How about an advertising program that brings benefit to the reader, the publisher and the advertiser! Our new program called Sponsored, But Good is designed to do exactly this. If you’re like most people, you’d probably agree that you rarely find ads you see online interesting. Unlike ads on search engines which appear in response to your search query, ads on content pages tend to be unappealing and intrusive. Since we’ve based our entire company on bringing readers of content useful links to other recommended content, we thought: why can’t ads be just as interesting and engaging?
Our thinking goes like this: readers come to your blog or site to read. They are looking for other great stories to read, which is why the engagement rates on the recommendations we provide today are so high. So through Sponsored, But Good, advertisers can now participate in bringing your readers interesting content by sponsoring the distribution of great, interesting stories about their brands. There are millions (well, at least many thousands!) of wonderful articles and blog posts that have positive, authentic things to say about specific brands and products. These authentic endorsements are often written simply because the author loved some aspect of the product or service. Sponsored, But Good allows advertisers to promote great, authentic endorsements of their product or service to readers who may be interested in the message.
Today we are launching the beta version of the program and you will see advertisers starting to populate the system over the next few months.
What will the sponsored recommendations look like on my blog?
Advertisers will pay for the recommendations to be distributed, and not for the content itself. These sponsored recommendations are clearly marked with an icon as shown below. Upon mousing over the "i" icon, the color changes to indicate it's clickable and when clicked, a bubble appears informing the reader that the distribution of the link is sponsored and not the content itself.
(this is a ficticious example as GM is not yet a client)
Upon clicking the above link the reader will go to this public page on CNBC's site. As you can see the author, Phil LeBeau is speaking favorable about his test ride in the Volt;
From an advertiser's perspective, having the ability to expose readers who may be interested in green automobiles to this kind of authentic endorsement is very compelling.
So a few answers to questions we know you'll have:
Can I control what sponsored recommendations show on my blog?
Yes you have full control. Larger publishers have full control over what sponsored recommendations will show on your site and all bloggers have use of the "Link Zapper" to zap any link, sponsored or organic that doesn't quite fit.
How do I earn a portion of the proceeds myself?
If your site, or a collection of sites you own, is editorially approved by outbrain and has 100,000 US pageviews a month or more, you’re eligible for direct compensation from the program and should contact us. If not, we still want the passion you put into your blog to be rewarded as you can choose a charity from your Outbrain dashboard and we’ll donate a meaningful portion of the proceeds generated on your site to it at year’s end.
How Many Sponsored Recommendations Will Show? We will not show more than 1 sponsored recommendation in our widget at a time. In many cases we won't show any sponsored recommendations - we always want to make sure your readers get interesting and timely reading recommendations. When we don't have a great sponsored recommendation to show, we will continue showing recommendations, including links to your own content.
Do I Have To Participate?
No. You can opt out of the program (and opt back in) at any time through your outbrain dashboard. You can also set your charity preferences there:
- Go to http://www.outbrain.com/ln/ManageBlogs
- Select “Settings” for the blog of your choice
- Select your charity or opt out of the program in the “Sponsored Recommendation” section
If you are currently registered and showing external recommendations (in your dashboard this is shown as "Best Recommendations") you will be enrolled in the program by default.
If you are registered and don’t choose a charity, proceeds from your site will be donated to the International Red Cross.
If you are not currently set to show external recommendations, you will not be enrolled in the program automatically and you’ll need to enroll by following these easy steps;
- Go to http://www.outbrain.com/ln/ManageBlogs
- Select “Settings” for the blog of your choice and choose "Best Recommendations"
- Select your charity or if you have over 100K page views a month contact us.
With our new program, Sponsored, But Good, everyone wins;
Readers: Who are our highest priority, continue to discover great new content through our recommendations, whether sponsored or organic.
Bloggers/Publishers: Can make money from the program if they are editorially approved and meet certain traffic requirements. Those bloggers with more passion for writing than traffic will be able to choose a charity which will receive donations at year end from Outbrain.
Advertisers: Finally have a scalable method to amplify some of the great things their peers and customers are saying about their products and services. We will help advertisers surface the right conversation to the right people through our reader focused approach that aims to cut the unnecessary waste out of online advertising.
Yes we are doing something quite different with this program, but our true guiding light is to do right by you and your readers. Participating in this program helps us keep our lights on, earns you or a charitable cause you care deeply about some money and above all helps your readers discover new and interesting content. Our goal is to find an advertising medium that distributes the benefits equally between the reader, publisher and advertiser. In our opinion this perfect balance hasn’t been found yet. We hope you’ll join us in working towards this goal.
Update - LouisGray, Mashable, CenterNetworks and VentureBeat covered the release.
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