Rubicon Archive

The Rubicon Project has launched a new program named "certified ad space". Launched with 725 Web sites, the company notes that the program was created to satisfy ad network and advertiser needs for broader exposure and access to safe, high-quality website inventory, while ensuring that campaigns reach the intended audience and content. 

Just like when you get an oil change for your automobile, the certified ad space program features a 21-point certification checklist. The certified ad space program also includes human screening of all participating Web sites or blogs.

The program has three main functions:

• Certified content and audience:  assures brand safety
• Certified placement and targeting:  delivers certainty that ads reach their intended audience
• Certified tracking and reporting:  promises ad networks and their advertisers get what they pay for

The net of this program is that Rubicon is going to screen your Web site and then can create applications to a variety of networks and assure the networks that Rubicon has already screened the site. Check out one Rubicon member who claims the income increases are only a fairy tale.

We’ve written about the online advertising maximizing service Rubicon Project several times before including their new funding round last week. We applied for the service after receiving a beta key and were basically declined – what they noted is that "we would be a perfect candidate once the public launch happens".

While checking my Clicky analytics account today, founder Sean Hammons has a post about his experiences with Rubicon Project to-date. He obviously got into the beta. Here are some snippits from his post:

That optimization is a fairy tale unfortunately, and doesn’t do jack diddly. Plus we’ve had two major problems with the service, including them not paying us for our first month even though we had earned WAY above the minimum threshold, and both times their customer service sucked big time. And the ads are extremely irritating anyways, and that’s not at all what we want. 

This company has a raised $18 million in funding which is just unbelievable. There’s no way they’re using any more bandwidth or resources than Clicky is (they’re still in private beta), and we started on essentially zero dollars from our own pockets and have taken zero funding and have zero debt.

Clearly the issue with any of these maximizers is garbage in-garbage out. Have you used Rubicon Project or one of the other ad maximization services (e.g. YieldBuild/PubMatic)? If so, leave your thoughts in the comments.

Coming off their selection as a 2008 AlwaysOn OnMedia 100 winner, The Rubicon Project has picked up another $15 million in Series B venture capital funding led by Mayfield Fund with participation from IDG Ventures Asia; Stanford University; University of California Berkeley; Matt Coffin, founder and former CEO of LowerMyBills.com and Clearstone Venture Partners, the company’s Series A investor.

A month ago the company claimed serving one billion ad impressions in the first six weeks of activity. The idea behind The Rubicon Project is easy — it will take the ad networks you work with and show the best paying ad for you as the publisher.

Erick Schonfeld, notes "The fact that they think there is a business here speaks to the inefficiencies of the online advertising market." I agree with Erick that there are huge inefficiencies in the ad network though The Rubicon Project is trying to actually solve a different problem.

The Rubicon Project is fixing the issue of "chaining" — that is where when an ad network can’t serve an ad, you chain to the next ad network in your rotation. Some publishers I know have chains that go 5-8 deep. Instead of chaining, The Rubicon Project tries to show the best paying ad first – which is better than using a chain because the chain has no idea which ad pays the best in a particular situation. The best paying ad could be last in the chain and you would never actually see it if a higher ad network fills the ad.

Other companies in this space include YieldBuild and PubMatic.

The Rubicon Project is announcing this morning that they have hit one billion ad impressions since their beta launch six weeks ago. The Rubicon Project allows publishers to maximize the revenue earned on their ad slots by showing the ad with the highest paying campaign at any particular point in time. This is a hot market today with other players such as YieldBuild and PubMatic.

One difference between Yieldbuild/Pubmatic and Rubicon is that Rubicon doesn’t require you to bring your own ad networks. This could be a big plus for smaller sites who can’t manage to get an ad network to approve them.

Rubicon is also serving ads on Zoominfo.com, AOL/Userplane and Beliefnet.net — this is where the billion served come from – not on small blogs. All of these services help you get the most out of your ad placements and I think it’s great. The ad networks themselves have had zero innovation in ten years. 

Editor’s note: PubMatic is a CN sponsor