One of the earlier posts in this series offered An Affiliate Marketer’s Guide to Advertising on Taboola, a revolutionary platform enabling you to route traffic to your website from high-end online publications. Today’s post is about advertising on Outbrain, Taboola’s main competitor.
Here’s how the technology works. Big publishers such as CNN.com use Outbrain’s algorithms to recommend other relevant articles to their visitors. Where it gets interesting is that these algorithms can also recommend external content such as the articles, infographics and videos on your affiliate marketing site.
By advertising on Outbrain, your content could be discovered by visitors to some of the biggest online publications in the world. However you look at it, that’s a golden opportunity for any affiliate marketer.
How Can Affiliate Marketers Advertise on Outbrain?
By not advertising at all. Yes, you did read that correctly: it’s paradoxical, but in order to comply with Outbrain’s content guidelines you’ll need to run your campaigns without blatant advertisement. Outbrain explicitly states that no advertising copy, self-promotional content, commercials or infomercials are allowed. But if your affiliate website contains a blog featuring high quality articles, infographics and videos which are informative or entertaining, it’ll probably fit nicely within the content guidelines.
Once you’re sure your content fulfils the requirements, you’ll want to get to grips with Outbrain Amplify. This service enables you to syndicate your articles to a variety of high-ranking media sites such as the Sydney Morning Herald and ESPN, from whose pages readers will be able to click through to your site. With Outbrain Amplify, better, more engaging content – as measured by CTR – is rewarded with greater reach of promotion throughout the web.
You’ll be charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. CPC varies, but you’ll usually be asked to set a minimum daily budget of $10 US. If you’d like to set up a monthly campaign budget, you can do that upon request.
Why Should Affiliate Marketers Advertise on Outbrain?
Your Content Will Get Noticed by the Right People
Outbrain’s algorithms are especially developed to match readers with the kind of content they’re most interested in reading, so your headlines will always be presented to a receptive audience. A quick look at some of the online forums where Outbrain is discussed reveals that publishers are concerned about losing their readership to sponsored sites! While this isn’t such great news for them, it says a lot about the ability of Outbrain to drive traffic to your site.
You’ll Benefit from the Halo Effect
Because your content will appear on the pages of some of the biggest and most prestigious online publications, your reputation will benefit from the association. And although it may be clear that your thoughts on (say) health and beauty products aren’t directly endorsed by a particular publisher, a sponsored link on their pages can undoubtedly confer a certain cachet.
Exploit the Potential to Reach Completely New Markets
Outbrain claims to be the world’s largest content discovery platform. It certainly has an extensive international reach, claiming to serve 190 billion content recommendations to 561 million readers every month. The company’s technology also enables you to target your content to reach particular countries or – for example – users of mobile devices, allowing you to connect with completely new markets in a systematic, measurable manner.
Tracking and Performance Tools
Every affiliate marketer knows to keep a hawk-like eye on his or her ROI, and Outbrain offers analytics to help you do just that. Using your online dashboard you’ll be able to determine where your inbound traffic is coming from, and how effectively it converts. You’ll also be able to monitor how well different media performs.
Getting Started with Outbrain
Signing up with Outbrain Amplify is a straightforward four-step process. Once you’ve joined you can either work with an account manager to create your first campaign, or go ahead and do it all yourself using a simple and intuitive interface.
If you’re going it alone, the first thing to do is identify the content you want to promote by using the ‘hand-picked’ option for individual articles, or the RSS option for your entire blog. Next, you’ll be prompted to set your campaign’s budget and enter the details of the markets you’d like to reach. Finally, get to know your metrics dashboard and you’ll be poised to run your first campaign. Don’t forget to consult the Help Centre for all manner of tips, tricks and ideas to get the most from your engagement with Outbrain.
The post An Affiliate Marketer’s Guide to Advertising on Outbrain appeared first on Daily Conversions.