Formats & creative · also called chumbox, recommendation widget, native widget
Content recommendation widget
A content recommendation widget is a block of sponsored and editorial links, often under an article, that recommends stories or products and earns money when readers click the sponsored ones.
You have seen them: a grid of thumbnails under an article with headlines like "You won't believe…" and a small "Sponsored" label. These widgets are run by content recommendation companies such as Taboola and Outbrain (which acquired Teads in 2025 and took the Teads name). They mix a publisher's own articles with paid links from advertisers, usually charged per click (CPC).
Publishers earn a revenue share on the paid clicks, and advertisers get large volumes of cheap clicks. The format is a form of native advertising, and recommendation platforms also sell other ad formats, including video.
The widgets have critics. Low-quality clickbait can damage a publisher's brand, and widgets are a major source of traffic for traffic arbitrage and made-for-advertising sites, which buy clicks cheaply and monetise them with display ads. Quality policies and advertiser controls have tightened over time, but buyers who care about traffic sources still examine where visitors originated.
Think of it like this
A content recommendation widget is like the rack of magazines and snacks at a supermarket checkout: some of it is useful, but it is placed there because someone paid for the spot.
An example
A publisher's widget shows 6 links: 2 of its own stories and 4 sponsored. With 1 million article views and a 0.3% click rate on sponsored links at US$0.40 each, sponsored clicks generate US$1,200, shared with the publisher.
Related terms
Native advertising
Native advertising is paid advertising designed to match the look, feel and placement of the content around it, such as sponsored posts in feeds or promoted articles, and labelled as sponsored.
Traffic arbitrage
Traffic arbitrage is buying cheap visitors, often through native, social or search ads, and sending them to pages loaded with ads that earn more than the traffic cost.
Made-for-advertising (MFA) sites
Made-for-advertising (MFA) sites are websites built mainly to generate ad revenue, typically with thin content, heavy ad density, fast refreshing ads and traffic bought through arbitrage.
CPC (cost per click)
CPC (cost per click) is a pricing model where the advertiser pays only when someone clicks the ad, and also the average amount paid per click.
Revenue share
A revenue share is an agreement in which partners split the money earned by an agreed percentage, such as an ad network paying a publisher 70% of ad revenue.