It’s been a whirlwind year of acquisitions, near mergers, SPACs and pre-IPO filings for companies in the content recommendation space. In September 2020, the proposed mega merger between Outbrain and Taboola fell apart. In January, Taboola announced plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company. Three months later, Outbrain filed confidential S-1 paperwork […]
Ad tech IPOs are back in fashion as online advertising continues to surge during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, there were seven ad tech transactions valued at more than $1 billion – double the number of unicorn-level deals that went down in the past few years combined. Public companies […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Correction Streaming giant Netflix slipped a bit after riding high when demand surged at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. CNBC reports that Netflix shares dropped more than 10% in after-hours trading on Tuesday night following an earnings report with fewer-than-expected subscribers. Netflix gained […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC Bandwagon Content recommendation engine Taboola became the latest tech company to exist via SPAC when it announced plans to go public on Monday by merging with special purpose acquisition company ION Acquisition Corp, per Business Insider. The deal, which will value Taboola at […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. White Hot The Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs is leading a deal to buy bot detection and anti-fraud company White Ops, Business Insider scoops. Goldman is being joined in the deal by VC firm ClearSky Security and investment firm NightDragon. The trio will […]
The digital advertising world is changing faster than the seasons. At the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Randall Rothenberg, who held the top spot for 14 years, is stepping into an executive chairman role, while David Cohen, IAB president since March, is taking over. Not only will Cohen become CEO of IAB, he also inherits that same […]
“You’ll Never Guess Which Two Content Recommendation Engines Have Decided NOT To Merge!” No need to click, we’ll tell you. The Taboola/Outbrain merger will no longer happen. There are two primary reasons why the deal will not move forward, according to a source directly familiar with the matter but unable to speak publicly due to […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Viva La Pérsonalization The French government will loosen archaic laws this month that have undercut French broadcasters for years. The biggest change will be to repeal a 1993 law that says all French households must receive the same broadcast stream. So French TV stations […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Unblocked Google and Twitter lifted their bans on coronavirus-related advertising. Twitter will allow marketers to feature their pandemic responses in paid tweets, Ad Age reports. Twitter initially banned COVID terms to forestall misinformation, but now feels that “the messaging that brands and businesses can […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. TikTok Snubs Campaign Ads Candidates: The world’s fastest-growing social app doesn’t want your money. “We have chosen not to allow political ads on TikTok,” VP of Global Business Solutions Blake Chandlee, writes in a post innocuously titled “Understanding our policies around paid ads.” He […]
Direct-to-consumer, digitally native startups like Mack Weldon own their own data and don’t rely on middlemen. Those two huge advantages enable them to track marketing effectiveness with greater precision than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. But to do so, they need platforms that allow them to use every piece of information they can collect about their customers. […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Yoav Naveh, vice president of video at Taboola. Brands love cookies, digital marketers love cookies and marketing executives around the world still love them for their ability to target the right audience. Our industry […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Yoav Naveh, vice president of video at Taboola. The concept of online advertising has long been associated with the standard banner ad – the square unit that consumers breeze past as they scroll down […]
Programmatic native is cleaning up its act. Content recommendation engines like Taboola and Outbrain provide an easy incremental revenue stream for publishers. But their cost-per-click model, which favors performance over quality, enables traffic arbitrage and creates brand safety risks. To account for those concerns, native exchanges like TripleLift, Connatix, Nativo and Sharethrough have leveraged direct […]
Publishers are under pressure to scale and monetize, but those business realities can dampen audience experience. When Slate’s president, Keith Hernandez, called out janky links from content recommendation engines earlier this week, he noted that while they drive revenue, it’s often at the expense of quality. Hernandez, who started at Slate a year ago after […]
There’s no point in being a me-too solution. That notion is what prompted ConvertMedia to evolve itself from a display network to a supply-side platform focused on outstream video about two years ago. It was also a main driver behind ConvertMedia’s decision to sell to content rec engine Taboola this summer. Once the ink was […]
AppNexus and Taboola have connected with each other to enable buyers to purchase Taboola’s native placements programmatically. Eighty-five AppNexus buyers have already used this connection to buy on Taboola. The integration represents a step forward for programmatic native just as another huge native pool of supply disappeared: FBX, which will shut down in November. Taboola CEO Adam Singolda […]
While content recommendation engines used to be a commodity business, that’s no longer the case, said Camilla Cho, executive director of business development and strategy at New York Media. New York Media – owner of the NYMag.com, Vulture, The Cut and Grub Street sites – is looking for partners that share its focus on using […]
MSN.com has gone through a lot of changes recently, switching to a syndication-only content model a year and a half ago and having its ad sales move to AOL. To personalize MSN.com’s content and ad experience, Microsoft revealed Tuesday it had signed on with Taboola to bring native ads and personalization to the MSN site […]
Business Insider’s “big reveal” this quarter was its planned launch of a standalone consumer tech site, but the publisher’s lifting the curtain on some other priorities – like video and a push into personalization. Business Insider’s video team totaled about 10 at the beginning of the year, but Business Insider president and COO Julie Hansen […]
Taboola is paving the way to enter the Chinese market. On Monday, it revealed it had received a multimillion-dollar investment from Chinese search provider Baidu. Baidu does not name the level of investment unless SEC rules require it. “The goal behind the investment is to work together on launching native advertising in China,” Taboola CEO […]
When Rich Sutton became Reader’s Digest Association’s CRO in January, his top priority was to extract more revenue from the advertisers accessing its audience of 53 million monthly uniques. “We’re moving to a mix that’s more video, native and high-impact, because those are the formats that are commanding the high CPMs,” Sutton said. “I’m not […]
Taboola has raised $117 million to fuel its turf war against chief rival Outbrain and smaller competitors. The money will support the company’s global expansion, product development and future acquisitions during a period when content recommendation companies are paying large sums for exclusive publisher deals. Fidelity Management and Research Company led the round, which brings […]
Content recommendation engine Taboola has acquired Perfect Market, which develops a publisher-side solution designed to improve engagement, driving traffic, and monetization. Taboola CEO Adam Singolda wouldn’t disclose the deal’s terms, though he said it was a mix of cash and stock. With the acquisition, Taboola will change from being a content discovery engine to being […]
It goes something like this: While scrolling through the latest coverage on Syria, or doing research on a work project, you reach the end of an article, only to be greeted with the latest tabloid news about Kim Kardashian. With its teasing photo and promise of outrageousness, it takes all your willpower to resist. And you […]
Paid media has become essential to content marketing, as social media “war rooms” become commonplace and Facebook throttles the organic reach available through Page Posts. In a new report, Forrester Research detailed a range of content marketing offerings, dividing the world into service- and software-based solutions. The report highlighted 15 agencies and 30 technology vendors, rating […]
The brand-agency relationship used to be relatively simple. True, brands would have multiple agencies – social, digital, media-buying, for instance – but most of the spend would focus on a single area, usually television. But as other digital channels become more important to consumers, brands are beginning to realize that stuffing too much money in […]
Video is a big part of AOL’s new plans to stage a “programmatic upfront” in the fall (AdExchanger story) and content discovery and distribution platform Taboola is likely to be a big part of that effort. The two companies signed a deal late last month that starts with AOL posts adding Taboola’s “recommendation matrix” of […]
