ranking on Google and get people like you coming to this page.

Our speciality is generating customers online for us, our businesses and our clients.

The long-winded stuff…

Internet marketing is currently and will always be one of the most incredible marketing channels,
holding a massive potential for businesses to grow substantially across a multitude of options.

With millions of people browsing the internet every day, there are endless opportunities to
reach out to thousands of potential clients and get your company known.

Research has shown that 90% of purchase decisions start with a Google search, over 3.5
billion searches take place on Google every day, and with constant advances in technology and
internet access, these figures are not likely to change any time soon.

With so many advances in algorithms and technology, there is also the fantastic opportunity to
aim your advertising towards your target audience, ensuring that your marketing budget is well
spent and optimized on the people who are most likely to convert.

But how are you going to get noticed among the sheer amount of competitive content on the
internet?

Whatever industry you are in, you can be sure that you will find yourself up against some
massive companies and Google giants.

Many companies are opting to invest in their internet marketing campaigns as top priority,
simply due to the importance of this side of their business.

Outbrain offers a new innovative internet marketing method to get your company seen, and
help towards your company outreach and progression.

When used correctly, Outbrain can be a leg up to success for your online visibility and company
success.
However, if your campaigns are not optimized in the correct way, you can end up wasting a lot
of money and your business could quickly go down the drain.

How Outbrain works

Websites who want to up their on site visibility and increase the traffic to their website pay
Outbrain to post advertisements on websites when people from their target audience visit.

Outbrain then pay website publishers a fee for advertising on their website. The fee which is
obtained by the publishers is unknown, but it is clearly thought to be sizeable enough for the
publishing websites to be interested despite the potential of leading a percentage of their
visitors away from their own site.

Outbrain’s algorithm analyses the content on your website, categorizes it, and displays it to
their advertiser’s target audience based on their online behaviour.

Outbrain uses algorithms to collect information on the links which internet browsers have
previously searched for, and then target people who have previously searched for similar terms
and could be interested in the products and services which are provided by the advertisers.

For example, if a person looked at an article about the best wedding dresses for your body
shape, and then proceeded to search for an unrelated article such as a news article on Fox
News, they may be shown an advertisement for a wedding dress shop.

The advertisements which are presented on publishing websites are displayed inconspicuously,
and could often be mistaken as original editorial content of that same website.

It could be targeted with phrases such as ‘You may also like’ and ‘Recommended for you’, to
entice potential clients of the paying advertiser.

Where do I start?

So you’ve decided that an Outbrain advertising campaign is worth investing in, and you’re
ready to get started on our next step to success.

But where do you start?

The first thing to do is to head over to the Outbrain website and set up your campaigns.

There, you will be able to set up a campaign so that you can test whether or not it’s right for you.

You will be able to pick certain settings so that you can optimize your campaign.

One of the settings you can choose is whether to go with an RSS piece of content or a
handpicked piece.

The RSS option in which Outbrain will distribute your content on the advertising feed. This
option proves to be useful when your campaign gets going, but to start with, it’s usually best to
go with a handpicked piece of content to test whether Outbrain will be a lucrative marketing
option for you.

You will need to optimize your content and headline before you go ahead with the campaign
because Outbrain lifts the content directly from the website and it will not be able to be changed
from thereon after.

You can also change your budget parameters according to how much you would like to spend
on your campaign.

Of course, the more you spend on your campaign, the more clicks you are likely to receive.

Outbrain operate on a cost per click basis, so you only pay when people interact with your
advertisement.
You can set your cost per click too, but the algorithms are more advanced when you raise the
cost per click.

This means that even though you will be spending more on your campaign, your
advertisements may be targeted more lucratively, so you could see a better return on
investment.

The more cost per click you set, the more clicks you are likely to get.

There is a recommended cost per click tailored to your campaign, so to start with it is advisable
to use this whilst you are getting used to the optimization of your campaign.

Once you have run a test campaign, that is when you will need to adjust your budget.

You are also able to set your campaign dates on the initial set up of your campaign.

Outbrain have to approve your content before it goes live as an advertisement, and it may take
a couple of days for you to do this, so it is important to allow for a couple of days before you will
need to start the test, along with a set end date.

From there, you can also optimize the location you target for your campaign.

Depending on the type of business you run and the budget you are working with you will need to
choose the locations which are best for you.

If you are working with a limited budget, it is best to focus on one location rather than many, and
go from there, gradually expanding when possible.

Once you have finished optimizing your campaign for all the different aspects, all you will need
to do is wait for your confirmation email, and look out for your Google analytic campaign so that
you can begin tracking when the campaign has started up and what the results are.

Your advertisement placements are all automated by the algorithms used by Outbrain, and
according to opportunities and budget.

How to get the most out of your Outbrain campaign

If you are new to using Outbrain for your online marketing, it can be difficult to know how to
make the most out of your campaign for the money you are spending.

The success of your Outbrain campaign is not guaranteed; it depends on how you optimize
your resources and target your campaign.

The following are some useful tips to make sure that you really take every opportunity to
optimize your campaign so that it is as lucrative as possible.

Social shares
It is important to remember that it only takes one brilliant post to go viral, potentially building up
you brand name dramatically and making your business a well-known household name.

But, going viral is rarely a case of just very good luck.

Instead, it is a well thought out advertisement which has been placed well, researched or
appeals to a pre-existing audience.

Be it a submission to an affiliate website, getting in contact with an editor, or a large audience

which has been built up previously over time, most content which goes viral starts somewhere,
and unfortunately does not usually appear from thin air.

Outbrain is a great way to engineer organic social shares.

This is because Outbrain advertisements look natural, unlike Facebook and Twitter
advertisements.

This means that the advertisement is seen as a post which people will ‘discover’ and are more
likely to share if it is of high interest.

The key to obtaining many shares is to make sure that it is easy to share your posts.

Ensure that your Twitter and Facebook cards are on your advertisement, and that they are in
the right place to be seen and to be clicked on.

Even if your post doesn’t go viral, just a few shares can up your online visibility greatly, as many
more potential clients will be seeing your Outbrain advertisement.

Steer towards sign ups

People who see Outbrain advertisements are likely to be looking for content to read rather than
looking to make a purchase.

What’s more, the people who reach your content via an Outbrain advertisement are likely to
bounce from your website after reading your content, unless there are other enticing links
presented on there.

Not to mention Outbrain have put a ban on advertising.

However, the people who are interested in your content are also likely to be interested in your
company, because of course they are still your target audience.

For this reason, they may be interested in further information from your company.

For this reason, it is highly advisable to opt for getting sign ups and email addresses rather than
direct conversions.

At the lower end of the spectrum, even trying to obtain likes and follows on your social media
accounts form readers of you content on your Outbrain campaign so that they will be able to
see your future posts on these platforms.

This strategy will be the most direct response you can get from your Outbrain campaign.

Re-targeting Advertisements

Re-targeting advertisements is a form of advertising in which you target your campaign towards
a very particular audience, and create advertisements which ‘follow’ people around the internet.

You can use Google analytic to fairly easily build an audience based on particular landing
pages. These audiences will then be re-targeted at a later date.

Research has suggested that re-targeting advertisement strategies are generally cheaper and
more effective than almost all other forms of paid advertisements, because they are aimed at
people who have already visited your website.

The key to success for your re-targeted advertisement campaign is to create a campaign that is
very targeted but does not annoy your Outbrain audience.

As well as targeting your audience, you will also need to be very specific regarding what you are
advertising.

This could be a complimentary product or offer, or a particular landing page, but should not be a
generalized campaign.

This is because a generalized campaign will not be as effective as a more specific one.

Test your content

In order to really optimize your campaign, it is important to run tests on your content so that you
know which are proving the most lucrative for your online company.

It is important to edit your content before you submit your campaign to Outbrain, because
Outbrain will take your headline and content straight from the page of your website once it is
submitted.

Outbrain is a relatively cheap internet marketing option, so it a good idea to test the success of
each campaign and headline.

In order to do this, you should run multiple campaigns to analyse the click through rate and
other details such as the amount of time which people spend on the site etc.

You can measure the lucrativeness of each campaign by the amount of time you save on the
campaign and the improvements of these figures.

What content can I use for my Outbrain campaign?

Although they define content for an advertisement as any article which provides more
information or entertainment regarding your online company or products and services, Outbrain
have more specific guidelines than some of their competitor such as Taboola, on what they will
accept as promotional content for an advertising campaign.

Outbrain has a content checking process which means that all the content which is submitted
for campaigns will be checked before they go live as a campaign, and they have the right to
reject any content for any reason at their own discretion.

Even if content goes live, it can then be taken down if it is decided that it’s not up to scratch.

The publisher websites also have the right to remove any articles which they wish not to appear
on their web pages.

Outbrain have very specific guidelines which can be referred to when you are submitting your
campaign articles.

You will not be able to use home pages or product pages, direct sale landing page, any page
including adult content, or pages full of advertisements.

On a more positive note, the following are the types of content you are able to submit for your
Outbrain campaign and how to optimize them for the best results:

Blog posts
Blogging has quickly become very popular, with millions of people getting involved with writing
and following blogs every day.
Blogs are also now one of the most important aspects of any online company to attract new
clients and keep existing clients interested.

A blog can keep your website looking up to date and relevant, and can draw new potential
clients who are interested in your industry towards your site.

Blogging regularly also means that people are reminded that your business is still active and
relevant.

Blogs can also attract a following towards your website, building up interest and encouraging
interaction from your clients.

When you are writing a blog, it is important to ensure that it is relevant to your industry,
interesting and offers some kind of new and original content for your target audience to read.

It is also important to ensure that you come up with a title which is appealing to your visitors and
which reflects your content.

When your potential clients are surfing the internet and happen to stumble upon your Outbrain
advertisement, it is highly likely that they will be looking for something entertaining that they can
skim read whilst gaining some fun new knowledge or interesting tips.

For this reason, it is important to try and make your blog easy to read and interesting.

It is a good idea to create lists, such as ‘Top 10…’ or ‘7 ideas for…’, which appeal to people who
are looking to skim read something easy.

When writing, make sure to use a conversational tone and first person, which will appeal to
people who are looking for light reading, and will encourage people to relate to you as a person
behind the business as well as a knowledgeable individual within your industry.

If people enjoy your article or get something out of it, they are more likely to return to your
website, sign up and get interested in your company.

Keep your blog around the 500 word mark will be the ideal length to make sure that it provides
enough basic information, but doesn’t go into too much detail and provides more entertainment
than information for the readers, and they don’t get bored and go elsewhere.

Articles
An article serves the purpose of providing more in depth information on a particular topic than a
blog, and unlike a blog, readers will generally be less likely to skim read and it will be more
necessary for them to read the entire article for them to get the overall point of the article.

It is important to ensure that you come up with an interesting title for your article; make sure that
it is clear to readers that they will be gaining some great knowledge by reading the whole thing.

The information you share with your readers in the article will need to be relevant to the industry
of your website, and original, so that your clients gain information which they are not likely to
receive anywhere else.

You will need to write in a slightly more formal tone than your blog, but still keep the language
simple because it is likely that your target audience will be put off by industry related jargon
which they may not understand.

Whilst the language is simple, the purpose of an article is to go into more depth about a
particular topic, and you will therefore need to ascertain a certain amount of authority so that
your clients get to know you to be a specialist within your industry.

This will build up trust between you and your readers, who are more likely to be interested in
your company and sign up for receiving more information.

Videos
Every hour, thousands of online videos are uploaded, watched and shared and they are
becoming a great method of marketing for companies which want to expand their horizons.

Videos are a great way of enticing your clients and really getting them interested in your
company, as well as the products and services which you can provide them with.

They are a great opportunity to really show any potential clients what you are really about and
let them know that you are on the top of your game.

Videos are also a great way to capture peoples’ interests, with music, images and recordings all
able to be intertwined into one representation of your company.

Videos also inspire people to stay on the website longer and get a real feel for your company
values and industry.

Press coverage

Press coverage is a type of earned media which is great to advertise via an outbrain campaign.

Research has shown that earned media is one of the most lucrative forms of advertising
because potential clients are more likely to trust it, because it comes from another source other
than payment.

Earned media is more likely to be regarded as a vote of confidence from another trusted source,
and people who see your Outbrain advertisement promoting your press coverage are more
likely to see this as a good review rather than as an annoying advert.

Press coverage is a great way of gaining the interest of potential clients through your Outbrain
campaign.

This is because they are likely to be enticed by an intriguing headline and they are more likely to
be impressed by the perceived popularity of your company.

Press coverage also means that your company will look more authoritative to people who see it,
because positive news will reflect success and interest, instilling a sense of trust from your
target audience and encouraging them to use your services.

3rd party reviews

When people are trying to find a new company to provide them with the products and services
they are looking for, they often look to others who have experienced the company first hand to
make a decision.

On a link, people are looking for trustworthy sources to heighten their opinion of the company
rather than the company blowing their own trumpet.

For this reason, 3rd party reviews are a must have for any good Outbrain campaign.

Many people write and make video reviews to earn money, to help others and to talk about their
interests in products and services for other people, so it is important to remember that these
reviews will come in many different forms to draw attention to your company.

A genuine 3rd party review will make your company look impressive, and people are also likely
to become interested in the products themselves, and could follow links to your website or
social media pages for more information.

A good genuine review can speak volumes about a company, and can often be worth ten time
more than the words of the company themselves.

How to write a headline for your Outbrain campaign

Your headlines will be taken straight from the articles you provide, so it is highly important to
edit your titles before you submit them as part of your campaign.
The headline will be one of the first things that a potential client will see when they first clap
eyes on your Outbrain advertisement, and for this reason it is highly important to make sure that
it is engaging and interesting, enticing potential clients to click on your content.

One of the most important things to remember regarding your title is to make it interesting but
simple, so that it appeals to as many people in your target audience as possible.

It is also important to ensure that the title makes the content appear that it will be easy to read
for your visitors so that they are more enticed to click and read.

Research suggests that reading from a screen is more tiring and draining for the readers, and
for that reason reading takes more time.

When reading content online, most people will be looking for articles which are easy to read or
can be skim read, and are entertaining or informative.

Titles which suggest lists, numbers, digit, info graphics and the use of other forms of media will
be most appealing for your clients.

With so much content to compete with, it is important to make sure that your Outbrain content is
original and unique, providing information which cannot be seen elsewhere and which stands
out in the crowd.

When people surf the internet, they are generally cynical about advertisements, and are
somewhat reluctant to trust some sites.

Luckily, Outbrain advertisements are surreptitious; they look like a piece of content which has
been suggested to you by the website a reader is currently on, and are more likely to be trusted
by your readers.

Despite the way in which the advertisements have been laid out, it is important to note that it is
your job to make sure that both the headline and the content are also equally trustworthy
looking.

You will need to make sure that the headline you compose really reflects what your content is
all about, so that people who see the Outbrain advertisement know what they are clicking on
before they do so, and your content is being presented in the most accurate way possible.

When composing your headlines, make sure that they are very specific to the content you are
linking to. You will need to make each piece of content individual, and the titles need to reflect
this too.

How to choose images for your Outbrain advertisements

Plenty of research has suggested that images get clicks; they draw attention from your target
audience, so they are very important for the success of your Outbrain campaign.

Research has shown that adding images to your campaign will increase the click through rate
by 27%, and that thumbnail images work better than logos.

Outbrain give you the chance to select, upload and swap pictures on your campaign so that you
can run tests of trial and error to ensure that you are picking the most lucrative images for the
success of your campaign.

However, just picking any old images are not likely to really gain you much in the way of
success. You will need to choose your images carefully to ensure the optimum results from
your campaign.
One of the primary requirements for making sure your images are correct is to ensure that the
picture you choose is relevant to the content in your Outbrain link.

Ensure that they image you select reflects the topic your content is about, the style of writing
you are going for and the tone of your content.

It is also important to ensure that your images are clear and grab attention from your target
audience.

An image which is not legible will put people off, but one which is clear will be enticing and will
instil a sense of trustworthiness.

In the same way, it is also important to make sure that you pick an image which is bold and has
readable sized text.

In terms of Outbrain, the required image size will be 400 x 400, so it is best to opt for this size of
image to ensure that they are not cropped incorrectly when they appear on the Outbrain
advertisement.

Research has suggested that images of peoples’ faces have the best response from audiences,
as they can evoke and reflect emotion and can create a sense of trust for the audience.

Change any generic icons for pictures of people, be it a person modelling the products or just a
face which reflects the emotion you would like to present to your target audience.

When you are choosing your images for your Outbrain campaign, it is a good idea to use trial
and error to experiment with your campaign and see which images gain the best results for you.

You can conduct A/B experiments to decipher which photos work best, keeping track of click
through rates from your clients via your analytic.