Taboola, Outbrain, MGID or MediaGo? Choosing a Native Network for Game User Acquisition

Native networks are where many game publishers find players outside social feeds and search. Four names come up in almost every media plan: Taboola, Outbrain, MGID and MediaGo. They look alike from the outside, a headline and an image under an article, but they differ in who owns them, where their ads appear and how they are bought. This guide compares them for one job: bringing new players to a game.

Key takeaways

• Taboola runs the native advertising on all of Yahoo's sites under a 30-year exclusive agreement signed in November 2022 (Taboola).
• Outbrain bought Teads in February 2025 and the combined company has traded as Teads since June 2025 (Teads).
• MGID works with 32,000+ sites and reports 850 million+ monthly unique visitors across 200+ countries (MGID).
• MediaGo comes from Baidu's global business and sells on a cost-per-click basis in 37 countries across North America and Europe (Business Wire, MediaGo).
• The network matters less than how you run it: the same game can do well on one network in Germany and poorly on the same network in the US. Test two at once and judge them on registrations and paying players, not clicks.

The four networks at a glance

Network	Who runs it	Reach (company figures)
Taboola	Taboola, listed on Nasdaq; exclusive native partner for all Yahoo sites, launched its performance platform Realize in 2025 (Wikipedia)	Yahoo's sites alone had nearly 900 million monthly users at the 2022 announcement
Outbrain	Teads Holding Co., formerly Outbrain Inc., listed on Nasdaq; native recommendations plus Teads' video formats	About 2.2 billion consumers for the combined company
MGID	MGID, founded 2008, headquartered in Santa Monica	32,000+ sites and 850 million+ monthly unique visitors in 200+ countries
MediaGo	Baidu's global business unit; cost-per-click pricing, native placements on MSN announced in 2020	75 billion+ monthly ad impressions in 37 countries across North America and Europe

Company figures are the networks' own and are not directly comparable: one counts users, another visitors, another impressions.

What matters when you buy native traffic for a game

Does the network reach your markets?

Every network is strong in some countries and thin in others. Before planning a budget, ask each network for its available volume in your top markets and in your target languages. A network that is huge in the US can be a minor player in Poland or South Korea.

Can you see and control where your ads appear?

Native networks sell one campaign across thousands of sites. Readers on some of those sites become players; readers on others only click. You need reporting per site and placement, the right to block sites, and ideally the option to bid more on the sites that bring in registrations. Without that control, budget drifts to the cheapest clicks.

Can the network learn from registrations, not clicks?

Most native buying starts on a cost-per-click basis. The networks' automated bidding gets better when it is told what happened after the click. Send registrations, and later paying players, back to the network with a server-to-server postback or its pixel, so its bidding optimises for players instead of curiosity.

Will your ads pass review?

Each network reviews ads against its own policy. Game ads with exaggerated claims, fake interface elements or headlines that do not match the landing page get rejected or limited. Write headlines that promise what the game delivers, and check each network's policy before producing a large batch of creatives.

What happens between the click and your landing page?

A reader who clicks a native ad arrives cold, in the middle of reading something else. A one-screen prelander or a short interactive funnel, where the player picks a hero or a side first, turns that interest into a reason to continue. The players who reach your landing page are then the ones who chose to keep going.

How to test native networks for a game

1. Pick two networks, not four. Splitting a test budget too thin means no network gets enough data to learn.
2. Keep everything else the same. Same markets, same creatives, same funnel and the same landing page, so the network is the only difference.
3. Track every stage. Click, registration, install, retention, payer, per network, per market and per site.
4. Give the bidding time to learn, then compare cost per registration and the share of registrations that come back and pay.
5. Cut sites, not just networks. A network with a weak average often hides a set of strong sites. Keep those, block the rest, and test again.

Frequently asked questions

Which native network is best for games?

There is no single best network. Results depend on the game's genre, the markets and how the campaign is run. Test two networks in parallel with the same creatives and funnel, and judge them on registrations and paying players.

Is Outbrain still a separate company?

Outbrain completed its acquisition of Teads in February 2025, and the combined company changed its name to Teads Holding Co. in June 2025. Its native advertising continues as part of Teads.

Who owns MediaGo?

MediaGo is part of Baidu's global business. It sells native and display placements on a cost-per-click basis in North America and Europe.

Do native ads work for strategy and RPG games?

They suit games with a story to tell: an empire to build, a hero to choose, an alliance to lead. Those themes fit a headline and a strong image, and a funnel after the click can carry the story to the landing page. See how we run native advertising for games.

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Planning native campaigns for your game? Talk to us. We reply within one business day with a first read on what we would run first.