Setting New Priorities: Our DMEXCO Recap

With all the social and business changes that occurred over the past year, what theme could be more fitting than “setting new priorities” – this year’s theme for DMEXCO, the world`s most important marketing exposition and conference. 

At the same time, this year’s exposition itself was still heavily impacted by the restrictions due to the pandemic. Despite all efforts, it had to take place virtually. Instead of attending in-person meetings and finding inspiration in Cologne, attendees visited virtual booths and streamed lectures and talks on their laptops and phones from their homes.

And what are these new priorities you may ask? Topics covered included sustainability, diversity, and the proper use of data, as well as a renewed focus on people and their needs and interests. 

At Outbrain, who we reach through our recommendations is at the heart of our business – that’s why we call the end-user our “boss” – so we took on this consumer-first approach as the topic of our DMEXCO lecture. 

Our co-founder and co-CEO Yaron Galai talked about the fundamental difference between recommendation platforms and other platforms and media companies in online marketing. He explained that while many players in online marketing want to sell their reach and inventory for the highest price (the “auction” in Programmatic advertising being the extreme where actual “bids” take place), Outbrain prefers to predict which recommendations would most interest the consumers and drive the highest engagement, even if it’s at a lower price point. The secret behind this is the compounding effect of engagement which Yaron explains in this blog post.

How can you benefit from this engagement focused approach? Find out yourself – here’s the entire lecture from this year’s DMEXCO: