A New Approach to Content Recommendation Revenue

WhizzCo, an Israeli startup, proposes a shift in strategy for publishers, advocating for the implementation of a programmatic, auction-based system for advertisements featured in content recommendation widgets – such as those offered by Outbrain and Taboola.

While this approach is standard practice for most other digital advertising formats, Alon Rosenthal, co-founder and CEO, found it surprisingly difficult to apply the same level of revenue optimization to these widgets when managing his own websites.

Identifying a Key Challenge

Rosenthal described the difficulty as a significant “pain point” in maximizing monetization potential.

In response, WhizzCo developed a Content Recommendation Yield Platform. This platform aggregates native advertising from over 40 different content recommendation providers.

How the Platform Works

The system intelligently predicts which provider will generate the highest revenue for each ad impression, considering metrics like CPM, CPC, and CPA. Subsequently, it delivers the advertisement from the selected provider.

WhizzCo prioritizes a seamless user experience. They collaborate with publishers to ensure recommendation widgets and ads integrate naturally into the page design.

Furthermore, the platform’s appearance remains consistent regardless of the ad source. Implementation involves adding WhizzCo’s JavaScript directly to the site’s code, avoiding the header to prevent any potential loading issues.

Early Success and Validation

Founded in 2017, WhizzCo has already partnered with several publishers, including She Media, a division of Penske Media Corporation.

Ryan Nathanson, Senior Vice President of Operations at She Media, stated that the platform fostered a competitive environment, enabling greater customization, increased competition, and improved control over editorial guidelines.

This resulted in a reported 75% increase in content recommendation CPM.

Demonstrated Revenue Growth

On average, WhizzCo clients experience a 37.7% increase in revenue generated from content recommendations.

Rosenthal acknowledges that achieving peak performance consistently is unrealistic for any platform, even industry giants like Google.

He positions WhizzCo’s technology as a solution to this inherent limitation, continuously optimizing performance to deliver superior results.