Case Study

FUNKE Digital Opens New Revenue Streams and Increases RPM by 48% with Outbrain In-Article Native

48%RPM Lift (average)

46%Paid CTR Lift (average)

Connecting FUNKETo new premium advertiser budgets

Introduction

The digital heart of the FUNKE Media Group, FUNKE Digital is a pioneer in the online publishing space. Since collaborating with Outbrain in 2017, FUNKE Digital has achieved three-digit percentage revenue growth each year.

The Challenge

FUNKE was one of the first media companies in Germany to introduce Outbrain‘s feed discovery solution, Smartfeed, and in-article placements. They are consistently open to exploring new ad placements, formats, and optimizations in order to increase RPM and create engaging ad experiences.

The Solution

To maximize revenues from their Outbrain partnership, FUNKE embraced Outbrain’s new In-Article Native solution. This provides access to a range of newly launched Smartad formats built for high viewability placements such as Native Social, Native Display, and Native Video. The beautiful and impactful Native Social Smartad enables FUNKE and other premium publishers to acquire advertiser budgets from the walled gardens and transfer them to the open web.

Outbrain’s In-Article Native solution is powered by a sophisticated serving logic that ensures the highest yielding Smartad format is shown to audiences.

Maximizing both the placement RPM and fill rates by connecting partners to demand from the full suite of Outbrain Smartad formats – delivering on advertiser goals from awareness to performance.

Once the right Smartad format is selected, personalization is taken further. Subtle but impactful UI enhancements are applied, creating the most personalized discovery experience to boost audience engagement rates.

Outbrain In-Article Native allows FUNKE to optimally monetize their in-article inventory. FUNKE is connected to the largest range of premium advertiser budgets and beautiful ad formats, maximizing fill rates, CTRs and commercial returns.

Outbrain continues to be a valuable, full stack Native partner. They consistently innovate and expand their offerings to maximize monetization opportunities for our business. Their In-Article Native solution allows us to efficiently fill precious page real estate with quality demand that appeals to our readers. The solution is simple and seamless, giving us access to a wide range of ad formats to match our KPIs. Outbrain is a partner who truly understands our industry as we continue to work in partnership to tackle our challenges head on.”

Alexander Voss, Head of Ad Technology & Monetization, FUNKE Digital