Item: Outbrain
Rating: 5
Author: Reet Das

Overall Satisfaction with Outbrain

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Outbrain is being used as a campaign specific media tactic to extend the reach of our brand that has been included, highlighted or quoted in news publications (Earned Media).

Pros and Cons

Pros

I can provide additional reach through online news outlets without having to execute a direct publisher paid media buy.
It can align our brand with a credible publication that has either included our content or quoted one of our experts and extend visibility in the marketplace.
Outbrain can [somewhat] mask a pay-to-play model as earned media reach. Outbrain is an oddity in that it's neither Earned or Paid media.

Cons

Outbrain reach attribution is something that needs to be addressed, since our executions are packaged within publications that pick up our content...our usage of Outbrain drives traffic to the publication that has included our brand in some way. Therefore, this is not a direct extension of reach, but indirect reach. Therefore, when we report on Outbrain, it needs to be packaged in a way that assumes additional impressions, but not 1:1, since we're not driving traffic to our brand.
More granular tracking capabilities (utm parameters for destination URLs). Follow the URL syntax appending that Oktopost leverages for social media. It's important to be able to track engagement or direct response goal tracking as associated to Outbrain reach.
Placement scoring relative to how prominent a brand is mentioned within an article. This will help in the creation of reach attribution models and understand the quality of the Outbrain generated traffic.

Return on Investment

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.

Alternatives Considered

Outbrain is the most visible player in regards to third party content distribution.

Other Software Used

Google Analytics, IBM Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com

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.

Outbrain Feature Ratings

Comments

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Outbrain - Significant reach, but unkown B2B value