Last month, Taboola announced an acquisition to expand its reach further into e-commerce. In the company’s first big move since going public in June by way of a SPAC, it is paying $800 million in a combination of cash and stock to buy Connexity, the marketing technology company that operates a retail and e-commerce focused advertising network. Connexity has been owned by Symphony Technology Partners since 2011.
Adam Singolda, the CEO and co-founder of Taboola, very much understands the challenges that publishers face, and he sees his company as building solutions to address that.
“We believe the future of the open web is e-commerce,” he said.
We spoke to the team at Taboola to find out more about the acquisition and why exactly it will aid publishers in facing challenges and assist them on the web:
How exactly will this partnership help retailers reach new customers on the open web?
The acquisition of Connexity aligns with Taboola’s “Recommend Anything” growth strategy to introduce new types of recommendations, entering new segments, while leveraging its significant scale and recommendations platform. The aim is to deliver even greater value to its 9,000 digital property partners, 13,000 direct advertisers and 500 million daily active users.
Taboola’s advanced technology coupled with Connexity’s retail expertise and index of more than 750M product offers, will help introduce a new type of recommendation offering for Taboola on the open web. These recommendations will connect editorial content to product recommendations, where readers can easily buy products related to stories they are reading.
What is the open web, and why is it so important?
The open web is the public side of the web, anything including publisher sites that sit outside of walled gardens. e-commerce is the future of the open web, consumers will be buying outside of Amazon, on publishers’ sites next to trusted editorial content a lot more than they are today. That’s where it’s going, that’s where we’re going. Combining Taboola and Connexity’s technologies is one step forward in creating an alternative to walled gardens.
What particular challenges that publishers face will be overcome by this change?
A majority (62%) of US publishers expected e-commerce to be one of their biggest revenue sources in 2021. The acquisition will provide publishers with a new and additional way to drive meaningful revenue growth, tapping into the estimated $35 billion U.S. e-commerce media market, as well as the large global market.
Connexity reaches more than 100 million monthly unique shopper, via relationships with premium publishers including Condé Nast, DotDash, Hearst, Vox Media, Meredith, and News Corp Australia. In addition, Connexity allows publishers to seamlessly integrate more than 750 million product offers on their websites, providing a significant revenue stream.
What about for advertisers?
This acquisition empowers a new type of advertiser to tap into Taboola’s massive and global audience across the open web. More great advertisers will be able to live side-by-side to trusted editorial content, and reach 500 million daily users.
This really is exciting news, and alongside Taboola’s recent announcement of its partnership with Awin, it’s obvious that publishers are at the forefront of the teams’ minds.