Great for getting eyeballs, but very low ROI if you're looking for direct conversions!
September 22, 2020

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

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Outbrain

We have used Outbrain on and off again for over 4 years. We started using it for a select few clients before rolling it out as a fully managed service offering within the paid realm. It was great at driving traffic initially but we found that the traffic was very top of funnel or came through as an accidental click and had a very low propensity to actually convert.
  • Traffic
  • Increasing views/sessions
  • Get more exposure to valuable content
  • Targeting outside of specific websites or niches
  • Value of traffic
  • Outdated admin
  • Majority of our tests were ROI Negative
  • Impressions skyrocketed, but didn't convert
  • Great for increasing views
We've also used Taboola. Overall, comparing the traffic 1:1, the Outbrain traffic tended to perform better onsite by a slim margin.
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."
Backend could use a lift. It seemed pretty outdated when I used it last and bulk editing was an issue.

Do you think Outbrain delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Outbrain's feature set?

Yes

Did Outbrain live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Outbrain go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Outbrain again?

Yes

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.