Outbrain is a leading recommendation platform. Through Outbrain, you can recommend products or services on major content sites in Israel and worldwide. Outbrain has partnered with content sites, allowing you to reach all readers of these content sites and serve them recommendations for products you want to promote, in the right environment for your brand and when readers are in a reading and engaged mindset. Outbrain’s technology distributes over 10 billion recommendations a day across more than 7,000 content sites worldwide.
In this article, we will explain step by step how to set up your first campaign on Outbrain. You must remember that, to begin with, in order to advertise it is important that you write quality content that provides value to the user and enriches them. We might know all the technical details perfectly, but there is no substitute for quality marketing creative to achieve the goal for which the campaign was created.
Explanation of the Outbrain Advertising System
Outbrain’s system is called Amplify – that is where the control dashboard is located, where we will perform all the necessary actions.
This is what the system looks like:
And these are the content sites in the Outbrain network:
How to Set Up a Campaign on Outbrain?
First, log in to the Amplify platform, where you will click on Add Campaign at the top right.
Now, let’s name the campaign (it is recommended that the name includes the name of the article or website where you are advertising) and the campaign budget.
After that, we will select the campaign objective – Brand Awareness, Traffic, App Installs, or Conversions:
Choose your creative style (standard image, video (clip), carousel, or instant ad):
Choose which placements you wish to advertise in, additionally in More Options you can define device / browser type, and Wi-Fi only usage:
Set your budget. You must determine the cost per click and the budget type (daily, monthly, campaign):
Select the campaign run dates:
Choose which country and region, what the target audiences are, and the interests (for example, interested in cars, interested in news, etc.).
*Please note: If you have not created audiences and this is your first campaign – skip saved audiences and define interests.
Another targeting option you can choose is IAB targeting, Outbrain targeting according to IAB categories. This targeting tool allows you to use the official categories of the IAB organization, which ensures that the campaign will only run on specific pages that meet the criteria you chose – meaning you choose narrower and more focused topics.
After you have defined the audiences, there is an option to set up dynamic retargeting.
After that, we also have the option to use advanced premium placements (High Impact & MSN) where CPCs are usually a bit higher. In addition, you can also exclude users who use AdBlock (users with AdBlockers can see Outbrain campaigns and the option is intended for specific types of campaigns only).
Here we will insert the link to add 3rd party pixels (Facebook, Google) –
You can find more information about installing each pixel here.
Creating the Marketing Ad for Your Article
Site Name – is what appears below your ad headline. It is pulled by default from the site’s metadata, but you have the option to customize it.
Headline – The headline of your ad. You can add multiple headlines for different variations to test what works best.
Image – We can add multiple images to try several variations and check what works best – upload an image from your computer or from a URL
Call to Action Button – You can choose from several calls to action already configured within the system.
To add multiple options (headline and image), click on Add Variation.
Under the image, there is a drop-down menu where you can choose the CTA you want to use in the ad.
CTA buttons are supported in 10 languages – English, French, German, Hebrew, etc…
After you finish creating the ad, you can see the ad you created on the left side, and duplicate or delete it.
If you want to add a new website URL, you can do so by clicking on NEW+ , but our recommendation is to use a single website URL per campaign.
Preview, Image Editing, and Campaign Launch
Outbrain allows you to view ads before launching the campaign as a preview – if you want to edit the cropped images according to each aspect ratio, you can use the image editor. Drag the rectangle to the desired position in the image you want to display.
This will give you control over the size of the image.
When you finish editing the campaign and ad – click on Launch Campaign and your campaign will enter Review.
*Outbrain reviews ads before going live – usually ads are approved within 2 business days.
Finally – this is how an example ad will look:
Tips
- You can separate campaigns by mobile/desktop and set different bids for each campaign. Additionally, you can separate campaigns by bid type to perform A/B testing and see what works and is more effective for your campaigns.
- Do not start a campaign without setting up a pixel, so you can track the data and know if it is effective or wasting money.
- Track campaigns and optimize on a weekly or daily basis if high budgets are involved.
- Always create more and more different ads, run A/B testing, and see what works best for you.
- Creative, creative, and creative – create intriguing, non-banal headlines, headlines with question marks, headlines that raise questions that will lead to a lot of clicks and keep costs low; check where you are directing traffic, and ensure the visibility on mobile + desktop is good
- Upload only 1200X800 pixel ads to Outbrain so they appear completely with good visibility.
Summary
In this article, we explained how to set up your first campaign on Outbrain, which, unlike many advertising systems, is very simple and user-friendly. Through Outbrain you can promote recommendations for products and services as well as landing pages directly, and with good work you will be able to reach an advertising channel for your clients that will bring good results and sales.
About the Author
Adi Golan, Campaign Manager at Fialkov Digital.
