The Rubicon Project Inc — a giant in the advertising exchange space — announced recently that it is rolling out a private beta release of Demand Manager. Demand Manager is a new service that makes it easier for large publishers to deploy, configure, and optimize their own Prebid-based header bidding solutions.
Some of Rubicon’s first clients to integrate Demand Manager into their daily operations include Discovery, Publishers Clearing House, AutoTrader, Southern Cross Austereo, and Domain.
“We’re very excited to leverage this new service from Rubicon Project,” explained Discovery’s VP of Programmatic Solutions Bill Murray. “The tools and support that Demand Manager provides allow us easy access to actionable data while operating in a transparent environment.”
Demand Manager essentially puts publisher monetization teams back in control of their programmatic business with tools that enable them to make quick and informed decisions for driving better revenue. Since the solution is built on Prebid — which is the global technology standard for open source header bidding — it is transparent, flexible, and able to connect with more than 70 exchanges and SSPs. Rubicon supports users of Demand Manager by hosting and updating the Prebid code and provide ongoing technical and yield management expertise.
“As Prebid scaled globally, it became clear that publishers had to expend significant time and resources adapting it to their needs, which is unsustainable and unnecessary,” said Rubicon Project CTO Tom Kershaw. “With Demand Manager, we see the opportunity to combine the transparency and flexibility of open source with a turnkey service that puts control back in the publishers’ hands so they don’t have to rely on us or anyone else to run their businesses.”
As the rise of header bidding delivers higher revenues for publishers and greater inventory access for buyers, it also injects more complexity into the market.
A couple of years ago, Rubicon Project co-founded Prebid.org to foster community-driven solutions to these challenges. Even though hundreds of the world’s most sophisticated publishers rely on Prebid today, they still sacrifice time, effort, and revenue grappling with its day-to-day technical complexities.
“Demand Manager operates in Rubicon Project’s open, integrated marketplace, across all inventory types. Demand Manager clients have access to a brand-safe, private marketplace and can rest assured they’re not compromising ad quality. Because Demand Manager is built on Prebid, publishers can also connect with other Prebid demand sources,” wrote Rubicon Project CEO and president Michael Barrett in a blog post. “Demand Manager combines the power of product and people. We implement and host code while providing exceptional service, offering publishers responsive, end-to-end, live customer support.”
Some of the major features built into Demand Manager include integration with Rubicon Project’s marketplace across all deal types, universal performance analytics and configuration UIs that enable publishers to monitor and optimize demand across all demand sources, and dedicated technical and yield management expertise including implementation, configuration, hosting, and yield management support.
“Implementing Demand Manager immediately increased our revenue by double digits,” added Publishers Clearing House’s head of Business Development & Programmatic Partnerships Matt Burgess. “The solution enables us to lower page latencies and improve our user experience, but the biggest change is how simple and easy it is to transact with all of our partners.”
Rubicon Project started out in 2007 and quickly became one of the largest advertising exchanges. With Rubicon, websites and apps are able to thrive by gaining the tools and expertise for selling ads easily and safely. Plus the world’s largest agencies and brands depend on Rubicon’s technology for executing billions of advertising transactions every month.
