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Outbrain - The best CBS option (13)

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Hello STM community , hope all of you are doing great.

I have a question to Outbrain experts about the difference between the CBS types that OB provides.

In fact, I know what's the big meaning of which of them but I really want to get it deeply and to get a better understanding regards which of them could be the best for the affiliates needs and how exactly it working.

whether to stick to the semi-auto during all the phases of the camp is the correct way or maybe to start with the semi and switch to the fully after some amount of conversions? and what about the Target Cpa?

I would love to your read opinions from your own experience, thank you folks

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My OB account manager told me to use semi auto. I think some affiliates here are using semi auto as well. I was told to just stick with semi auto for now and adjust bid as necessary to keep it slightly above or equal to “actual CPC”. Did your account manager tell you to use semi auto as well?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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hey @bhal07 , thanks for your comment man.

I'm using semi-auto as sell although my rep told me that the Fully-auto and the Target Cpa are much more better than the Semi. however, according to my experience with him until now, not all the things that he told me are accurate and this is the reason i thought to come up with this issue to the STM community and to hear another opinions.

so, are you using the semi and adjusting the bid manually? or do you do it by automatic rules which override the algo optimization?

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I like semi-auto but I haven't tried fully auto that much and haven't tried targetcpa at all so need to do that!

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Man you're focusing too much on what conversion bid strategy to follow.

Although Semi-Automatic is like the most suggested CBS, be assured that in 99% of the cases the success of your campaigns are totally dependent on your Ads + Lander + Offer.

If you really want to leverage Outbrain's algorithm, I would suggest you do the following:



Campaign Objective: Conversion
Bid Strategy: Semi Automatic
Conversions: Select the main conversion goal you want to optimize for..
Max CPC Limit: 100% (no need to bump this above the standard)
Run Experiment: Enabled - Start with either 50% or 60% doesn't make a huge difference.

With the campaign started, let the campaign run for a couple of weeks at least to collect enough data and make decisions on reliable data. At least to have the Objective & Optimization column report as "A/B Optimized".

Once your campaign is reporting A/B optimized you can check and compare the results of the Standard vs. Conversion Mode traffic allocation, then throttle the traffic accordingly to where you see better results from. Example below:



In the above settings you can switch the campaign to fully optimized and end the test immediately, or do it slowly moving towards the fully optimized by 10% at a time to prevent any unexpected drops of the fully optimized conversion mode.

Again, results heavily depend on your funnel including ads, landers (angles, images) and the offer itself.

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Thanks for you detailed answer man @platinum

actually I did test the CBS vs standard traffic for a few times but once i could see that in the most of my cases the CBS won, I gave up about the option to test it every camp.
my question is more about the difference between the CBS options, and i know that semi-auto is the most suggested one, just wondered recently if it like that also in terms of no automatic rules which override the CBS and make adjustments to the sections because I still don't have it.

as to the conversion goal i want to optimize for - until now I have selected two , so in any case would you suggest to focus just in the main one?

and regards to the focusing mainly in the ads + landers + offer , I will keep it in my mind , thank you very much

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Although conversion mode will end up winning the competition most of the time, I don't think running the test is a waste of time or budget. To some extent it gives you more control over the campaign, without having to compete with the algorithm due to the changes you make to your campaigns to limit ad spend waste.

As for one vs. multiple conversion goals, I believe setting a single main conversion goal is always best, rather than having multiple ones. It would not be strange for OB's algo to optimize towards the less important conversion when it can get it for cheaper and higher frequency, then consider the campaign to it's optimal conversion rate.

Again test CBS for yourself and decide based on your results, not everyone is getting the same results as what works for someone doesn't necessarily work for someone else.

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Real valuable information @platinum

as to the testing of the CBS , what your opinion about change it during running camp? it might confusing the algo and damage the camp performances and better to test it by duplicate the camp or it would be ok to change it in the current one?

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Repeat after me.

Never, ever, ever make massive changes to a profitable campaign.

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Never ,ever ,ever I will do massive changes to a profitable campaign , hahaha thanks man @iwanttofly

And we if we are talking about campaign that still not profitable but not bad at all (like -20 ROI) it is still valid?

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I would say you'll have to find out for yourself. But if a campaign is at -20% ROI, then it probably doesn't need massive change to get profitable.

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Watch @platinum blow your mind if you're just tuning into Native:

This is incomprehensible to anyone coming from the fast and furious world of pops, push, or even FB.

Now I want to delete all my Native camp data and start over from scratch

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Well, Revcontent isn't Taboola or Outbrain, but yeah.

That is basically how I got here. Yes, I did cut sites and even creatives along the way, but I just let it run and collect data. I haven't added a single creative to the campaign. It was profitable before I screwed it up, and it was profitable again yesterday and seems well on its way to be profitable today.

I started with 3 images, 3 headlines and 2 landers. I'm down to 3 creatives and 1 lander, and of the creatives 1 gets probably 90% of the spend if not more now that Taboola has switched to optimized from A/B Testing on the creatives.

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