Taboola launches Realize platform to boost ad performance

Taboola has announced the introduction of Realize, a new technology platform aimed at expanding its performance in the advertising market beyond traditional native ads.

For over a decade, Taboola has been synonymous with native advertising, primarily through its "bottom of article" placements. Realize marks a strategic shift, focusing on achieving performance outcomes beyond the confines of search and social media advertising.

The Realize platform utilises Taboola's own data, performance AI, and a wide array of inventory and creative formats to meet performance objectives. Recognising that advertisers require specialised solutions across the marketing funnel, Taboola is positioning Realize to cater directly to those focused on performance outcomes.

Taboola has observed that advertisers annually spend approximately USD $25 billion trying to achieve performance outcomes via Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and other niche AdTech solutions. However, these platforms often lack the required expertise, scale, or data to ensure optimal performance results.

Taboola estimates that nearly USD $30 billion in advertising expenditure on social media is affected by diminishing returns. With increasing audience saturation, rising costs, and ad fatigue, around 75% of performance advertisers spending on social media are seeking alternative solutions. This trend suggests a significant proportion of the USD $55 billion annual spend on performance advertising is not delivering the expected return on investment.

Realize sets itself apart as an independent performance platform extending beyond search and social media. By leveraging Taboola's unique supply, first-party data, and AI technology, Realize provides advertisers with a streamlined way to execute performance-based campaigns on numerous high-profile publishers, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and apps.

The platform introduces new supply channels, allowing advertisers to access display and other parts of Taboola's network including major entities such as NBC News, Yahoo, Xiaomi, and Samsung. Advertisers can engage customers in prominent placements across globally recognised publishers and apps.

Realize is powered by an AI performance engine that optimises ad placement across Taboola's network. This functionality benefits from Taboola's data advantage, derived from code-on-page integrations, which offers deeper insights than other open web platforms.

The platform also ensures creative freedom by allowing advertisers to convert existing creative content into effective display and social media ads, quickening the time to market across premium placements.

Adam Singolda, CEO at Taboola, commented, "Every business deserves a chance to grow and succeed. Performance advertising beyond search and social media has been far too difficult for too long. Advertisers have settled on search and social media simply because there has been no viable alternative. Spending money with DSPs and CTV is great for branding but not optimised to drive performance. This is our "Amazon moment." After many years of success with native ads, it's time to go after all of performance advertising. We can do a lot more for advertisers, and a lot more for publishers. Today is an exciting day for me and us at Taboola."

Julie Hansen, Chief Revenue Officer & US CEO at Babbel, supported the launch, stating, "Taboola's new technology platform, Realize, expands the potential for success with our performance marketing. Realize provides more options to connect with customers in engaging and prominent ways through a vast network of trusted publishers globally. We expect Realize will greatly benefit our advertising reach and ROI, and we're excited to use it."

Echoing these sentiments, Nir Szmulewicz, Chief Marketing Officer at eToro said, "Taboola has been a longstanding partner for eToro, providing the technology and team that has helped us excel in reaching customers. Taboola's new Realize technology platform helps us go even further, driving success for our performance-focused campaigns and helping us to achieve our customer acquisition goals. We look forward to continuing to grow using Taboola and Realize."

Jeff Ratner, President of Media, Data, Analytics at Quigley-Simpson, highlighted the potential of Realize: "We praise Taboola's end-to-end approach to ensuring performance advertising success. We have worked with Taboola for many years and they have shown the technology and expertise needed for driving true ROI for our campaigns. Realize shows promise for going even further, bringing the best of all worlds–AI that works to find us the best outcomes, audiences that are uniquely engaged, and placements that are highly visible that live on trusted publishers."

Justin Chase, Executive Vice President, Media at Eversana, added, "For a media agency that has always been on the cutting edge of performance marketing, as we are at EVERSANA media, I could not be more excited to leverage Taboola's new performance platform, Realize, which brings to life end-to-end performance campaigns. With Realize, you have the marriage of both audience engagement and scale, along with outcome-driven AI. I think this type of strategic pivot into performance is going to yield major dividends for Taboola and its clients."