Buying traffic · also called content discovery widget, recommendation widget, chumbox
Content recommendation widget
A content recommendation widget is a block of sponsored and editorial story links on a publisher's page, supplied by a network that pays the publisher for clicks.
The widget is the physical place where most native advertising appears: a grid of thumbnails and headlines at the foot of an article, or cards slotted into a news feed. The host publisher installs one line of code, the network fills the slots, and the two share the money advertisers pay per click.
In search arbitrage the widget is the shop window. The arbitrageur's ad competes with other sponsored stories for one of those slots, and each host website counts as a separate placement with its own quality. Some sites send curious, engaged readers; others send accidental taps. Buyers therefore watch results site by site and exclude the weak ones.
Widgets have a mixed reputation. Critics call the lowest-quality versions a "chumbox" because of sensational thumbnails. Networks have tightened creative rules over the years, and feed providers now look at the creative that sent the visitor, so a misleading widget ad can cost an arbitrageur the feed, not just the campaign.
Think of it like this
Think of the rack of leaflets by a hotel reception. The hotel rents out the rack, a company fills it, and each leaflet is trying to get you to walk somewhere else.
Related terms
Native advertising
Native advertising is paid promotion designed to look like the editorial content around it, typically a headline and thumbnail shown beneath or beside articles on news sites.
Placement
A placement is the specific website, app, section or screen position where an ad appears.
Blocklist
A blocklist is a list of websites, apps or placements where a buyer tells an ad network never to show their ads.
Clickbait
Clickbait is a headline or image engineered to provoke a click through exaggeration, withheld information or shock, without delivering what it implies.
Native-to-search (N2S)
Native-to-search is buying visitors from native ad widgets on news sites and sending them to a page that earns from search ads.