The $20 ad campaign: small businesses find alternatives to Google AdWords

Instead of buying a search keyword like they do with Google Adwords, advertisers like Lawyer.com pay Outbrain and Virurl to act as distributors for their ad content. They supply the ad in the form of a link to a piece of content — a picture, a story or a video. Outbrain and Virurl then spray the link across the web via third party publishers and on social media sites like Tumblr and Twitter. Compared to Google Adwords, the upstart services are remarkable for their simplicity: Outbrain and Virurl provide a website for the advertiser to upload a content link, and to set a budget and duration for the ad campaign.