image courtesy of nocamels.com
On this site I talk regularly about content marketing, and the need for online media properties to find new revenue streams. Yesterday I was given a product demo from a company called OutBrain that promises benefits on both fronts.
OutBrain could be viewed as an AdSense network for content, as opposed to advertising. It’s value proposition to both publishers and advertisers to my ears harks back to the early days of advertising networks. Publishers get a new revenue stream, and brands get to present their content to a potentially huge audience at just the point in time when they are likely to engage.
OutBrain takes the familiar “recommended links” tool at the bottom of the online page, what they call “below the fold inventory,” and monetize it with algorithmic technology. Publishers usually offer two lists of recommendations. The first list contains internal links that increase time on site, average pages per visit and reader engagement. The second list contains third party content from brands judged to be contextual by OutBrain.
OutBrain talks about putting content in front of people when they are in “consumption” mode — i.e. surfing, as opposed to working or researching a specific question. Here’s what it looks like for Sports Illustrated — internal links on the left and sponsored links on the right. In this example upwave, Men’s Fitness, CafeMom, Zagat and the Washington Post are putting their content in front of SI’s readers:
Here are some impressive metrics courtesy of the rep who provided the demo:
- 12 billion pageviews per month
- 90 billion paid recommendations served per month
- The network reaches 87 percent of the U.S. Internet population, 193 million unique users per month
If you’re interested in this as a publisher, you need to be large and established. You’ll need to produce monthly pageviews in the millions to be in the network, and if you want to use the internal links functionality you need to commit to a minimum paid sponsorship buy across the OutBrain network.
To promote via what the company calls OutBrain Amplify, there is no minimum buy but there is some kind of minimum commitment if you would like an account representative to assist you. Brands pay on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, just like they do for Google AdWords.
OutBrain seems like a promising service for both sides of the online content equation. For my clients, it could be a valuable tool to drive more traffic to the content I work so hard to develop and promote. It would be interesting to run a trial and see how appropriate the audience is that gets directed to client publications. Our client campaigns are never volume plays, it’s always quality over quantity, but this could be part of the promotional mix.
To anyone reading this who currently uses OutBrain in their marketing mix, please comment or reach out with feedback. I’d like to share some first hand experiences if possible.