Marketing Through Content Discovery Platforms

Marketing Your Markeitng Content

As content marketing continues to be an important part of a brands overall marketing strategy, the need to surface that content to the right audiences has increased.

Content discovery companies like Outbrain, Taboola, Contextly, nRelate, Gravity, Disqus, and now even Facebook are helping to fill that need and leading the way with recommended web content. They are playing a key role in brands’ content marketing efforts as a way to immediately increase views of content and to help that content get discovered. You’ll see content discovery technology on sites from CNN, The New York Times, Fast Company, ZDNet, Weather.com, CBS Sports, and more. And marketers from GE, American Express, Proctor & Gamble, Allstate and more are using content discovery platforms as part of their content marketing strategies. These publishers are using these engines to drive traffic to pages where they can serve up ads. According to BetaBeat, it has particularly helped them in the mobile space where the lack of space has hindered the ability to serve numerous ad impressions.

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Taboola, a leading Content Discovery Platform, evolved from its founder’s frustration with his TV recommending shows he didn’t like. And while Content Discovery Platforms like Taboola may have been built on the idea of recommendations, what they are doing is much different. As Taboola’s CEO has said, “When I started the company, I thought that we’re going after the recommendation space. Over time I realized that I was wrong, and in reality, we were disrupting the Search Marketing and Display markets.” This is very much a case of marketing your marketing.

Are Content Discovery Platforms Effective?

A study titled, “Behavior Shift: Getting Content in Front of Consumers” found that 76 percent of U.S. adults clicked on related/recommended links to other stories. The same study also reported that while researching topics online users are most likely to click on a search result (48 percent), followed by recommended links at the bottom of the article they’ve just read (28 percent). So people are clicking on these links.

Headlines and images are critical. Multiple options can be tested and multiple pieces of content can also be tested to determine what is most effective. The analytics that are provided give good insight into what type of content is generating the most interest and also what is the most engaging. Branded content that has previously gotten views, shares, or downloads is a good start to promote through these platforms. Generally, this type of sponsored content is bought on a pay-per-click basis and see an average of $0.15-$0.20 per click.

Taboola is particularly establishing itself as the leader when it comes to video recommendations as well.

What Brands Utilizing Content Discovery Platforms Need To Be Aware Of

While Content Discovery Platforms do a great job at driving impressions and clicks, brands need to really understand the quality of the audience. There is the potential of a less qualified audience, so it is important to understand the audience through that traffic source and look at bounce rates, time on site, and conversion actions. Brands also need to keep an eye on the other types of content that they are appearing next to, as there is a proliferation of low-quality advertisers as well. While Outbrain in particular has made an effort to increase the quality of the advertisers and headlines, they are still out there.

What’s Next For Content Discovery Platform Companies?

As these Content Discovery startups have grown quickly and continue to be effective drivers of paid traffic, it is only natural that the tech behemoths are getting into the game. There will be acquisitions and partnerships, and Google recently announced they are getting into the game. They announced that they are releasing a beta version of content recommendations from publishers as a way to “drive loyal users and more pageviews.” While there was no indication of paid advertising associated with their product at first, it only seems natural for them to get into the game to complement their AdWords and AdSense products. At the end of the day, content marketing through these platforms may be effective in driving traffic, but only quality content that is valuable to the user will lead to a deeper relationship with the brand.