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Outbrain

Outbrain

Overview

What is Outbrain?

Outbrain, headquartered in New York with offices globally, is an internationally known native advertising platform for curating and publishing content across a variety of channels and media spaces, containing editorial controls, analytics for judging impact, and related features.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Outbrain is a versatile platform that serves a variety of use cases for users across different industries. For the paid media team at …
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Pricing

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Outbrain

Outbrain

N/A
Unavailable

What is Outbrain?

Outbrain, headquartered in New York with offices globally, is an internationally known native advertising platform for curating and publishing content across a variety of channels and media spaces, containing editorial controls, analytics for judging impact, and related features.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

Outbrain Thumbnail Widget - Demo Video

YouTube

Outbrain Amplify - Explainer Video

YouTube
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Product Details

What is Outbrain?

Outbrain Video

What Is Outbrain?

Outbrain Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Outbrain, headquartered in New York with offices globally, is an internationally known native advertising platform for curating and publishing content across a variety of channels and media spaces, containing editorial controls, analytics for judging impact, and related features.

Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 7.8.

The most common users of Outbrain are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(37)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Outbrain is a versatile platform that serves a variety of use cases for users across different industries. For the paid media team at AdRizer, Outbrain is a valuable tool for driving website traffic at an affordable cost. The straightforward guidelines and minimal disapprovals make it a preferred choice over larger social platforms. Working with the dedicated account manager ensures a seamless process, even providing white-glove commitment by answering emails after hours.

For e-commerce stores looking to expand their ad reach, Outbrain comes highly recommended for testing and promoting products on new ad stacks. It has been successful for reviewers who have found it to be an effective campaign-specific media tactic. Additionally, Outbrain functions as a brand awareness tool for credit unions, reaching potential members and generating interest in their offerings.

Outbrain's ability to amplify content extends beyond marketing campaigns. It has been used by Berlin Magazine online newspaper to market their articles, though they have faced challenges with customer support. However, the tool is trusted and well-known in general. Nonprofits have also leveraged Outbrain to significantly increase overall traffic and capture email addresses.

Furthermore, Outbrain plays a crucial role in content distribution and audience engagement strategies. Bloggers have utilized Outbrain to increase impressions and exposure for their content. It helps promote global and local content, finding new channels to identify targeted audiences and increase brand awareness. By customizing content based on relevance, Outbrain allows users to effectively capture audiences and drive engagement.

Overall, Outbrain offers diverse use cases across industries, whether it be driving traffic, amplifying content, or increasing brand awareness. Despite some challenges with customer support or code problems reported by users, the platform's benefits are recognized by its extensive user base.

User-Friendly Interface: Several users have found Outbrain's user interface to be easy and simple to use, allowing for quick campaign creation. They appreciate the straightforward navigation within the platform, resulting in a smooth overall experience. With minimal learning curve involved, users can easily navigate through the clean and intuitive dashboard.

Cost Savings: Some users have noted that Outbrain's CPCs are comparatively lower when compared to other Social Native platforms. This has led to potential cost savings for these users, making Outbrain an affordable option for their advertising needs.

Quality Traffic Generation: Despite initial concerns about native ads being spammy, many users have been pleasantly surprised by the decent quality of traffic generated through Outbrain's platform. They appreciate that Outbrain's comprehensive distribution network allows them to reach outlets frequented by their target audience but would otherwise be difficult to target. This additional reach helps increase visibility in the marketplace and provides valuable exposure to their content.

Limited ad customization: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the limited customization options for ad formats in Outbrain, stating that it restricts their ability to have more control over how their ads appear.

Billing setup complexity: Several reviewers have mentioned that setting up billing for multiple accounts can be a cumbersome process, resulting in inconvenience and complexity.

Vague targeting options: A number of users have found the targeting options in Outbrain to be vague and unclear, making it difficult to accurately determine their target audience. This lack of clarity has been reported to impact the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-17 of 17)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 25, 2022

Worst customer support ever

Andrea D'Addio | TrustRadius Reviewer
Andrea D'Addio
Founder & CEO
Berlin Italian Communication UG (Publishing, 1-10 employees)
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Recommend
We have been trying to contact customer service for two weeks about an issue that the Outbrain widget is causing on our site. You cannot click any internal link to an article, you cannot click on banners either. Our emails are only answered every now and then, always asking to describe the problem or sending screenshots that have already been sent. Most of the emails are completely ignored even though Streak confirms that they have been read. Our experience is bad, there are no other words.
July 14, 2021

Outbrain Is Worth It - If You Have Budget and Patience

TT
Tyler Torcivia
Digital Strategist
Adrizer (Marketing & Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Best suited: Companies with a larger budget who are willing to spend to test before seeing revenue. Building a funnel in Outbrain from scratch for e-commerce can take time.

Less appropriate: Companies with little to no budget that demand instant results.
September 22, 2020

Great for getting eyeballs, but very low ROI if you're looking for direct conversions!

Verified User
Manager in Marketing
Marketing & Advertising Company, 51-200 employees
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Outbrain great for driving visitors and sessions. If impressions is what you're looking for this will work well. If you're looking for bottom-funnel conversions, I would likely recommend you focus on platforms that enable better targeting and more audience limitations. Outbrain worked well to get eyeballs but not actually driving $$ for us and our clients.
September 21, 2020

Outbrain - Low click cost with high revenues

Verified User
Manager in Marketing
Computer Games Company, 201-500 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Outbrain is a great product to reach to the masses cost effectively with customizable content based on geo, keywords, etc. The platforms charges only on clicks and also optimizes towards the end goals of the campaign as decided before initiating the campaigns. The tools is a good driver of awareness and acquisition.
September 14, 2020

Does What You Want It To Do

Chandler Elmore | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chandler Elmore
Community Development & Engagement Lead
Blue Federal Credit Union (Marketing and Advertising, 201-500 employees)
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Outbrain is well suited when you need a fairly straightforward tool that helps get brand awareness out to places on the internet that you might not show up other than through Outbrain. It is a simple(ish) tool that allows increasing brand reach with a beginner to intermediate skill set. Though not the be all end all, it covers a lot of bases well.
September 14, 2020

Outbrain helps simplify marketing campaigns and increase reach of your Brand!

Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 10,001+ employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
  • Ability to give insights into how target audiences are reached - by platform, geography, campaigns, time, etc.
  • Great distribution network - ability to connect securely with audience on the open web.
  • Gauge the performance of highly rich data campaigns on lead conversions.
  • Configuration of content.
  • Organic dashboards than traditional graphics on a wide range of websites and platforms.
November 05, 2019

Delivers Average Traffic at a Great Value

Vincent Misiewicz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Vincent Misiewicz
Sr. Search Engine Marketing Analyst
Traffic Digital Agency (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
January 21, 2019

Outbrain: Too brainy for a simple outreach

Verified User
Employee in Social Media
Media Production Company, 51-200 employees
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Outbrain is well suited when you have the time to deal with all of its features and complexities. It allows you to customize the content and where your content will be promoted, as well as having a more sophisticated targeting feature. However, for the user like me, who is used to a simpler dashboard, Outbrain can be a tad too overwhelming.
May 17, 2018

Outbrain: Endless Possibilities, If You Have the Time

Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 11-50 employees
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
We haven't found the value to be worth the effort it takes to work through the long list of editorial guidelines necessary to pass through the review stage. While valuable exposure can be gained from Outbrain, it is a lengthy process to prep your website or blog for the Outbrain requisites. However, if you already have a fully prepared website, and are in need of impressions apart from traditional advertising, Outbrain could be beneficial.
September 28, 2016

Outbrain for Content Amplification and Traffic

Verified User
Strategist in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Outbrain is appropriate when you want someone to click to an article and read the blog. It is useful to increase traffic to your blog and website. It is less useful for a direct response client, where you are driving a particular conversion.
April 29, 2016

Outbrain - Significant reach, but unkown B2B value

Reet Das | TrustRadius Reviewer
Reet Das
Vice President, Global Digital Marketing
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Insurance, 10,001+ employees)
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
The type of client (B2B / B2C) and their unique media goals are highly dependent factors on if or how to use Outbrain. There is a massive amount of reach available through Outbrain, but understanding how to use and measure it efficiently is the challenge. If a brand is leveraging a PR driven, earned media push into the marketplace, Outbrain should definitely be included if publications are picking up the brand content. Leveraging Outbrain to extend this reach allows for the inclusion of the brand (name) in headlines that are then posted on various other news outlets (the goal is to increase the click through rates). The challenge will be to report on the number of Outbrain impressions and clicks associated to the possible additional exposure of the brand. Keep in mind that if an Outbrain driven post recorded 1000 clicks and 25000 impressions, that doesn't mean your brand received that equivalent reach. This is where you need to possibly integrate an attribution model that assumes that your brand's reach (as packaged content within an Outbrain leveraged news story) may be 50% of the total Outbrain reach.
November 11, 2015

Has Outbrain lost it's native edge?

Verified User
Director in Marketing
Marketing and Advertising Company, 51-200 employees
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
It is not suited for test / trial pieces of content, we find that it works better for how-tos or top 10s. You need to make sure you find out what the content is before you promote it and if you want to do any testing as Outbrain isn't really the best for testing things.
October 27, 2015

Value of Outbrain for Nonprofit Content Distribution

Verified User
Account Manager in Marketing
Research Company, 51-200 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
It's appropriate if your product or cause could potentially appeal to a wide audience, or if that's your goal. It's not ideal for very targeted or specific goals. Use the conversion optimization feature to help reach the right audience, but know that feature is more expensive. Overall it is on the pricey side compared with Facebook, for example, but provides access to a huge audience.
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