Taboola's Adam Singolda on helping news publishers diversify revenue and brand safety

The ever-evolving digital landscape has brought both opportunities and challenges for publishers and advertisers as the need for quality brand safe content that produces traffic, reach and sales is one that can be very difficult to fulfill.

Content recommendation platform Taboola is responding to the complexities of this landscape by addressing improvements around e-commerce integration, video, and subscription models in its native advertising platform.

However, Taboola and its content recommendation counterparts are often seen as catalysts for spreading low-quality content, like Made-for-advertising websites.

In a short stopover in Singapore, Campaign catches up with Adam Singolda, the chief executive and founder of Taboola, to find out how Taboola is leveraging first-party data to strive for more precise targeting, while balancing this with privacy concerns and using AI to filter out information.

We also discuss the company's 30-year partnership with Yahoo and why its proposed merger with rival Outbrain failed.

Diversifying revenue for publishers

Media outlets like Bloomberg have previously told Campaign they are facing a substantial decrease in the number of visitors coming from Facebook due to a change in the platform's algorithm in May 2023, which inadvertently led to reduced exposure for posts containing links.  

The reduced number of visitors reflects a larger pattern in the industry, with Bloomberg losing around 10 to 15 million monthly visitors from Facebook.

To combat this, Taboola is collaborating on a 'Pull the news' initiative with Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi to integrate news publishers with new Android devices and enhance content discovery on users' most personal devices.

This service recommends important local news directly on device wallpapers or via notifications and claims to contribute significantly to user engagement.

Another area where Taboola says its helping publishers diversify is e-commerce, which has gained momentum during the pandemic. Consumers have become adept digital shoppers, often seeking online reviews even when shopping in physical stores.

To take advantage of this trend, Taboola has helped publishers launch e-commerce sections on platforms like Time.com, offering lifestyle content and e-commerce, where users can review products like coffee machines.

"We have put a lot of effort into this because it is integral to our lifetime value approach, where publishers should view consumers as immediate revenue sources and how we can engage with them over months and years," explains Singolda.

"People are diverse in their preferences. For example, one might prefer videos on a Friday morning, avoiding reading due to a relaxed mind. Another person might favour subscriptions and willingly pay for content, while others may enjoy clicking on things, and some just read without clicking anything."

Singolda continues: "The future of publishing, in terms of engagement and revenue, is not about increasing the number of ads on a page. Instead, it's about using AI and personalisation dynamically to create an experience that's relevant and enjoyable for the user."

Taboola believes its approach is how engagement and revenue will grow over time as the platform spends a lot of time focusing on homepage personalisation, e-commerce, video, and subscription and integrating these elements into a lifetime value mix.

Singolda claims Taboola's approach is why publishers have worked with the platform for a long time, and they do not view Taboola as just another vendor.

He recalls when he first started attending meetings, he usually met with the head of revenue and a product person. Now, these meetings have expanded to include around 12 to 13 people – the editorial team, audience team, subscription team, commerce team, business development team, and more.

"It is fascinating to see rooms filled with people, each wanting to contribute and gain something from the collaboration. It is a collective effort to support journalism and the open web, a significant part of our investment in technology," explains Singolda.

Behind Taboola's long-term deal with Yahoo

As a testament to Taboola's approach to content discovery, in January Yahoo transferred the entirety of its content recommendation business to Taboola for 30 years after Yahoo shut down its supply-side platform, along with Gemini, its self-serve marketplace for native and mobile search ads, However, it is also important to note that Taboola sold Yahoo a 25% stake in the company late last year in exchange for becoming its exclusive partner for native ad sales.

Singolda explains the reason for choosing a 30-year exclusive partnership is that both parties wanted this collaboration to feel enduring, enabling both parties to rely on and innovate seamlessly

"Treating it as just another deal in such a critical partnership did not seem appropriate. We aimed for something more substantial, a commitment I will renew in my 70s, which is quite significant," says Singolda.

"This decision was one of the first topics we discussed. If we embarked on this partnership, it needed to feel everlasting."

The most significant impact of the Yahoo-Taboola partnership will be on the advertisers as businesses today, whether small or large, face the dilemma of where to invest their advertising dollars outside of the walled gardens of Meta, Google and Amazon.

Singdola believes there is a need for one company that can be the 'Google of the open web' but with a positive impact.

"That is the role we aim to fulfil with our company. Our partnership with Yahoo gives us the scale that allows advertisers to confidently choose us for their needs, knowing they can rely on Taboola for journalism coverage and the open web all in one place," explains Singolda.

"This is significant for advertisers because it offers a reliable alternative strategy to Google and Facebook. We aspire to become the first large-scale, essential company for the open web, a feat yet to be achieved in the industry. Our partnership and ambitions are vital – we are not just growing Taboola. We are pioneering a new direction for the open web."

Brand safety for advertisers

People often dismiss native advertising and content recommendations as clickbait or non-premium inventory, but Taboola believes advertisers deserve to know the specifics of their investments.

The platform believes advertisers should know which platform they buy from, which publisher they're engaging with, and what specific articles their audience is viewing. 

"Transparency has always been a core value for us. I strongly support privacy and transparency in advertising," Singolda stresses.

"This commitment to openness is inherent to not being a walled garden. It is embedded in our DNA and distinguishes us from the black box approach, where you are left in the dark about what is happening with your ads."

Singolda points out that Taboola uses first-party data, which is unaffected by the move to a cookieless world, and the platform also focuses heavily on the page's context. 

He notes Taboola benefited when Apple deprecated cookies in 2017 as part of its App Tracking Transparency, as its yield on Safari increased faster than on other browsers like Chrome following this change.

"We can see what users are reading and understand the environment around them. We are not just operating in a display environment without awareness of the user's context," explains Singolda.

"We observe what you're reading, understand the preferences of people like you, and then use that information to recognise and cater to your needs. This approach sets us apart and is a crucial differentiator for us in the market."

Taboola has also embraced generative AI. The platform currently utilises generative AI mainly to help advertisers quickly create titles and thumbnails, which is particularly useful for self-service advertisers who may not have the budget for a creative agency.

On the publisher side, Singolda does not see AI replacing writers but supplementing their work, aiding content creation.

"Our moderation team plays a crucial role in reviewing ads and ensuring adherence to our policies. Whether the content is generated by humans or AI, it undergoes strict scrutiny," explains Singolda.

"You cannot bypass our system at Taboola because we have a stringent policy, a dedicated team for moderation and an AI team that ensures quality. I place immense trust in our moderation team to review and validate all content, regardless of origin."

The road ahead for Taboola

Looking ahead, Taboola focuses on expanding its reach in consumer recommendation services to drive growth.

The platform's ambition is to be omnipresent, whether on Android devices like Xiaomi and others, on TVs, on speakerphones in the kitchen, and even in cars. Taboola aims to integrate wherever consumers are connected and might appreciate our presence.

"This strategy is driven by the understanding that content has a significant emotional impact. People may forget the last ad they clicked on, but they often remember the last piece of content they read or something that influenced a life decision," explains Singolda.

"I believe the next decade will see every connected device company incorporating some service or content strategy. This shift makes me very optimistic about the future."

Will we see another attempt at a merger between Taboola and its rival Outbrain, which failed in 2020? Singolda is not ruling anything out.

He explains the merger with Outbrain didn't materialise because the process was lengthier than anticipated. By the end, both parties had to decide whether to proceed or go their separate ways. Eventually, both companies concluded that parting ways was the sensible choice.

"Our business spans several segments, each facing different types of competition. In the video revenue segment, we encounter specific competitors, while at the bottom of the article segment, we deal with a different set of competitors. Similarly, our editorial suite and commerce sections have their unique competitive landscapes," explains Singolda.

"This variety of competition is integral to our culture, constantly keeping us alert and motivated to learn and improve. We are lucky to be in such an energetic space with great companies and founders with a long-standing passion for their work. Competing with companies like Outbrain and all good companies is a privilege for us."