Outbrain tightens rules on overly commercial content marketing
Content marketing platform Outbrain has updated its guidelines on the type of content from brands it will guide readers to.
The Outbrain widget
Outbrain provides the widget that sits under stories on news websites including those of Fairfax Media and News Corp and entices readers to click on brand-created content elsewhere on the web.
The company then shares revenue with the publishers based on brands paying for the clicks.
If “self-promotional content” is banned then content created by all brands is f***ed surely?
The eToro ad in the example above is definitely that.
Honestly these links are rarely relevant to me. Contextly.com and similar ought to eat their lunch, if they can accurately determine what the best links to recommend actually are, instead of promoting the random stuff Outbrain serves up.
With all the hyperventilating about marketing content it should come as no surprise that it has been created for decades:
http://www.adnews.com.au/adnew.....ng-changed
Nothing has changed. We just more tools now and far too many buzzwords pretending to be bright new shiny things!
@Anonymous: Fair comment. and I agree that a lot of content out there is too self-serving. We work closely with many brands and agencies that produce great content. Informative, insightful and entertaining. If the content is done well, reader’s don’t mind if the content is coming from a brand.
@Tim: We try our best and work hard to make sure readers discover great stories that are relevant for them. I am sorry to learn you feel some stories are less relevant… we always strive to learn and will forever aim to improve and grow our index of promoted stories with content that really add value to readers.
@Tony: You are absolutely right…Content Marketing is anything but new 🙂 the way to discover / distribute content has seen several interesting innovations in the digital space as readers shift to digital and specifically to mobile and social.
I think having standards like these are very important when distributing paid content. There is nothing worse than clicking on a headline that has nothing to do with the content.
Way to go, Outbrain!
great move by Outbrain and I see this as a win for consumers of online news.