[7] 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.

It uses targeted advertising to recommend articles, slideshows, blog posts, photos or videos to a reader.

[16] The company is headquartered in New York with global offices in London, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Cologne, Gurugram, Paris, Ljubljana, Munich, Milan, Madrid, Tokyo, São Paulo, Netanya,[17] Singapore, and Sydney.

[30] Advertisers typically pay on a pay-per-click basis and publishers generate income from external clicks.

[32] Outbrain shares advertising revenue with publishers who implement their feeds or links on their sites, which are sometimes referred to as chumboxes.

[36][37] Both Outbrain and Taboola have been described by Internet commentators as alternatives to Google AdSense that content publishers could consider for revenue streams.

[40] In 2021, Outbrain revamped its algorithm to incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve the quality of its ads.