A chumbox is a form of online advertising that uses a grid of thumbnails and captions to drive traffic to other sites and webpages. This form of advertising is often associated with low quality clickbait links and articles. [1] The term derives from the fishing practice of "chumming", the use of fish meat as a lure for fish.
A chumbox is a form of advertising associated with outlandish clickbait headlines and low-quality links. [2] Publishers often include chumboxes on news websites because the companies behind them provide a very reliable source of revenue. [3] They often have the label "Around the Web" on top of them. [4]
John Mahoney popularized the term in 2015. On The Awl , he wrote a "taxonomy" of types of chumbox headlines, such as miracle cures, celebrity and sexual clickbait. [3] [5] When Reply All co-host Alex Goldman visited the offices of Taboola, one of the leading chumbox providers, their CEO and founder Adam Singolda told him that he had never heard the word chumbox and instead called their advertisements "recommendations". [5]
Content analyst Ranjan Roy identified five examples of websites that chumboxes may redirect to:
While earlier uses exist, the term chumbox—from chum, or fish bait—was popularized by a 2015 article in The Awl written by John Mahoney. [3] In the early 2010s, the web advertising companies Outbrain and Taboola emerged as the leading providers and chumbox advertisements became ubiquitous on news websites, including on outlets such as CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. [4] [6] By 2016, chumboxes were present on 41 of the top 50 news websites. [5]
By mid-to-late 2016, some websites were re-thinking the use of chumboxes due to the negative effect such low-quality links and content had on their brands, despite the additional income from such links. [7] An analysis of images used in advertising of the kind found that 26 percent used sexually suggestive or "interruptive" images; often the ads had no relation to the article content, and on occasions were inappropriate or offensive, such as one titled "Meet the Women Making Rape Jokes That Are Actually Funny," placed under an article about teenage rape. [7]
ChangeAdvertising.org's "Clickbait Report" analysed 50 high-rank news sites and found that over 80 percent were using such ads, the majority from Taboola or Outbrain. Many were found to be confusing or misleading in their purpose. [7] [8]
An analysis of images and headlines used in such adverts found a number of basic archetypes used: a sexual image in association with location-based advertisement; reverse-aging (skin) treatment, or "miracle cure"; body shock images (e.g. triggering trypophobia); celebrity-gossip=based; tattoo-based images, including those simulating body horror or orifices; images of pills; and weight loss. [1] [9]
Microsoft have been criticized for inserting chumboxes inside versions of Windows and Microsoft Edge, showing "tabloid news" content in search or on the desktop. [10]
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement.
Sex appeal in advertising is a common tactic employed to promote products and services. Research indicates that sexually appealing content, including imagery, is often used to shape or alter the consumer's perception of a brand, even if it is not directly related to the product or service being advertised. This approach, known as "sex sells," has become more prevalent among companies, leading to controversies surrounding the use of sexual campaigns in advertising.
Salon is an American politically progressive and liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events.
The Sunday Sport is a British tabloid newspaper that was founded by David Sullivan in 1986. It mainly publishes images of topless female glamour models, and is well-known for publishing sensationalised, fictionalised, and satirical content, alongside celebrity gossip and sports coverage. It has changed from including legitimate journalism throughout its history. A sister title, the Daily Sport, was published from 1991 to 2011, when it ceased publication and went online-only, under separate ownership.
Advertising in video games is the integration of advertising into video games to promote products, organizations, or viewpoints.
Digital display advertising is online graphic advertising through banners, text, images, video, and audio. The main purpose of digital display advertising is to post company ads on third-party websites. A display ad is usually interactive, which allows brands and advertisers to engage deeper with the users. A display ad can also be a companion ad for a non-clickable video ad.
Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advertisements are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google. They can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google beta-tested a cost-per-action service, but discontinued it in October 2008 in favor of a DoubleClick offering. In Q1 2014, Google earned US$3.4 billion, or 22% of total revenue, through Google AdSense. AdSense is a participant in the AdChoices program, so AdSense ads typically include the triangle-shaped AdChoices icon. This program also operates on HTTP cookies. In 2021, over 38.3 million websites use AdSense.
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.
Banner blindness is a phenomenon in web usability where visitors to a website consciously or unconsciously ignore banner-like information. A broader term covering all forms of advertising is ad blindness, and the mass of banners that people ignore is called banner noise.
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.
In-image advertising is a form of contextual advertising where specific images on a website are matched with related advertisements.
Malvertising is the use of online advertising to spread malware. It typically involves injecting malicious or malware-laden advertisements into legitimate online advertising networks and webpages. Because advertising content can be inserted into high-profile and reputable websites, malvertising provides malefactors an opportunity to push their attacks to web users who might not otherwise see the ads, due to firewalls, more safety precautions, or the like. Malvertising is "attractive to attackers because they 'can be easily spread across a large number of legitimate websites without directly compromising those websites'."
Native advertising, also called sponsored content, partner content, and branded journalism, is a type of paid advertising that appears in the style and format of the content near the advertisement's placement. It manifests as a post, image, video, article or editorial piece of content. In some cases it functions like an advertorial. The word native refers to this coherence of the content with the other media that appear on the platform.
Outbrain is a web recommendation platform founded in 2006 by Co-Founder and Co-CEO Yaron Galai and Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and General Manager, Ori Lahav. The company is headquartered in New York City. Yaron Galai resigned in February 2024. The company generates revenue for online publishers by displaying feeds of content and ads, or boxes of links, known as chumboxes, to pages within a website or mobile platform. Advertisers pay Outbrain on a pay-per-click basis and a portion of that revenue is shared with publishers.
Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow ("click") that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. A "teaser" aims to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make readers of news websites curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content. Clickbait headlines often add an element of dishonesty, using enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered. The "-bait" suffix makes an analogy with fishing, where a hook is disguised by an enticement (bait), presenting the impression to the fish that it is a desirable thing to swallow.
"One weird trick" advertisements are a form of clickbait online advertising that has been common on the Internet since around the late 2000s. The formula used in the advertisements was first applied to weight-loss products, but has since been extended to cures for problems including hair loss and diabetes. A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation found that many of the advertisements sold "trial" packages that were never sent. The FTC filed legal action in 2011 against promoters of such advertisements for defrauding millions of people.
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A lookalike audience is a group of social network members who are determined as sharing characteristics with another group of members. In digital advertising, it refers to a targeting tool for digital marketing, first initiated by Facebook, which helps to reach potential customers online who are likely to share similar interests and behaviors with existing customers. Since Facebook debuted this feature in 2013, additional advertising platforms have followed suit, including Google Ads, Outbrain, Taboola, LinkedIn Ads and others.
Advertising revenue is the monetary income that individuals and businesses earn from displaying paid advertisements on their websites, social media channels, or other platforms surrounding their internet-based content. In September 2018, the U.S Internet advertising market was estimated to be worth $111 billion, with market share being held mostly between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. These companies earn revenue through online advertising but also have initiated pathways for individual users and social media influencers to earn an income. Individuals and businesses can earn advertising revenue through advertising networks such as Google AdSense, YouTube monetization, or Outbrain.
Rage-baiting or rage-farming is internet slang that refers to a manipulative tactic to elicit outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic, online engagement, revenue and support. Rage baiting or farming can be used as a tool to increase engagement, attract subscribers, followers, and supporters, which can be financially lucrative. Rage baiting and rage farming manipulates users to respond in kind to offensive, inflammatory headlines, memes, tropes, or comments.