Outbrain is no more. Today, the company announced the completion of its acquisition of Teads, following regulatory approvals.
Last year, Outbrain bought Teads from Altice for $1 billion—it was often described as a merger—to build “one of the largest, most direct supply paths to premium media owners on the open internet and CTV.” The deal gave Outbrain access to Teads’ upper-funnel digital video and CTV ad business. Outbrain, meanwhile, will be the performance piece, powered by AI, leveraging its publisher network to amplify video campaigns. With this acquisition, Outbrain is repositioning itself as a full-funnel video leader, aligning with where much of the ad spend is shifting. (That’s our take—let us know if you disagree.)
With today’s announcement, the Outbrain brand is also being retired, and the company will now operate under the Teads name. The move makes sense as Outbrain’s “chumbox” identity has been hard to shake, and rebranding as Teads could bring greater credibility to its repositioning as a premium video adtech business.
Why This Matters:
There are a few potential implications here. First, how will Outbrain’s presence on publisher pages evolve? It remains to be seen, but it will be interesting to watch whether these placements transition to more video-focused formats.
Second, what does this mean for Taboola? Could this move benefit Taboola? Possibly. Taboola seems laser-focused on content recommendation (while talking up its AI capabilities) and that clarity can be helpful. However, it also faces the same credibility and brand perception challenges that Outbrain did.
In general, the content recommendation space feels commoditized and low-quality, even as these companies provide valuable support to publishers. With this acquisition and rebrand, Outbrain—now Teads—isn’t necessarily working to shift that perception. Instead, they’re positioning themselves as an entirely different business. (That’s how entrenched the perception is.)
Experts React:
Outbrain CEO David Kostman talked up the value of the merger and the name change in a blog post this morning:
“Our combined platform is designed to harness this opportunity. Together, we create a single access point to drive meaningful, concrete outcomes at every step of the marketing funnel — from branding to performance. And we deliver those outcomes with stunning creative that not only drives results, but engages and delights consumers. The potential of the open internet to thrive is immense, and we believe the new Teads will lead the way to the realization of that potential.”
Outbrain’s (now Teads’) Craig Hughes also posted a video about the transition, which you can watch here:
Our Take:
With this deal, Altice officially exits the Teads business. That’s notable because, in recent months, we’ve seen several telecom companies deepen their investments in adtech—Comcast with Universal Ads and T-Mobile with its acquisition of Vistar Media, for example. This stands out as one of the rare cases of a telco moving in the opposite direction.
