Outbrain Discovery Outperforms Search and Social for Israel’s Ministry of Tourism

Israel’s Ministry of Tourism and Israel’s Government Advertising Agency (LAPAM) using Sepros Digital Marketing were looking to raise awareness to Israel as a legitimate travel destination among middle class travelers from India. Their content strategy was based entirely on video content – approx. 50 second videos on a range of topics from culture, history, and food.

To reach the residents from India they decided to test three different platforms: Outbrain, Facebook, and Google. Text headlines and images were used to drive users to video content hosted on their own brand website. All three platforms used a cost-per-click (CPC) model, allowing the brand to measure post click behaviors versus pre-roll video metrics.

Third-Party Measurement

The Ministry was able to measure all three campaign’s KPIs within their own google analytics reporting, giving them full control of their campaign measurement and success. The KPIs they focused on were video completions, bounce rate, average session duration, new sessions, and page scroll.

A Timer Conversion Pixel

In order to optimize the campaigns towards video completions, an Outbrain timer pixel was set up to fire after 50 seconds of someone viewing the video.

Campaign Results: Outbrain vs Facebook vs Google

Following a 6-week test, Outbrain outperformed Facebook and Google by a significant margin across all KPIs, further demonstrating the power of discovery as a source of qualified and engaged traffic.

A Record Number of Tourists

In November 2016, Israel saw a 38% increase in tourists when compared to the same month the year before. Israel’s Ministry of Tourism and Israel’s Government Advertising Agency (LAPAM) were very pleased with the result, saying: “Using Outbrain has helped us create the awareness we needed in the target audience, resulting in more tourists to Israel. In 2016 we received a record number of tourists arriving from India.”

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