TikTok video for open web publishers? Outbrain built it.

Outbrain is doubling down on video – and its focus on promoting brand budgets.

The company is introducing a new TikTok-inspired vertical video feed for publishers' mobile sites, appearing at the end of articles. The new solution, called Moments by Outbrain, is currently in beta. Axel Springer and Fortune are among the publishers piloting the format.

The idea behind Moments is to bring the social media-style vertical video format out of the walled gardens and open up web publishers, said Outbrain CEO David Kostman.

Kostman added that publishers can increase the time their audience spends with them and reuse the assets they've already created for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

In an early study conducted in August by audience research firm MediaScience with a group of 600 users, nearly 40% watched at least three Moments videos after reading articles on mobile devices, and 10% watched at least 10 videos. Users who saw interstitial video ads while watching Moments content also had 56% higher brand recall than those who saw display ads.

Video player

Similar to Outbrain's native content widget, the Moments video player appears after a user scrolls to the end of an article they are reading. However, Moments is not a native widget, but rather a full-screen takeover that focuses the viewer's attention on the vertical video feed. And for publishers who use it for their mobile sites, the Moments player will completely replace Outbrain's native content widget.

All video content included in the Moments player comes from the publisher's website. There will be no content from other publishers or user-generated social content. Publisher content featured in the video feed also includes a clickable link to a related story.

According to Kostman, this format gives publishers control over the content displayed on their sites and also allows them to promote their own content to further increase user engagement. Publishers also receive a share of advertising revenue from interstitial ads.

Moments joins Outbrain's other video-focused offering, Onyx, an advertising product designed for brand advertisers, unlike Outbrain's original text-based recommendation widgets. However, while Onyx only contains ads, Moments will contain both publisher content and ads.

Outbrain is still optimizing the Moments advertising experience, but currently plays a paid video after every two organic videos, a company spokesperson said.

Direct sales and programmatic plans

Currently, Outbrain sells Moments ad inventory directly on behalf of publishers as a managed service. And it is attracting demand from the pool of brand advertisers built by SSP and video monetization platform Teads, which Outbrain acquired in August.

Outbrain is also working with the IAB to sell Moments through a programmatic open auction. One hurdle in selling Moments inventory programmatically is determining exactly how to classify the inventory according to the IAB Tech Lab's new video display standards for in-stream video.

If the Moments player enters full-screen takeover mode, the sound is on and playback is initiated by the user, it could be considered instream, said Robert Blanck, general manager of e-commerce and advertising at Axel Springer, which is the solution has been testing the BILD-based news site in Germany since August. However, in some cases, such as when the video is muted, the Moments player could fall into the associated content bin, he said.

But platforms often sell social videos under their own classification without adhering to Tech Lab's standards, he added. As a result, the standards may already be outdated when it comes to publisher advertising products like Moments that mimic popular social video formats, he said.

Publisher control

Programmatic issues aside, Blanck believes Moments offers publishers more control over their video content and monetization than walled-garden platforms would.

Axel Springer has been creating vertical videos for YouTube for some time, Blanck said. However, the company recently began developing its own video player to keep users engaged with the content on its sites without relying on YouTube for hosting.

Axel Springer has been working with Outbrain for three years. When the opportunity to test Moments arose, Axel Springer saw a chance to take control of its video experience without making major technical investments.

“We want to take the lead on a publisher-friendly company,” Blanck said. By using Outbrain's solution, Axel Springer also eliminates the need to represent its own claim. “Outbrain has more network effects power than a single publisher,” he said.

Outbrain is also more willing to share data and insights derived from its products than the platforms, Blanck added.

“So what advantage would it be to create videos with a classic embed on Instagram, YouTube or TikTok?” he said. “That doesn’t make sense to us.”

In the two months that Axel Springer tested Moments, especially in the BILD sports section where it has already produced the most video content, they found that viewer retention time increased as expected, Blanck said.

However, the next step is to determine whether a user who spends time on the Moments player earns more ad revenue than when the same user browses to different pages and thereby sees more ad impressions. To that end, Axel Springer considered developing a new KPI to determine revenue per time spent, “but it's a very difficult metric to figure out,” Blanck said.

“If people watch minutes of video on your site with a pre-roll ad, is that worth more than five page views? [the accompanying] “Impressions?” he added. “Publishers need to evaluate this and try to understand how the KPI will change.”