Outbrain vs. smartocto

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

Great for setting up MEL measurements for web based media. Great for use in media environments especially where there is no dedicated data analytics staff. Not sure how useful it would be for those sites that are not content focused.

• 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

• Provides detailed stats on overall blog performance
• Shows which blog topics resonate with readers
• Measures individual blogs against key performance metrics

• 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

• It has a lot of information and data all over the place. It took us some time to get used to it and get people properly onboarded. We have seen some improvement, but UX has more space to improve.

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

smartocto is a very user-friendly tool, with a smart & clean interface.

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

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

smartocto is much easier to use and is perfectly setup so that newsrooms can see the information they need in a quick and easy-to-use format.

• 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

• It had a positive ROI in terms of support they provide and custom based approach to all our media partners
• Readiness to find solutions to any type of question we might have