Taboola buys video advertising firm ConvertMedia

A video ad for a car maker, served via ConvertMedia

Content discovery platform Taboola announced today it is buying outstream video ad firm ConvertMedia.

Although deal terms were not made public, TechCrunch reported that the price was “just under $100 million.” The Israel-based ConvertMedia provides outstream videos that reside inside publishers’ content.

In other words, it is a complement to Taboola’s article-focused content discovery platform, which provides those recommendations at the bottom of pages across the web. Here’s how Taboola’s content recommendations typically appear on a page:

In a blog post about the acquisition, Taboola CEO and founder Adam Singolda wrote that the two companies share a common goal: “to become one of the top video/TV companies in the world.”

“We project that together we’ll stream over one billion videos a day and operate on the same scale as YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook,” he wrote. His New York City-based company says it serves content recommendations to over a billion users monthly.

The newly enlarged company, he said, can also now offer “a full native funnel” to publishers, so that either sponsored content or video can be targeted to “the right user at the right time.”

Standalone or outstream sponsored videos are a lucrative source of revenue for publishers, who are increasingly wary of having their content distribution options limited by Google and Facebook. Singolda has said that he expects more ad spending will move to outstream video.

Meanwhile, Verizon’s new purchase of Yahoo indicates it is positioning itself to become the third biggest content/ad giant, but Taboola has previously partnered with Verizon-owned AOL to expand each company’s content distribution footprint.

Taboola’s new acquisition also builds on its drive to become a bigger player in native ads.

In March, the company launched its native ad server, Taboola Native. It is a free, white-labeled version of its personalization platform for the placement of native ads on publishers’ sites and elsewhere on the web. A bike maker, for instance, might have native content that it wants to place on related sites, which Taboola Native can provide.

Last month, Taboola partnered with AppNexus so that advertisers could buy Taboola native ads programmatically.

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About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.