Taboola

Taboola
Industry Internet
Founded 2007
Founder Adam Singolda
Headquarters New York City, United States
Key people
 Adam Singolda, CEO
Products Content discovery platform
Website taboola.com

Taboola is a content marketing platform that provides a web widget to content creators on their website to show "Content You May Like" that includes links to related articles, videos, and slideshows, both from within the site and from other publishers.[1] Its closest competitor, that has a somewhat similar business model, is Outbrain.[2] Its clients include BBC, USA Today, Huffington Post, and the Boston Globe.[2]

History

Taboola was founded in early 2007 by Adam Singolda in Israel. Its vision was to show people things they didn’t know they were looking for.[2] In November 2007, Taboola raised a Series A round of $1.5 million from Evergreen Venture Partners to power its video recommendations.[3] In November 2008, Taboola raised more money from Evergreen Venture Partners (the same as their Series A investor).[4]

In August 2010, TechCrunch reported that Taboola had signed up major publishers such as the Huffington Post, had expanded from merely doing video-to-video recommendations to also doing text-to-video recommendations, and had increased Revision3's video uplift by about 90%.[5] It was also reported that Taboola had moved its headquarters from Israel to New York City.

In August 2011, Taboola raised a $9 million Series B round from Marker and Evergreen Venture Partners.[6] This was followed by a $10 million Series C from Marker in June 2012, and a $15 million Series D in February 2013 from Pitango VC, along with existing investors Evergreen Venture Partners, WGI Group, and Marker.[7]

In January 2013, Taboola began doing article recommendations.[8] In September 2013, when it was serving over 3 billion article and video recommendations daily, Taboola launched Taboola Choice: a feature where users could filter out content recommendations they didn't want to see.[9]

In December 2013, Taboola launched an API to bring its content recommendations to native mobile apps.[10]

In August 2014, Taboola acquired Perfect Market, a company that powers text-based advertising on publishers' websites. Taboola also announced the launch of Taboola-X, a tool to help publishers monetize. Along with the announcement, Taboola reported that it was now serving 150 billion recommendations to 400 million unique users every month, and had a $250 million run rate.[11][12][13]

Reception

Taboola has often been compared and contrasted with competitor Outbrain.[14][2] One way that Outbrain claims to distinguish itself from Taboola is that it tries to pre-filter spammy links before displaying them, whereas Taboola takes pride in Taboola Choice: its feature where users can offer feedback on what recommendations they don't like.[2][15][9] Taboola is considered to be a pioneer in native advertising, although it now has many competitors.[16]

Both Taboola and Outbrain have been described by Internet commentators as alternatives to Google AdSense that content publishers should consider for revenue streams.[17][18]

A recurrent criticism of Taboola, as well as of competitor Outbrain, has been that many of the recommendations are spammy and detract from the user experience. In January 2013, Jack Marshall wrote that Taboola recommendations on websites such as Time, Bloomberg.com, and Politico often took users to websites such as Newsmax, which attempted to upsell users to low-quality e-books on topics such as how to avoid financial ruin.[19] A similar criticism was made on Priceonomics in April 2014.[15]

In May 2014, Taboola complied with the Better Business Bureau's request that they make their "sponsored content" disclosures more prominent.[20]

In August 2014, an article in Fortune noted the fierce competition between Taboola and Outbrain, and how each was trying to distinguish itself from the other, as well as the problems both faced with spammy recommendations.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Taboola". CrunchBase. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Griffith, Erin (August 18, 2014). "How Taboola and Outbrain are battling a bad reputation... and each other". Fortune. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  3. ↑ Doleon, Nicholas (November 14, 2007). "Taboola Lands $1.5 Million, Powers Video Discovery". Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  4. ↑ Kee, Tameka (November 18, 2008). "Video Discovery Engine Taboola Gets $4.5 Million Second Round". GigaOm. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
  5. ↑ Carthy, Roi (August 25, 2010). "Taboola Turbo Charges Revision3's Video Uplift By 90%". Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  6. ↑ Kincaid, Jason (August 25, 2011). "Taboola Raises $9 Million To Power Video Recommendations Across The Web". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  7. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (February 19, 2013). "With More Than 1.5B Recommendations Daily, Taboola Raises $15M More To Fund International Expansion". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  8. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (January 18, 2013). "After Growing Revenue 750% In 2012 And Conquering Video, Taboola Goes After Article Recommendations". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lawler, Ryan (September 4, 2013). "Taboola Now Lets You Filter Out Content Recommendations That You Don’t Want To See". Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  10. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (December 19, 2013). "Taboola Launches An API To Bring Its Content Recommendations To Native Mobile Apps". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  11. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (August 4, 2014). "Taboola Acquires Perfect Market, Launches Taboola-X To Help Publishers Monetize Their Sites". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  12. ↑ Lytton-Dickie, Tom (November 17, 2014). "Is content discovery transforming online advertising?". Hot Topics. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  13. ↑ Richards, Katie (August 4, 2014). "Website Recommendation Company Taboola Says It's On Pace To Do $250 Million In Revenue". Business Insider. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  14. ↑ Jeff John Roberts (March 28, 2013). "“Recommended for you”: the fight to decide what you read next". GigaOm. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "How Journalism Promotes The Internet's Shadiest Scams". Priceonomics. April 23, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  16. ↑ Howard McMilan (February 25, 2015). "The Complete Native Ads Widget List". TheMoneyExpert. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
  17. ↑ Taub, Alexander (March 28, 2013). "http://www.forbes.com/sites/alextaub/2013/03/28/how-two-israeli-companies-are-leading-the-pack-in-the-adsense-for-content-space/". Forbes. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  18. ↑ "17 Best Google AdSense Alternatives to Make Money From Your Blog". The Tecnica. April 24, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  19. ↑ Marshall, Jack (May 16, 2013). "Content Marketing’s Got a Quality Problem". DigiDay. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  20. ↑ Davis, Wendy (May 20, 2014). "Better Business Bureau Tells Taboola To Make 'Sponsored Content' Disclosures More Prominent". Media Post. Retrieved September 27, 2014.

External links

Articles