Taboola: The Open Web’s Suggestion Engine - [Business Breakdowns, EP. 27]

Today, we are breaking down Taboola, a company you may not know but one you’ve definitely seen. When you read articles on CNBC, Bloomberg, or the Independent, Taboola powers the sidebar and banner recommendations for what you should read next. The company works with publishers and advertisers to help readers discover what’s new and interesting. Founded in 2007, Taboola recently went public and is now the leading recommendation engine for the open web, serving over 500 million users a day. To break down the business, host Jesse Pujji is joined by Taboola’s founder and CEO, Adam Singolda. During our conversation, we cover the ways in which Taboola’s value prop differs from Facebook and Google, unpack the advertising concepts of Yield and ex-TAC, and dive into Adam’s vision for Taboola to recommend anything, anywhere. Please enjoy this breakdown of Taboola. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss Show Notes [00:02:48] - [First question] - What is Taboola? [00:03:35] - The scale of the business, revenue, impressions, and payouts to date [00:05:18] - What problem Taboola solves for advertisers and their user experience [00:07:22] - Comparing the advertising differences between Taboola and Facebook [00:09:15] - Why a publisher would choose Taboola and what they solve for them [00:11:06] - Reasons why advertising through Taboola is desirable [00:14:41] - The founding insight and early struggles of building Taboola [00:18:42] - Important metrics when evaluating their business and what generates revenue [00:20:32] - What they offer to both sides of the marketplace to grow their business [00:22:26] - Defining yield and how they position their rates [00:25:38] - Things they do to improve the value proposition for clients [00:29:29] - What allows Taboola to grow and remain competitive [00:30:37] - Prioritizing sales and marketing spend to ensure their long term success [00:32:24] - Positive and negative factors in relation to scaling a business like this [00:34:11] - Reasons why they wanted to merge with Outbrain [00:35:16] - Their latest deal with Connexity and his thoughts on M&A for the future [00:37:50] - The top things that would maximize their success over the next decade [00:40:05] - Cookies, privacy, and the role they might play in years to come [00:42:09] - The biggest threats and risks for the future of Taboola [00:44:14] - The competitive landscape of advertising and content placement [00:46:09] - Lessons for builders and investors when studying Taboola’s story [00:47:47] - Where to go if you want to learn more about Taboola