It’s not always easy to reconcile the interests of publishers and advertisers, but at OpenX, they’ll tell you it’s not impossible. Publishers seek to increase revenue, while advertisers want access to the highest-quality inventory. OpenX enables that to happen by using the power of their exchange, in conjunction with network demand, for the benefit of publishers and advertisers alike.
Typically in an ad server, the winning bid for any given impression will naturally come from the exchange, which always gets “first look”. However, these traditional set ups don’t allow network demand to compete with exchange demand, meaning that often the value of the impression is not maximised. The OpenX Exchange maximises competition for every impression by allowing both direct demand partners, as well as, ad network partners to compete simultaneously, increasing the price paid to the publisher.
“Merging network demand with the strength of our exchange is a very powerful way to boost competition and ensure the highest yield for our publisher partners,” says OpenX Director of Product Management, Justin Re. “We accept that we are not always able to offer the best price for a given impression, but by introducing the impression to additional demand sources, we can guarantee a publisher the highest price. That increased demand adds to the monetization capabilities of our market leading platform.”
Bidder solution
To help publishers maximise revenue, OpenX is extending its leading Bidder solution – which delivers, on average, sustained revenue lifts between 30 and 50 per cent — to include mobile app inventory. When using Bidder for mobile apps, developers can easily integrate an adapter that returns a price guarantee from the OpenX Exchange. The price is then submitted directly into their primary SDK, forcing it to compete more aggressively to top the OpenX price. Regardless of which exchange or demand source returns the highest price for a given impression, increased competition benefits the publisher.
“It’s less about your integrated monetization partner and more about increasing competition. Our solution enables publishers to send the impression to OpenX first, allowing us to send back a price via a key value pair, while also setting an optimal floor to beat.” explains Re. “By leveraging Bidder, app publishers are guaranteed the best price for their inventory.”
An added benefit of extending Bidder to app inventory is that it gives OpenX’s demand-side partners access to premium ad inventory they would otherwise miss out on. Advertisers are exposed to a larger pool of premium app inventory where they have first look and can bid appropriately.
“The whole concept of Bidder is premised on the fact that OpenX gets the first look at these premium impressions and can offer them to our buyers, rather than waiting to see what’s left after others have cherry-picked the best ones,” says Re.
Compelling offer
Combining “first look” at premium inventory, with the industry’s top ranked marketplace for quality, makes for a compelling offering for buyers. Equally, ensuring publishers access to the world’s top brands, and their advertising budgets, reinforces OpenX’s reputation as the best exchange for maximising publisher revenue. With additional teams and tools in place to ensure only safe and non-intrusive ads are available within the exchange, it’s understandable that OpenX’s offering is gaining traction in the industry.
It’s not just OpenX’s quality ratings that are convincing. Over the past 12 months, the company saw significant growth in its numbers across the board. OpenX now represents over 50,000 apps and 900 premium mobile publishers, including more than half of comScore’s Top 100 Multi Screen publishers.
46 per cent of its total ad requests are mobile (25 per cent of these in app), equating to 80 billion mobile ad requests each month – a 137 per cent year-on-year increase. And the demand is global, with 43 per cent of ad requests coming from outside the US. Mobile ad spend on the OpenX Exchange, meanwhile, grew by 121 per cent year-on-year, while app sell-through increased by 20 per cent in the second half of 2015.
“We’ve entered 2016 with real momentum,” says Re. “Consumers have made the shift to mobile big time, and with the investments we’ve made, we’re well positioned to help advertisers reach audiences where they spend most of their time – on their smartphones – by giving them access to premium mobile inventory from the world’s top mobile publishers.”
This article first appeared in the February 2016 print edition of Mobile Marketing. You can read the whole issue here.