Outbrain scoops up native advertising DSP Zemanta

Content discovery platform Outbrain announced it has acquired native demand-side platform Zemanta on Tuesday.

Zemanta’s One Native DSP will continue to run as a separate product. The NYC-based firms are not strangers. Zemanta was the only DSP included in Outbrain’s Partner Network when the network debuted last October. Zemanta’s DSP provides programmatic access to native ad inventory on Outbrain and on more than 30 other native ad networks. Zemanta says its DSP is unique in that its bidding algorithm takes predicted user engagement into account.

“Digital marketing has grown on the strength of two important trends — efficiency gains from programmatic buying, and the effectiveness that comes with native advertising,” said Yaron Galai, Outbrain CEO. “Marketers no longer have to sacrifice one in favor of the other. By pairing Outbrain’s global network with Zemanta’s platform, marketers will be able to deliver scale, brand safety, and user engagement in one offering.”

“We are incredibly excited to be joining the world’s leading native advertising company, Outbrain. Together, we have the resources and scale to show the world how native advertising will truly be the foundation of the next phase of online advertising,” said Todd Sawicki, CEO of Zemanta.

In a blog post, Zemanta founder and CPO Bostjan Spetic said the DSP “will be improved by using Outbrain’s Interest Graph and we’ll further develop of algorithms for smart and optimized buying of native advertising. Additionally Outbrain’s worldwide presence will help in bringing it to more marketers.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Outbrain competitors Taboola and RevContent have also been on an acquisition path over the past year. In July 2016, Taboola acquired outstream video service ConvertMedia, and in January 2017, the company bought site personalization and optimization platform Commerce Sciences. In February, RevContent acquired content recommendation engine Rover.

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Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media's Associate Editor, assisting with the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.