Outbrain, a leading recommendation platform for the open web, has unveiled QualityRating™, one of the most significant algorithm updates in the company’s history. QualityRating will factor into Outbrain’s existing algorithm to enhance the personalised feed experiences that inspire the discovery of content. Today these recommendation feeds reach more than 1 billion users consuming content on the 7,000+ websites, apps, and devices that Outbrain powers.
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, every promoted ad will go through a real-time quality rating process. This rating will then be used by Outbrain’s recommendation engine to enhance the personalised feed experience tailored to each user. Advertisers that will implement Outbrain’s quality guidelines are expected to perform better on the platform, thereby benefiting from higher distribution and reaching more diverse audiences.
“Outbrain has always built our technology around the consumer. When we show content, our goal is to appeal to a diverse set of people that have a wide variety of interests. We see a huge opportunity to get more users engaged rather than just getting more engagement,” said Yaron Galai, Co-CEO, and Co-Founder of Outbrain. “Media owners work hard to maintain a high standard for their own content, and by deploying QualityRating for advertisers we will ensure that we are creating the best user experience for their readers while delivering strong ROAS for advertisers.”
Outbrain will start gradual testing of QualityRating in the second half of 2021 to allow all stakeholders sufficient time to adjust to a full rollout in 2022. The implementation of QualityRating extends Outbrain’s long-standing commitment to enabling meaningful recommendations for consumers.
“Combining our deep understanding of context and engagement, from analysing more than 1 billion data events per minute, with QualityRating will create a more powerful personalised feed experience,” said Andraz Tori, Head of Recommendations Technology, Outbrain. “It will allow us to surface new recommendations best suited to consumers’ preferences.”
Detailed guidelines around the specific elements of content that contribute to quality can be found on Outbrain’s Help Center here.