Native programmatic, the ability to buy native ad spots programmatically, may be a buzzword from years past, but Outbrain MD APAC Andrew Burke says it’s yet to be fully realised and is where the business has set its sight on for future growth.
Outbrain, which has a team of 25 in Sydney and 70 across the APAC region, is a content distribution platform founded in Israel with a reach of more than half a billion people globally each month.
It has 17 offices internationally, including New York, Mumbai and Singapore.
Burke told AdNews that programmatic is a key area of growth for the business.
Outbrain’s purchase of Zemanta, a native programmatic demand side platform, in 2017 was part of this strategic direction.
At the time of the acquisition, Outbrain SVP of strategy Gilad de Vries said it was an opportunity to help put “native advertising on the same scale as a display”.
Burke says the space is dynamic and there is pressure to evolve and change and find new revenue opportunities.
“Zemanta was a huge investment to take us into the programmatic buying landscape and give our clients the ability to purchase all of our real estate programmatically," he says.
Burke says that while native advertising is now consumed across the entire internet and excitement in the once hot topic may be waning, he’s still confident in its growth.
“Native is still experiencing explosive growth, although last year was a little softer compared to the year prior,” Burke says.
“So from our perspective, native is the new display, it’s the intelligent way to connect with your audience.
“We’re seeing programmatic and native come together, but they haven’t quite collided yet but that’s how we’re positioning ourselves and it’s a really exciting place for us to be.”
Outbrain has all the major agencies as its clients, such as GroupM and Dentsu Aegis Network, as well as publishers including The Guardian and CNN.
Burke says the company is still trying to educate the market about native advertising, saying it’s still somewhat an “unknown”.
But the acquisition of Zemanta excits Burke the most, saying it’s a “game changer” allowing the company to “attack the likes of Google and Facebook”.
But on its path to expansion, it’s had some setbacks, although Burke wouldn’t describe them as such.
Last month News Corp ended its seven year relationship with Outbrain in favour of Taboola, saying the latter is an “innovative, data-driven technology company that can help support our business and grow audience”.
However, Burke isn't bothered about being dropped from one of Australia’s largest publishers, saying Outbrain doesn’t rely on a single publisher.
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