What is ZergNet?

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You may have noticed at the bottom of the articles on FictionTalk that there is a a grid of interesting labeled as “From The Web.” When any of those articles are clicked, the user is taken into ZergNet.

What is ZergNet?

ZergNet is the the largest invite-only, pure editorial content, native recommendation network for premium publishers looking to generate more high quality traffic for their websites.

They will only accept websites into their hand picked network that publish high quality content on a regular basis and uphold high editorial standards.

There is a a wide range of topics ZergNet Publishers cover including Gaming, Movies, News, Entertainment, Technology, Food, Travel, Lifestyle, Finance, Science, Music and more. The ZergNet network A/B tests over 13,000 article recommendations per second. This powerful technology optimizes headline and thumbnail combinations across their hand-curated network of thousands of publishers running a ZergNet widget.

To see examples of the publishers that run ZergNet, first, go to zergnet.com. Next, click an article and find the ZergNet widget on the page. Usually, you will find ZergNet below the article or on the sidebar.

ZergNet in the News

Key Features

ZergNet’s content-only recommendation platform help’s solve digital publishers’ two biggest problems: growing an audience, and monetizing that audience while only showing real relevant content (no toe nail fungus, clickbait galleries, misleading articles or really any ads at all).

A Publisher can choose to either earn traffic (audience development) or revenue through the clicks on the widget. The results will always be 100% articles, no ads in either case.

The fully desktop, mobile and tablet widgets are hand designed by the ZergNet team for each individual partner site to match the CSS, colors, style and

ZergNet users
what is zergnet

For example, a video game website will only see articles appear in the content widget they install below their posts from the Video Game Vertical on ZergNet. On the other hand, a Food/Drink site would see results from the Food Vertical.

This ad-free recommendation widget allows publishers to both earn revenue and traffic by placing a widget under the article or on the sidebar. It is the only service that manually curates what they show, ensuring the highest ad quality in the native advertising sector. This really helps publishers eliminate the need to constantly police recommendation quality.

ZergNet was founded 2012 in Indianapolis by Reggie Renner and Mike Langin. One of the first investors being Mark Cuban who remains on the board of the company.

Video Explanation

Summary

  • Maximum relevance, even for the most nuanced partner preferences.
  • No ads.txt, or 3rd party advertisers
  • ZergNet is a premium network; accepting only 5% of total applicants
  • Identifying & communicating important internal and external trends.
  • Ongoing feedback loop that’s always improving.
  • content is only promoted only the highest quality, most relevant partner sites.
  • Enabling the ability to drive traffic back to important parts of your site (Videos, Sponsored Content, etc).

Audience Development

zergnet traffic network

Native Monetization

native monetization

Ad Quality

Conclusion

ZergNet is a very unique tool publishers can use to drive high quality users to their sites for free. The results are very relevant for the reader and the traffic generated for the publisher is extremely valuable.

The company is an innovator in the content recommendation space and the integrity of the product has stood the test of time.

Brock Morgan