Taboola cornered the market for bottom-of-webpage “content you may like” advertising widgets — less affectionately referred to as the “chum box.”
Now, it’s moving beyond its native advertising roots by launching a new ad platform called Realize that expands its offering to more prominent ad placements on publisher websites and apps, the adtech company exclusively told Business Insider.
The move puts Taboola in more direct competition in the display ad market with traditional demand-side platforms — companies like The Trade Desk and AppLovin that help advertisers plan and buy their ad campaigns across various media — and supply-side platforms, such as Magnite and PubMatic, that help publishers connect with advertisers and monetize their webpages and apps.
Taboola CEO Adam Singolda told BI that the company has estimated that its new strategy can target an additional $55 billion in performance advertising budgets. The company generated $1.4 billion in annual revenue in 2023 and will report its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
Performance advertising refers to ads designed to drive a near-immediate outcome, such as a purchase, app download, or subscription.
Most advertisers’ performance advertising budgets lean heavily on Meta and Google, but these are highly competitive platforms, and acquiring new customers has become more difficult and expensive over time, Singolda said.
“Search and social are maxed out,” he added.
A similar thesis has propelled rival AppLovin’s market value in recent months after it expanded its performance advertising offering to e-commerce advertisers. It had traditionally focused on the mobile gaming market.
“Outside of search and social, two companies have done a good job: The Trade Desk, for the top of the funnel, for branding, and AppLovin for apps,” Singolda said. “No one is the third leg.”
While plenty of established demand-side platforms already offer access to similar web inventory outside Google and Meta, Singolda said many of these companies have shifted focus to areas like video and connected TV or require a minimum level of monthly spending, which can shut out many smaller advertisers.
“Adtech is fragmented, complicated, and not scaleable,” Singolda said.
Taboola says its publisher relationships give it an edge
Taboola aims to make it easy for advertisers to set up campaigns by conversing with an AI assistant, Abby, which lets them upload their existing creative assets and select the outcome they hope to achieve, like driving website visits or encouraging customers to try a new product.
Singolda said Taboola’s heritage in running code on publisher websites that operate its recommendation widgets gives it an edge over competitors because it has unique data about the type of content users read, what they click on, and what they buy. It counts Yahoo, Microsoft, NBC News, Apple News, and Business Insider among its 9,000-plus publisher partners.
Singolda said Taboola would continue to offer its content recommendation widgets.
Ana Milicevic, cofounder of the adtech consultancy Sparrow Advisors, said that Taboola’s large publisher-direct footprint and access to data would appeal to performance advertisers, especially if it emphasizes that its platform is easy to use. However, those publishers may be highly alert to potential brand safety risks as performance advertising moves higher up their article pages.
“Let’s say I’m on CNN’s website and am seeing performance ads for a new diet fad or crypto course that readers or users may perceive as low-value — does that, in turn, turn off other advertisers who may be buying CNN directly,” Milicevic said.
Earlier this year, Taboola’s close rival, Oubtrain, also expanded its offering beyond traditional content recommendation widgets. It closed its acquisition of fellow adtech firm Teads, a specialist in video advertising. The combined company is now operating under the name Teads.
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