Taboola Ad Tactics for Ecommerce:
The 2024 Strategic Guide

Taboola is a digital advertising platform that has grown into a powerful resource for ecommerce brands. Since it was founded in 2007, Taboola’s platform has spread across the internet, offering personalized advertising content to users that seamlessly integrates with the content they’re already consuming.

In the past, Taboola was primarily known as a content discovery tool, great for driving traffic and views but not so much for conversions. But through a strategic process of integrating new technology, forming strategic partnerships, and refining their processes for understanding consumer behavior, they have expanded their reach to over a billion unique monthly visitors.

Taboola’s advanced targeting capabilities utilize first-party data, audience segmentation, and contextual insights, making it an unmatched tool for ecommerce brands. 

This guide explores the nuances of best advertising practices on Taboola and how ecommerce brands can harness this platform’s tremendous reach and features to drive their brands forward in 2024.

Taboola’s Recent Advancements

Taboola’s commitment to continuous evolution has driven them to make ambitious advances recently. More than just integrating AI and refining their algorithms, Taboola is positioning itself as a leader in the digital advertising sphere. Here are just a few recent updates from Taboola that are keeping them ahead of the competition:

Taboola’s Groundbreaking Partnership with Yahoo

Taboola recently entered into a whopping 30-year deal with Yahoo, making Taboola their exclusive native advertising partner across all of Yahoo’s properties. This partnership brings an additional 900 million monthly users to Taboola’s already extensive network of over 500 million users.

Moreover, Yahoo’s CFO, Monica Mijaleski, has joined Taboola’s Board of Directors. This partnership is revolutionizing digital advertising, and ecommerce stores have an opportunity to capitalize on this and connect their content to over a billion potential new customers. 

Maximize Conversions

Taboola’s new Maximize Conversions tool goes beyond traditional cost-per-click (CPC) bidding. Now, advertisers just need to set a budget, and Taboola’s AI automatically optimizes CPC bids to maximize conversions for you. 

Advertisers using Maximize Conversions are already showing up to a 50% boost in conversions. Some are even seeing nearly a 20% reduction in their Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Maximize Conversions is easy to use, efficient, and effective, but more than that, it’s a testament to Taboola’s commitment to creating ROI-driven technology for its advertisers.

Generative AI

2024 will undoubtedly be the year of AI, even more so than 2023. And Taboola is at the forefront of integrating these tools. Already, brands can use Tabaoola’s AI to create and adjust their ads. Titles, images, and headlines can be created in an instant, with the content informed by insights from thousands of successful campaigns.

This new technology is already yielding results for advertisers, helping brands double their click-through rates and streamline their creative processes. 

SmartBid Dimensions

SmartBid leverages deep learning algorithms and readership pattern data to automatically adjust advertisers’ bids to drive specified actions like conversions or clicks. In just a few short years, SmartBids now accounts for 85% of total advertising spend on Taboola. 

Now, SmartBid Dimensions goes further by considering multiple granular circumstances to inform bids, such as geography, time of day, platform, operating system, and creative elements. And their  ‘curiosity graph’ shows user behavior even when they are done with your page. These SmartBid insights make predicting customer behavior much more accurate. 

All of these advances have made Taboola a more powerful and efficient platform for ecommerce stores. But maximizing the benefits for your brand still requires a strategic approach to your marketing campaigns. 

Leveraging Taboola for Targeting the Right Audience

Connecting with the right audience is not just a goal; it’s a necessity. This is where Taboola’s sophisticated targeting methods come into play, offering ecommerce brands the opportunity to reach and engage with their ideal customers more effectively than ever before. By tapping into these insights, brands can align their products and campaigns with the interests and preferences of potential customers, ensuring more relevant content and, therefore, higher engagement.

Utilizing Taboola’s Audience Segments

Taboola has a huge database of user insights. They’ve honed in on segments based on what people are consuming and engaging with in the Taboola network. These segments are available in Taboola’s data marketplace, making it easier to target potential customers based on their behavior and preferences. By aligning your products and campaigns with these segments, you can reach the users most likely to be interested in your products.

Integrating First-Party Data

If your ecommerce brand already works with data management platforms (DMPs) like LiveRamp, Adobe, Oracle, or Neustar, you can leverage your first-party data within Taboola. Through this integration, you can suppress or find clients based on your existing customer data. For example, you can show loyalty offers to existing customers or introductory offers to potential new ones.

Leveraging Third-Party Data

Taboola’s partnerships with leading vendors like Oracle BlueKai, Acxiom, Neustar, Connexity, Eyeota, and Skimlinks give users a rich data marketplace. Third-party data can be used to target different demographics like age, gender, household income, in-market consumer goods, job titles, company size, and even political affinity.

Contextual Targeting

Distribute your content in relevant areas by targeting IAB contextual categories. This means placing your ads in environments related to sports, business, technology, or other verticals where your audience spends time. Contextual targeting ensures that your content aligns with user interests and the content they are currently engaging with.

Geo-Location Targeting

Taboola can target your ads by country, city, state, or even postal code in 180 countries. Geo-location targeting is particularly useful for ecommerce brands with region-specific products or offers.

Time of Day Targeting

User behavior changes throughout the day, and Taboola allows you to set campaigns to run at specific times or days of the week. By analyzing when your users are most active or likely to convert, you can optimize your campaigns to run during these peak times.

Platform-Specific Targeting

With Taboola, you can target users by desktop, tablet, or mobile devices and even narrow down to specific operating systems for mobile campaigns. This ensures that your ads are seen on the most relevant and valuable devices for your audience.

Sequential Retargeting

Sequential targeting allows you to create a series of touchpoints with potential customers who have previously interacted with your brand. Start with broad awareness messaging and follow up with content designed to drive specific actions, like signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.

Site Retargeting

Taboola’s pixel-based retargeting solutions enable you to re-engage users who have visited your website. The Taboola Pixel is a crucial tool for ecommerce brands, enabling precise tracking of user actions on websites, such as page visits and purchases, to measure and optimize campaign performance. By placing a Taboola pixel on your site, you can identify past visitors and re-engage with them through targeted ads across the web, increasing conversions and brand awareness. 

By leveraging Taboola’s comprehensive targeting capabilities, ecommerce brands can effectively reach and engage their ideal audience. 

Best Practices For Creating Ad Content on Taboola

The power of a well-made ad can’t be overemphasized. This section covers some best practices for creating great ad content on Taboola. These strategies are vital for ecommerce brands looking to stand out and connect effectively with their target audience.

Visuals

• Image Specifications: Use high-quality images, preferably JPEGs, with a file size of 1 MB max. Images should be clean and have a single center of focus. Use eye-catching colors and avoid clutter, Clipart, brand logos, and too much text on images.
• People: Humans in advertising attract more attention and engagement, so use images with people, preferably at medium zoom from the shoulders up. 

Headlines

• Length and Structure: Headlines should be between 35-45 characters and never more than 60 characters. They should also have initial caps, just like a headline in an article.
• Content: Front-load the titles with the main point and use action words to set user expectations. Intriguing or mysterious headlines can entice users.
• Specificity and Relevance: Be specific about your product or audience in the headline. For example, “Shop for Trendy Sneakers on This Website” targets a specific product category.
• Set clear expectations: Be sure your headlines align with the landing pages to set clear expectations. For instance, using action words and CTAs like “Try This Game for 1 Minute” or “Shop Now for This New Waterproof Makeup” can pre-qualify the audience and ensure they have a specific interest or intent.
• Price in the Ad Title: Adding the price of a product in the ad title acts as a self-qualifying tool for potential customers. For example, “Shop Now for This New $80 Waterproof Makeup” sets clear expectations regarding cost.

Copy

• Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs): Incorporate CTAs in your headlines and images. For example, “IT’S FASHION WEEK! 20% OFF A NEW TREND EVERY DAY” includes both a time-sensitive offer and a clear action.
• Targeting Specific Audiences: Understanding and targeting your audience specifically in your ads can increase relevance and conversion rates. For instance, “Born Between 1932 & 1947? Start Hearing Again with This New Technology” directly addresses a specific demographic, making the ad more relevant and compelling to that group.
• Highlighting Unique Selling Points: Identify and highlight the unique selling points of your products to attract users who will benefit most from your product or service, leading to more qualified clicks and higher chances of conversion.
• Limited Time Offers and Discounts: Highlight offers like “50% OFF TIME TO SAVE” to create urgency and encourage immediate action.
• Numbered Lists: Numbered lists (e.g., “5 New Features You Can Find on Your Smartphone”) can entice users to click by promising concise, organized information.
• Action words: Low-commitment action words can increase clicks and conversions. For instance, “Try This Game for 1 Minute” suggests a simple, low-risk action.

Pro Tip: With Taboola, a good rule of thumb when experimenting with creatives is to start with at least two images and five titles per URL to see what resonates best with your audience. Use that data to refine your strategy. 

Measuring and Analyzing Taboola Ecommerce Campaign Performance

Taboola provides tools for A/B testing, allowing ecommerce brands to test multiple title variations and images per URL. Start with at least two images and five titles to determine which combinations work best.

Then, use the insights gained from this testing to refine ad campaigns. Tweaking headlines, images, and targeting parameters is a continuous process.

For ecommerce ads on Taboola, key metrics to look at include click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Thankfully, Taboola allows tracking of tons of specific types of conversions, including site visits, product views, add to cart, start checkout, and purchases. By tracking these metrics, you can better understand how users are responding and which part of the funnel needs to be optimized.

Taboola makes this easy by allowing you to define and track your conversion funnel inside the platform using the Taboola pixel integration to gather comprehensive user data.

Pro tip: For best results, apply the Taboola Pixel to every page of your site and create conversion events for each stage of the funnel to help understand user behavior at each stage and optimize accordingly.

By leveraging these approaches, ecommerce brands can gain valuable insights into their campaigns, optimize their advertising strategies, and ultimately drive more sales and higher ROI.

Advanced Tactics: Leveraging Taboola Ads For Seasonal Campaigns

Ecommerce brands can significantly enhance their digital marketing campaigns by adapting to seasonal trends. Here’s how you can leverage Taboola for seasonal effectiveness:

Understanding Seasonal Shopping Patterns

Consumers start shopping earlier during the holiday season, so engage with them early, especially around key dates like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Also, many advertisers miss out on the post-holiday demand. Analyzing industry data to allocate budgets can kick off the new year right.

Preparing for the Season

While you’re in the preparation phase of your seasonal campaign, be sure you’re testing new audiences and creatives. Gather data on a broad audience while testing new demographics, locations, interests, videos, images, and keywords to identify your most successful audiences.

Keep in mind that there’s a global trend towards making mobile purchases. Given this trend, focus on mobile device targeting. Also, consider global campaigns to discover new audiences.

Scaling Your Audience

Video creatives are great for establishing brand recall. Use earned media and educational content to provide value and entertainment to your potential customers. 

For successful seasonal marketing with Taboola, you should use in-feed ad formats for higher engagement.

Conversion Focus

After building your audience, focus on the most engaged segments. Cut out non-performing demographics and sites. Review data daily to keep up with audience trends.

Retention Post-Holidays

Use first-party data to retarget customers who’ve already purchased with follow-up campaigns. This will help keep your brand at the forefront of your customers’ minds. And be sure to update your creatives in the new year to ensure these repeat customers see fresh content.

Utilizing Taboola’s Tools

• Taboola Trends: Use this for real-time insights on images, keywords, and topics that are currently engaging consumers.
• Data Marketplace: Access data from providers like Neustar and Acxiom for deeper audience insights.
• Taboola Pixel: Implement this for tracking conversions and managing custom audiences.

Timing and Platform-Specific Strategies

Allocate more budget to campaigns post-Thanksgiving and adjust bids based on the day of the week and time of year trends.

Focus on the most effective platforms (mobile, tablet, desktop) based on consumer behavior and content type (video, photo galleries, articles).

It’s clear that Taboola has evolved into an indispensable channel for ecommerce and sales. For those who were previously unaware of Taboola’s potential, now is the time to take notice. The platform’s ability to connect ecommerce brands with over a billion potential customers through personalized, data-driven advertising is unmatched. Its continuous innovation, combined with its expansive reach and sophisticated targeting options, offers unique advantages. For ecommerce brands looking to boost their online presence and sales, Taboola is a channel that promises significant returns on investment and should not be underestimated.

About the Author: Aaron Bunting is a Senior Client Partner at adQuadrant. He is a business graduate from California State University, Monterey. His career started out in affiliate marketing before he transitioned over to the agency world. He enjoys regularly traveling up and down the California coast with his friends.