Outbrain vs. Outgrow

If your client or organization is running a high volume awareness campaign, Outbrain would be a platform to diversify your mix with. Pretty low maintenance and easy to set up, you can get ads running in a few minutes. If your primary goal is conversions, there are probably better channels you can use where the targeting is a little more transparent and would likely see a higher avg conversion rate.

Incentivized

Well suited: When you want (potential) customers to quickly determine if your product or service is right for them. I noticed that we could make a very honest calculation tool that shows how quickly our car sharing service is beneficial to customers. These types of calculations are difficult to convey in text. Less appropriate: The length of your calculation has to be in line with what the engagement people have with your product or service. We want to determine if a shared car is interesting, so we don't want 10+ questions. But if you're selling a house you can include more questions.

• Website network: Outbrain provides high-quality websites in its network so that you can get a quality audience.
• Affordable pricing: The CPC offered by Outbrain is relatively cheaper than other alternatives.
• Content dashboard: The dashboard allows you to edit the content before publishing it on Outbrain's platform.

Incentivized

• Outgrow provides a comprehensive knowledge base, which allows you to quickly become adept at using their platform.
• They don't make any assumptions. When your quiz or calculator is ready to go live, they offer you an in-depth checklist of ideas to promote it.
• They ensure that you have a high degree of creativity.

• Customer Service - Speaking to a human is nearly impossible, there is no "chat" function, and no phone number immediately available. Ultimately, I've had to email a generic CS contact and wait several days before heading back.
• High Number of Guidelines - The number of guidelines one must meet before using Outbrain is much higher than any other ad platform I've used. Most of them are highly specific and not necessarily items that a website would have out-of-the-box.

Incentivized

• The UI is a bit elaborate, it seems a bit too much when I want something basic
• The results emails were a bit confusing to setup but support was great in getting this fixed
• Only one Admin can use the basic service

Incentivized

The use case is very obvious, brand awareness and low cost conversions because of its reach in billions. The platform is easy to use, well sorted and defined with good click optimized algorithms and brands can use it without hesitation. If monitored well and optimized accordingly, this can prove to be one of the best advertising channels.

Incentivized

It is a no code platform that makes content creation very easy with pre-built templates and strong lead generation tools. However, customisation options are limited , complex logic can be tricky and better content organisation is needed for a large scale use. Overall, it's user friendly but needs improvement in scalability and flexibility.

We had an account manager assigned to us, but they really didn't offer too much help outside of the financial side of things. We used the self-serve platform with mild suggestions every few weeks from our reps amounting to "spend a bit more here."

Incentivized

Support is very responsive and is quick to respond to questions and problems. Outgrow sometimes changes their pricing and plan structures and add/remove options without properly relaying the info to customers. They could do a better job with communications and being upfront with the pricing plans people sign up for.

Incentivized

Here at AdRizer my personal ad sources primarily revolve around Google Ads & Outbrain. Taboola is extremely similar to Outbrain minus the fact that strategies are dictated on the account level unlike by campaign with Outbrain

Incentivized

The previous tools we used had no ability to make numerical calculators and limited logic jump features within surveys (if someone answers question one a particular way, skip question two, etc.) and more limited ability to direct people toward different outcomes based on how they answered questions in the surveys. Many of them didn’t have native integrations with Marketo either. These were critical features that we needed so we decided to switch to outgrow.

Incentivized

• None. My perspective is that further testing is needed as well as additional tracking capabilities applied to be able to assess value. However, it's a CPC model and relatively inexpensive in regards to additional reach, especially if it's packaged in with an Earned media push into the marketplace.

Incentivized

• Outgrow has helped me sell more life insurance through the use of interactive calculators.
• Outgrow has helped me attract more referral partners thus helping my agency grow.
• Outgrow saved my agency money because I was able to cancel subscriptions to other services which offered fewer features.