Expanding Scale from Outbrain to Taboola (18)
Hello STM community,
So after my last thread about OB which was so helpful with a lot of valuable information thanks to @jack_l @platinum and @iwanttofly , I can finally say that I have been running a good green ecom camp which is already scale in Outbrain and I feel like its the right time to expand to Taboola 
I've already opened account and got some rep (thanks again buddy @iwanttofly) ,unfortunately I have been rejected for the first camp that I sent but working on it to get approved.
I can guess that in general there are a lot of similar things between OB and TB but in the same time I sure that there a different stuff either which I have to learn in order to run as efficient as possible.
So I'd love to hear some insight/tips/advices from your experience like the difference between the CBS's systems (in OB I have been running with Fully auto or Tcpa) , the best approach for managing the ads , the camp settings , budget , CPC , optimization approach and whatever you could think about which could be helpful for me.
I'll appreciate to hear any of your views of point
Going from OB to Taboola sounds way easier than the other way around
I'm sure others will have a completely different way to run camps, but I'll chime in anyway.
Once you finally get it approved, Smartbid works like a charm and is very simliar to Semi/Fully Auto on OB. Once the algo has learned it, you can put the CPA Goal as well in the camp settings and supposedly the algo tries to aim for it.
Campaign setting at 6-10x payout daily budget. I cut ads at 1-2x payout no conversions. Sites at 1x or less than 5% LP CTR after 30 clicks. That's... pretty much it.
The hardest part of Taboola is compliance. Only way around that, is to go back and forth with your rep/compliance chat, or just constantly upload new shit and hope something gets approved.
Originally Posted by jaybot
Going from OB to Taboola sounds way easier than the other way around
I'm sure others will have a completely different way to run camps, but I'll chime in anyway.
Once you finally get it approved, Smartbid works like a charm and is very simliar to Semi/Fully Auto on OB. Once the algo has learned it, you can put the CPA Goal as well in the camp settings and supposedly the algo tries to aim for it.
Campaign setting at 6-10x payout daily budget. I cut ads at 1-2x payout no conversions. Sites at 1x or less than 5% LP CTR after 30 clicks. That's... pretty much it.
The hardest part of Taboola is compliance. Only way around that, is to go back and forth with your rep/compliance chat, or just constantly upload new shit and hope something gets approved.
I'm sure others will have a completely different way to run camps, but I'll chime in anyway.
Once you finally get it approved, Smartbid works like a charm and is very simliar to Semi/Fully Auto on OB. Once the algo has learned it, you can put the CPA Goal as well in the camp settings and supposedly the algo tries to aim for it.
Campaign setting at 6-10x payout daily budget. I cut ads at 1-2x payout no conversions. Sites at 1x or less than 5% LP CTR after 30 clicks. That's... pretty much it.
The hardest part of Taboola is compliance. Only way around that, is to go back and forth with your rep/compliance chat, or just constantly upload new shit and hope something gets approved.
As to the Smartbid, do you tweaking the CPC during the camp whether if it's the base camp cpc or wheter its the cpc per secion/ad? or you let the Smartbid do it for you?
6-10X payout daily budget is it type of budget have you been running with in OB either or its works diffrent in Taboola? because usually I start a given camp with 3x payout so just wondering..
As to the Cpa goal within camp settings, wouldn't you suggest to set it from the beginning?
And regards to Ads, how many of them do you upload to a new camp usually? is it suggested to keep upload new ads during the camp all the time like in OB?
And about the approval process, as I understand from you , its tend to be way more harder than in OB?
Thanks again man!
Originally Posted by sportex
Thanks for your comment @jaybot
As to the Smartbid, do you tweaking the CPC during the camp whether if it's the base camp cpc or wheter its the cpc per secion/ad? or you let the Smartbid do it for you?
6-10X payout daily budget is it type of budget have you been running with in OB either or its works diffrent in Taboola? because usually I start a given camp with 3x payout so just wondering..
As to the Cpa goal within camp settings, wouldn't you suggest to set it from the beginning?
And regards to Ads, how many of them do you upload to a new camp usually? is it suggested to keep upload new ads during the camp all the time like in OB?
And about the approval process, as I understand from you , its tend to be way more harder than in OB?
Thanks again man!
As to the Smartbid, do you tweaking the CPC during the camp whether if it's the base camp cpc or wheter its the cpc per secion/ad? or you let the Smartbid do it for you?
6-10X payout daily budget is it type of budget have you been running with in OB either or its works diffrent in Taboola? because usually I start a given camp with 3x payout so just wondering..
As to the Cpa goal within camp settings, wouldn't you suggest to set it from the beginning?
And regards to Ads, how many of them do you upload to a new camp usually? is it suggested to keep upload new ads during the camp all the time like in OB?
And about the approval process, as I understand from you , its tend to be way more harder than in OB?
Thanks again man!
Smartbid tries to go up and down on its own, but you can adjust bids up by % on each site if they are doing well. But you can only nump it up to 100% the original bid, so once you reach that ceiling, you have to update the campaign bid (and then readjust all your other individual bids to match what they were).Lol, fuck no. Outbrain I set it to $20 daily budget and let it bleed, raise $20, bleed, raise $20 bleed. Until I get sick of the camp and give up
When I say 6X payout, I'm thinking $20-30 lead gen, so it's it's ecom or $100 Nutra, obviously adjust.
You can, and I do set CPA Goal right away. I've just been told that the campaign never even looks at it until it's out of the 'learning' phase.
Ads are... as many as you can upload. 6 ads is normally enough, but since they are so strict on a bunch of shit, maybe 1 of them will get approved. I swear for new camps, they just reject everything the first 3-4 attemps anwyay, so I'm not sure it matters
Compliance is more strict than OB, but much faster (1-3 days tops). OB is less strict, but super fucking slow (1 week, maybe?). This, of course depends on your spend. The more you spend on both platforms, the magically faster approvals/rejections become
Originally Posted by jaybot
I do both Smartbid tries to go up and down on its own, but you can adjust bids up by % on each site if they are doing well. But you can only nump it up to 100% the original bid, so once you reach that ceiling, you have to update the campaign bid (and then readjust all your other individual bids to match what they were).
Lol, fuck no. Outbrain I set it to $20 daily budget and let it bleed, raise $20, bleed, raise $20 bleed. Until I get sick of the camp and give up
When I say 6X payout, I'm thinking $20-30 lead gen, so it's it's ecom or $100 Nutra, obviously adjust.
You can, and I do set CPA Goal right away. I've just been told that the campaign never even looks at it until it's out of the 'learning' phase.
Ads are... as many as you can upload. 6 ads is normally enough, but since they are so strict on a bunch of shit, maybe 1 of them will get approved. I swear for new camps, they just reject everything the first 3-4 attemps anwyay, so I'm not sure it matters
Compliance is more strict than OB, but much faster (1-3 days tops). OB is less strict, but super fucking slow (1 week, maybe?). This, of course depends on your spend. The more you spend on both platforms, the magically faster approvals/rejections become
Smartbid tries to go up and down on its own, but you can adjust bids up by % on each site if they are doing well. But you can only nump it up to 100% the original bid, so once you reach that ceiling, you have to update the campaign bid (and then readjust all your other individual bids to match what they were).Lol, fuck no. Outbrain I set it to $20 daily budget and let it bleed, raise $20, bleed, raise $20 bleed. Until I get sick of the camp and give up
When I say 6X payout, I'm thinking $20-30 lead gen, so it's it's ecom or $100 Nutra, obviously adjust.
You can, and I do set CPA Goal right away. I've just been told that the campaign never even looks at it until it's out of the 'learning' phase.
Ads are... as many as you can upload. 6 ads is normally enough, but since they are so strict on a bunch of shit, maybe 1 of them will get approved. I swear for new camps, they just reject everything the first 3-4 attemps anwyay, so I'm not sure it matters
Compliance is more strict than OB, but much faster (1-3 days tops). OB is less strict, but super fucking slow (1 week, maybe?). This, of course depends on your spend. The more you spend on both platforms, the magically faster approvals/rejections become
So as to the bids, I can guess that if you do plays with the bids per section (and sometimes you have to adjust it from the CPC camp's settings like you said) you don't trust 100% on the Smartbid to do it for you and you believe that it would be better to keep an eye on it closely and to do some manual work if required and in case the Smartbid doesn't do it? I asking beacsue in OB for example , I have noticed that at least with Fully Auto (or Tcpa) the best approach is to let the algo to do it alone and actually after some attempts to play with it manual I found out that its cause more damage than benefit.
As to Ads , I realized that TB's algo makes some priority to the ones who doing better compare to the others according to the first couple days and then keeps send the most of the traffic to them?
So its still important to keeps upload new ads all the time in order to improve the CTR (like its strongly suggested to do in OB) and it let a fair chance to the new ones or its used to keep sending the most of the traffic to the good ones from the beginning of the camp?
About the learning phase , does it take 11 days like they said or its just the maximum and usually it takes less?
As I see the real stats of the camps updated on delay of 2-4 hours same like in OB?
Is there any way to see the live stats into TB dash like the "real time data" in OB?
furthermore, are they don't have some OB code for settings auto rules like in OB or are you use the Optimizer so you don't know?
Thanks man
!
I'd love to hear another opinions/point of views/approaches if possible
@platinum @jack_l
I also try not to mess with blocking widgets on Taboola, and rarely block anything, though others will disagree with that strongly.
Also Outbrain will spend as fast as it can generally, even on Automatic or Semi-Automatic bidding... Taboola will spread the spend out throughout the day on SmartBid, or even focus on specific times of day for you. They'll also raise/lower the spend day to day as well if you use monthly budgets.
Taboola's SmartBid seems a little more 'sensitive' than Outbrains... more like how I've heard Facebook's is...
Other than that I do it pretty much the same
Originally Posted by jack_l
Hey @sportex - so to answer your question, the only thing I do different on Taboola vs Outbrain is 1) I don't 'rev the engine', at least not much, and pretty much just start at or just above my desired target bid.
I also try not to mess with blocking widgets on Taboola, and rarely block anything, though others will disagree with that strongly.
Also Outbrain will spend as fast as it can generally, even on Automatic or Semi-Automatic bidding... Taboola will spread the spend out throughout the day on SmartBid, or even focus on specific times of day for you. They'll also raise/lower the spend day to day as well if you use monthly budgets.
Taboola's SmartBid seems a little more 'sensitive' than Outbrains... more like how I've heard Facebook's is...
Other than that I do it pretty much the same
I also try not to mess with blocking widgets on Taboola, and rarely block anything, though others will disagree with that strongly.
Also Outbrain will spend as fast as it can generally, even on Automatic or Semi-Automatic bidding... Taboola will spread the spend out throughout the day on SmartBid, or even focus on specific times of day for you. They'll also raise/lower the spend day to day as well if you use monthly budgets.
Taboola's SmartBid seems a little more 'sensitive' than Outbrains... more like how I've heard Facebook's is...
Other than that I do it pretty much the same
So regarding bids , if I understand you correctly, do you usually set the desired one from the beginning or a little bit more than that? and then let the Smartbid to tweaking the bids for you? without touch that too much?
Your "non-blocking" approach is really interesting since I have read here in the forum that Taboola has a lot of shit sections, bot traffic, etc.. so it would be interesting to hear what it based on?
And one more really important point I'd love to hear from you about - the type of the budget:
Do you use daily or monthly? and if its daily, how you calculate which number to set in the spending limit section? just dailyX30? or more than that for any reason?
Thanks man
Originally Posted by sportex
Thanks again buddy @jaybot
So as to the bids, I can guess that if you do plays with the bids per section (and sometimes you have to adjust it from the CPC camp's settings like you said) you don't trust 100% on the Smartbid to do it for you and you believe that it would be better to keep an eye on it closely and to do some manual work if required and in case the Smartbid doesn't do it? I asking beacsue in OB for example , I have noticed that at least with Fully Auto (or Tcpa) the best approach is to let the algo to do it alone and actually after some attempts to play with it manual I found out that its cause more damage than benefit.
As to Ads , I realized that TB's algo makes some priority to the ones who doing better compare to the others according to the first couple days and then keeps send the most of the traffic to them?
So its still important to keeps upload new ads all the time in order to improve the CTR (like its strongly suggested to do in OB) and it let a fair chance to the new ones or its used to keep sending the most of the traffic to the good ones from the beginning of the camp?
About the learning phase , does it take 11 days like they said or its just the maximum and usually it takes less?
As I see the real stats of the camps updated on delay of 2-4 hours same like in OB?
Is there any way to see the live stats into TB dash like the "real time data" in OB?
furthermore, are they don't have some OB code for settings auto rules like in OB or are you use the Optimizer so you don't know?
Thanks man !
So as to the bids, I can guess that if you do plays with the bids per section (and sometimes you have to adjust it from the CPC camp's settings like you said) you don't trust 100% on the Smartbid to do it for you and you believe that it would be better to keep an eye on it closely and to do some manual work if required and in case the Smartbid doesn't do it? I asking beacsue in OB for example , I have noticed that at least with Fully Auto (or Tcpa) the best approach is to let the algo to do it alone and actually after some attempts to play with it manual I found out that its cause more damage than benefit.
As to Ads , I realized that TB's algo makes some priority to the ones who doing better compare to the others according to the first couple days and then keeps send the most of the traffic to them?
So its still important to keeps upload new ads all the time in order to improve the CTR (like its strongly suggested to do in OB) and it let a fair chance to the new ones or its used to keep sending the most of the traffic to the good ones from the beginning of the camp?
About the learning phase , does it take 11 days like they said or its just the maximum and usually it takes less?
As I see the real stats of the camps updated on delay of 2-4 hours same like in OB?
Is there any way to see the live stats into TB dash like the "real time data" in OB?
furthermore, are they don't have some OB code for settings auto rules like in OB or are you use the Optimizer so you don't know?
Thanks man
!If I like the traffic from a certain site, I will absolutely bump it up. And if it gets more than 2 conversions and still profitable, I'll set the CPC to 85% the EPC. I want more traffic from that site as long as it's making money, I will give it more money.
Of course, if it takes a dive, I will lower it back down. And if it sucks completely (1X payout and no conversions or if LP CTR < 5% after 30 clicks), I will turn it off, or bid down really low. As long as you don't change the bidding from SmartBid to Manual, I don't think you'll hurt the algortihms feelings too much
Yes. Taboola's algo is notorious for latching onto the highest performing ad and giving all the traffic to it. But. Give it a day or two and it may even out. If it doesn't, nothing you upload will compete with it unless you turn it off. But if it's making money, do you want to risk that?
In that case, it is better to duplicate the camp and use different Ads in the new camp and see how it performs vs. the original. Your AM will of course always uploading/using new ads because the ad server will make you lose auctions if there isn't enough 'variety'. But... that's not always possible.
Stats are delayed by about 1 hour (+ some random 8-15 minutes) on Taboola. Nothing we can do about that. Only real time data I know of is in your tracker. But Taboola sends a shitload of extra clicks, so you kinda have to ignore those and update costs manually, same as OB.
No settings for auto-optimizing rules like in OB. You either use theOptimizer, do it manually, or what @jack_l said, let the smartbid do its thing
Originally Posted by jaybot
Everyone does it different
If I like the traffic from a certain site, I will absolutely bump it up. And if it gets more than 2 conversions and still profitable, I'll set the CPC to 85% the EPC. I want more traffic from that site as long as it's making money, I will give it more money.
Of course, if it takes a dive, I will lower it back down. And if it sucks completely (1X payout and no conversions or if LP CTR < 5% after 30 clicks), I will turn it off, or bid down really low. As long as you don't change the bidding from SmartBid to Manual, I don't think you'll hurt the algortihms feelings too much
Yes. Taboola's algo is notorious for latching onto the highest performing ad and giving all the traffic to it. But. Give it a day or two and it may even out. If it doesn't, nothing you upload will compete with it unless you turn it off. But if it's making money, do you want to risk that? In that case, it is better to duplicate the camp and use different Ads in the new camp and see how it performs vs. the original.
Your AM will of course always uploading/using new ads because the ad server will make you lose auctions if there isn't enough 'variety'. But... that's not always possible.
Stats are delayed by about 1 hour (+ some random 8-15 minutes) on Taboola. Nothing we can do about that. Only real time data I know of is in your tracker. But Taboola sends a shitload of extra clicks, so you kinda have to ignore those and update costs manually, same as OB.
No settings for auto-optimizing rules like in OB. You either use theOptimizer, do it manually, or what @jack_l said, let the smartbid do its thing
If I like the traffic from a certain site, I will absolutely bump it up. And if it gets more than 2 conversions and still profitable, I'll set the CPC to 85% the EPC. I want more traffic from that site as long as it's making money, I will give it more money.
Of course, if it takes a dive, I will lower it back down. And if it sucks completely (1X payout and no conversions or if LP CTR < 5% after 30 clicks), I will turn it off, or bid down really low. As long as you don't change the bidding from SmartBid to Manual, I don't think you'll hurt the algortihms feelings too much
Yes. Taboola's algo is notorious for latching onto the highest performing ad and giving all the traffic to it. But. Give it a day or two and it may even out. If it doesn't, nothing you upload will compete with it unless you turn it off. But if it's making money, do you want to risk that?
In that case, it is better to duplicate the camp and use different Ads in the new camp and see how it performs vs. the original. Your AM will of course always uploading/using new ads because the ad server will make you lose auctions if there isn't enough 'variety'. But... that's not always possible.
Stats are delayed by about 1 hour (+ some random 8-15 minutes) on Taboola. Nothing we can do about that. Only real time data I know of is in your tracker. But Taboola sends a shitload of extra clicks, so you kinda have to ignore those and update costs manually, same as OB.
No settings for auto-optimizing rules like in OB. You either use theOptimizer, do it manually, or what @jack_l said, let the smartbid do its thing
Really good insights @jaybot
I just wanted to sharpen my question as to the learning phase - how long its takes usually and whether is there big difference in camp performances during this phase and after its finish? do you take it into considerison while you set the starting budget compare to the budget after that phase or not necessarily? what brings me to my next question which I already have asked @jack_l in my last post,
Originally Posted by sportex
Thanks man
!
Originally Posted by sportex
Really good insights @jaybot
I just wanted to sharpen my question as to the learning phase - how long its takes usually and whether is there big difference in camp performances during this phase and after its finish? do you take it into considerison while you set the starting budget compare to the budget after that phase or not necessarily? what brings me to my next question which I already have asked @jack_l in my last post,
How you managing it? what's your approach?
Thanks man !
I just wanted to sharpen my question as to the learning phase - how long its takes usually and whether is there big difference in camp performances during this phase and after its finish? do you take it into considerison while you set the starting budget compare to the budget after that phase or not necessarily? what brings me to my next question which I already have asked @jack_l in my last post,
How you managing it? what's your approach?
Thanks man
!
Originally Posted by sportex
Really good insights @jaybot
I just wanted to sharpen my question as to the learning phase - how long its takes usually and whether is there big difference in camp performances during this phase and after its finish? do you take it into considerison while you set the starting budget compare to the budget after that phase or not necessarily? what brings me to my next question which I already have asked @jack_l in my last post,
How you managing it? what's your approach?
Thanks man !
I just wanted to sharpen my question as to the learning phase - how long its takes usually and whether is there big difference in camp performances during this phase and after its finish? do you take it into considerison while you set the starting budget compare to the budget after that phase or not necessarily? what brings me to my next question which I already have asked @jack_l in my last post,
How you managing it? what's your approach?
Thanks man
!Yes, once it finishes leaning, the performance will actually be better. Volume may drop, but CPA will usually be lower, making you more money...
Hopefully
Originally Posted by jaybot
Ah yes, the learning phase. Always starts out at like 10 days. Never usually takes that long. Basically once all of your creatives are 'Learning Complete,' the camp will go into scaling phase. Depending on the amount of creatives, and sites that Taboola is testing, it can last as little as 3 days. Once it finishes, then it will look at your CPA Goal and aim for that.
Yes, once it finishes leaning, the performance will actually be better. Volume may drop, but CPA will usually be lower, making you more money...
Hopefully
Yes, once it finishes leaning, the performance will actually be better. Volume may drop, but CPA will usually be lower, making you more money...
Hopefully
Wanted to ask you , what's your scaling approach with TB?
Would love to hear your opinion as well @jack_l and anyone else who can share his approach
If the cpc is more than the bid I'll usually raise the bid too... I try not to mess with the bid too often though so I don't confuse the SmartBid, but the budget seems pretty basic and as far as I can tell you can raise it up/down without too much negative outcomes.
Also just as an fyi, you can pause/unpause camps as much as you want too. I was always hesitant about that but I've been having to do it recently due to strict daily cap requirements in lead-gen, and it seems to have no negative effect on campaign performance.
Originally Posted by jack_l
Noting too complicated, just slowly raise the budget
If the cpc is more than the bid I'll usually raise the bid too... I try not to mess with the bid too often though so I don't confuse the SmartBid, but the budget seems pretty basic and as far as I can tell you can raise it up/down without too much negative outcomes.
Also just as an fyi, you can pause/unpause camps as much as you want too. I was always hesitant about that but I've been having to do it recently due to strict daily cap requirements in lead-gen, and it seems to have no negative effect on campaign performance.
If the cpc is more than the bid I'll usually raise the bid too... I try not to mess with the bid too often though so I don't confuse the SmartBid, but the budget seems pretty basic and as far as I can tell you can raise it up/down without too much negative outcomes.
Also just as an fyi, you can pause/unpause camps as much as you want too. I was always hesitant about that but I've been having to do it recently due to strict daily cap requirements in lead-gen, and it seems to have no negative effect on campaign performance.
Just be careful, like all Native networks, the more you spend and the longer you spend, the more sites open up, and they're usually shit (and mostly push traffic) and will start spending very quickly. So keep an eye on new sites popping up as you scale. You can ask your AM to block all the push traffic, but, I've found some of them actually do quite well at lower bids.
On Taboola, unlike revc, I increase individual site bids less aggressively, like 10-20% at a time, but decrease very aggressively, like -50%.
Hey guys,
Have you ever tried Premium WL on TB's US traffic against RON?
@jaybot @jack_l
Originally Posted by sportex
Most of my camps end up sending 99% of their traffic to MSN. That’s my WL now
Originally Posted by jaybot
Taboola has premium whitelists? I need to bug my AM more.
Most of my camps end up sending 99% of their traffic to MSN. That’s my WL now
Most of my camps end up sending 99% of their traffic to MSN. That’s my WL now
So yeah, as far as I understand it has, but according to my rep is not necessarily consists of the best performers ones, rather the 'brand safe ones".
Do you optimize your camps some way that it send 99% of the traffic to MSN placements? is it provide you the best results on US compare to another sites?
btw, which bid do you start your mobile camps on that period of the year in order to be competitive but still profitable if could I ask?
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