6 Content Recommendation Networks
What is Content Recommendation?
Content recommendation which falls under the discipline of digital advertising known as native advertising, is a hot sector of the digital advertising ecosystem right now. As a publisher or digital media entrepreneur it is important to understand who the major players are in content recommendation. Here is a list of the companies who power the content recommendation widgets that say “you may also like” on the sidebars of your favorite websites.
RevContent – Native Reimagined. A premium content monetization marketplace with over 100 billion impressions impressions per month and the ability for publishers to create customized native placements on the widgets. Revcontent is known to generate industry leading eCPM’s for it’s publishers.
Outbrain – One of the largest players in native advertising and is subtly on over 100,000 websites today. Outbrain powers 150 billion content recommendations a month on 15 billion page views. This is a very large chunk of the internet and they claim to reach 87% of the US online population
Taboola – Another major player in native advertising. Taboola is comparable to to Outbrain as they power 150 billion content recommendations per month on 400 million users. They have over 1 million pieces of digital content in their marketplace.
Zergnet – Not nearly as large as Outbrain or Taboola in terms of reach, but a solid product that has a bright future if it grows in the right direction. The company. Zergnet is one of the 50 most visited websites on the internet and backed by Mark Cuban! It was founded in 2002 by two Indiana University graduates. Zergnet has over 400 million article recommendations per day and is a free way to send a receive blog traffic if your site is accepted into the network. Around 90% of sites are rejected and Zerget is still finding it’s way into a market dominated by giants.
Yahoo Recommends – Yahoo dipped it’s toes in the native waters with a widget of their own. While they are not nearly as large as the major players they are gaining traction by attracting major publishers such as Hearst and Vox media. Their goal is to help publishers re-circulate old content to spark the viral effect.
nRelate (Out of Business) A player in the space with large potential to grow into a larger provider of native services. Nrelate hits 500 million unique users per month, 4 billion impressions, 100,000 publishers that works on a pay per click model with it’s content.
The Wild West of Native
Native advertising, while not new is still a sort of wild west in the industry with the heavy focus and microscope of programmatic technology. Time will only tell how publishers will adapt and use native and programmatic in unison to create a premium content experience for their clients.