Israeli content engine Outbrain announced Thursday morning that it bought ROI-tracking content startup Revee (@revee_nue), a Los Angeles company that had previously only raised $1 million. Outbrain has already turned the technology into the basis of their new Outbrain Automatic Yield service and announced Time Inc. as their first client. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed but it sounds like Outbrain scooped up something fast after they discovered it.
“With the rise of social platforms and more prevalent ad blocking, publishers’ core business is under fire,” Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai said in a press release. “Through this acquisition, Outbrain will be providing media companies with the technology and data they need to track the value of all content in real-time, maximize their revenue streams and grow their audience.”
Revee has given publishers on-point data about page views, CTR and revenue as a result of posts. They offer analytics platforms for organic traffic and referral traffic. Integrating that service into Outbrain could be revolutionary for adtech, as it promises to deliver live ROI analytics from one of the world’s biggest content engines and outpaces Outbrain’s major competitor Taboola.
Revee offers concise ROI analytics on content, something in high demand in the SEO and content marketing industries (image, revee.com)
That is huge for marketers and their clients who often have difficulty quantifying the bang for their buck during online marketing campaigns. Outbrain boasts 200 billion recommendations a month to some 557 million people globally, but the acquisition also demonstrates Outbrain is aware that dropping links with eye-grabbing photos isn’t enough to keep cross-channel traffic up.
Referring to a drop in Facebook-originating and Google-referring traffic, Outbrain’s VP of Product Marketing Matt Crenshaw said in a statement, “Publishers are frustrated and need a new solution. With Outbrain Automatic Yield, we’ve created an easy way for publishers to drive profitable traffic, ensuring user personalization and revenue delivery work together in real-time.”
Besides Time, Outbrain has been beta-testing with Fox News and Fox Business. They also tout granting access to more clients in the United Kingdom, France and Israel in the coming weeks.
“It’s no longer feasible to look at content delivery and how publishers make money in isolation,” Galai went on to say. “This acquisition is indicative of where you’ll see our platform moving — serving both the demands of audiences and the publisher’s larger revenue needs in real-time.”
Revee was co-founded in August 2013 by former Penske Media colleagues Nic Paul and Cham Kim.