Earlier this year YieldBuild partnered with Microsoft pubCenter. YieldBuild also works with Google, Tribal Fusion, bluelithium and the Yahoo Publisher Network. The service works by configuring the ads to create the best possible performing combination of colors and other “visual formatting characteristics”.

Related: Interview with YieldBuild Founder and CEO Paul Edmondson

Apparently some publishers in the pubCenter beta report better performance than with AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network. I can’t comment on the results as I don’t use pubCenter but as with any ad network, pricing can fluctuate on each individual ad click.

Check out my video interview with YieldBuild CEO Paul Edmondson.

We covered YieldBuild when they launched their private beta last October. While in San Francisco I met with co-founder and CEO Paul Edmondson to get an update on where the service is today. We also speak about the online advertising industry and ad pricing. Here’s our discussion:

Allen,

Thanks for highlighting what our service does. PubMatic optimizes across the leading ad networks to maximize publisher revenues, and then does color optimization for AdSense and YPN text ads. One service to do it all for you, regardless of your type of network. I thought I’d give you a little update on where we are:

1. 1,000+ publishers are using www.PubMatic.com today!
2. In a recent survey we did, 50% of publishers said their revenues went up 20-40% by using PubMatic, and 25% said their revenues went up by more than 60%!
3. We have now network support for AdSense, ValueClick, BlueLithium, Tribal Fusion, Yahoo Publisher Network, Advertising.com, Burst Media, and Casale — pretty much all the top networks. And this is real deep integration so you see all your reports, your CPMs, don’t have to cut and paste any ad tags, etc. And we have tons more coming!

In short, we are pretty darn excited about how publishers and ad networks are responding to PubMatic, and are working hard to make it even better.

I love to hear from potential customers or our current customers, so let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.

Amar Goel
Founder
PubMatic
amar.goel ( at ) pubmatic.com

Nick notes, "It uses computer algorithms to automatically optimize your site’s ad spots with the most profitable combination of ad layout, style, and network. The system continually tests alternative configurations of layouts, networks, and color, looking for the highest performing ones. You can see a timeline of the system substituting ads below. It takes about 100,000 impressions to train the system. As users become unresponsive to the ads, the system is supposed to switch in a more profitable combination of layout and networks."

I’ve chatted a few times with another application offering a similar service called Pubmatic (our coverage). Pubmatic works with the following networks: ValueClick, BlueLithium, Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network. YieldBuild doesn’t list the networks they work with. Both networks have seen early success in their trials.

For these services to grow, their network base will need to grow as well. For example, in addition to Pubmatic’s listed partners, I also use BurstMedia, my own ads and FeedBurner for advertising. Pubmatic can route to these networks from what I remember but they can’t optimize against them yet.

Additionally, if these systems could recognize the "type of user", then they could be even more beneficial. For example, if we know that Digg users respond better to gadget ads versus automobile advertising, make sure that any referral from Digg gets gadget ads. That’s where the real money making opportunities are.

I will provide a more detailed review and report back on results once I give each program a try.