With ATS Sydney just two months away, Jay Stevens VP & GM, International at The Rubicon Project, and keynote for the day gives ExchangeWire APAC an overview of the platform offering in the APAC region - and details of key relationships with big publishers in APAC. Early bird tickets are now on sale. Be sure to get yours to avoid disappointment.

Can you give an overview of the Rubicon Project proposition and offering in Australia and APAC region?

The Rubicon Project is the leading Supply Side Platform (SSP), optimising roughly 100 Billion impressions per month on behalf of more than 400 of the world’s premium publishers.   Managing publishers’ yield of non-guaranteed inventory is the primary offering as our heritage comes from pioneering the ad network optimisation space.  In the last 18 months, however, we’ve enabled publishers on REVV, the company’s real time trading platform, to take advantage of the growth in real-time bidding (RTB) and tap new demand from the more than 50 demand side platforms (DSPs) now integrated. Through automation and intelligence, REVV ensures the decisioning behind and the execution of all transactions delivers maximum value to the publisher.  In addition, we’ve implemented more than a dozen private marketplaces, which is beginning blur the line between what has been regarded as guaranteed and what is labelled as remnant inventory.

Can you give an overview of the relationship dynamics between the Rubicon Project and Publishers, Ad Networks, DSPs, Agencies, Advertisers? How does it work?

Sure.  Our mission is to support the publisher and our interests are entirely aligned with theirs.  By charging a percentage of managed revenue we both share in the upside when overall revenue is improved.  With regard to the dynamics of how we work, we enable the publisher to see as much demand as possible from the more than 600 ad networks and DSPs around the world integrated on the buy side of the REVV platform.  As soon as a publisher goes live on REVV, inventory is opened to RTB sources of demand and our trading desks maximises fill through traditional ad network tags.  For many publishers with global audiences, they often see close to 200 different demand sources competing for their inventory on an impressions by impression basis, many more than could ever be managed manually.  And unlike traditional exchanges, we consolidate billings from all of these demand sources, giving the publisher a single cheque each month.

What types of publishers does the Rubicon Project work with? Large scale? Niche? Can any publisher work with the Rubicon Project?

We largely work with comScore or Nielsen 500 publishers. Regional customers include the Times of India, News Digital Australia, and Fairfax Digital, among others, optimising their inventory sold through indirect channels.    These publishers have been clients for more than a couple of years now.   Typically, our solution works best for publishers who have 30MM or more impressions/month that aren’t being sold by their direct sales team.

The Rubicon Project recently released a report on the evolution of the display market focusing on the sell-side.  What insights can you provide on the Australian and APAC regions?

We actually released reports on both the sell and buy side and the findings are pretty staggering.  Perhaps the most salient point was the amount of display spend that is now going to each agency holding company’s trading desk and the rise of independent trading desks, leveraging DSPs to more efficiently execute display campaigns.  And while it’s very early days in APAC and the Australian market for the adoption of this trading mechanic, these markets have a lot to gain from the adoption of RTB, both in terms of control and operational efficiency.  We’re now seeing some publishers in Europe receiving more than 55% of their revenue of their indirect sales channel coming from RTB.  Most compelling is that this seismic change has largely happened in the last 12 months!

Does the Australian and wider APAC market present different challenges for the Rubicon Project than other markets e.g. US or UK?

Absolutely.  One of the biggest historical challenges in the Australian market is that premium publishers have not readily adopted ad networks the way they have in the UK and in the US, largely and justifiably for a market of its audience size, for fear of cannibalisation of rates and overall erosion of value.   However, the rise of real time bidding, and the subsequent transparency and pricing controls which REVV makes available to publishers leveraging this trading mechanic, enables publishers to set advertiser and agency level floor prices for their inventory.  With RTB, publishers not only have much more visibility into who is actually buying their inventory, but what advertisers are willing to pay for it, and are capable of setting pricing and access controls to ensure that they protect their rate card and their direct sales initiatives while taking budget from non-endemic and category adjacent advertisers.

For the wider APAC market, the fragmentation of the markets and their scale, combined with extended payment terms and the lack of native demand makes it challenging not just for Rubicon, but for really for any publisher looking to monetise display inventory in the region.

Does the Rubicon Project’s offering provide additional efficiency to the publishing model?

Absolutely, because of the granular controls that publishers have available at their fingertips, commercial directors are able to direct their sales teams to concentrate on their most profitable accounts within each agency patch, selling the “big idea”, opening up the trading of standard IAB ad units through RTB and taking spend from advertisers they would have never called upon or ones that don’t justify the sales investment.  The reality, ironically for our industry, is that the way we have traditionally traded online display media is traded is incredibly inefficient – in fact it is several times more costly to execute that traditional media.   Recent studies have put the costs north of 20% of every dollar that’s spent online goes to the operational costs, and this number is exacerbated in markets where the average order value is less than $50,000.   In fact, when I ran operations for MySpace in Europe, we did a study on the costs of operations, and from the time we took the signed IO off the fax machine, to the time we collected the funds from the agency, it cost us almost $1,500.  This was a fixed cost, regardless of the size of the buy, so obviously the smaller the IO, the less profitable it is for the publisher.   RTB has the capability to significantly improve the efficiency of online publishing model, reducing friction in the buying process, improving margins for publishers and boosting ROAS for advertisers, which in turn drives more investment into the channel.

Does the Rubicon Project offer Australian and APAC publishers the ability to offer inventory on an RTB basis? How long has RTB been available in Australia and APAC?

Absolutely, all of our Australian and APAC publishers are utilising RTB today and seeing the effects of it on overall yield.  In fact, Brandscreen, the leading DSP in AU, who has been integrated for over a year now, was one of the first DSP partners to have added “buyer_ID” into the bid stream.  The addition of this field into the auction dialogue between the DSP and SSP, enables publishers to not only see detailed pricing data on bids from the advertiser, but they can gain further clarity surrounding the agency making the buy on the advertisers behalf.  Publishers are then able to act upon this data in a number of ways, including establishing agency level pricing and access rights to mirror existing trading agreements.

What role does mobile play within the Rubicon Project’s strategy with Australia and the APAC region?

At the moment, not much, though we do allow DSPs to target iOS and Android OS specifically.  We believe there is still a tremendous amount of work to make traditional display more efficient and have concentrated our efforts on being the very best here.

What plans does the Rubicon Project have in terms of product development and expansion in the APAC region over the next 12 months?

We already have an account director on the ground in Australia, Doireann O’Bradaigh who has been with us for more than two years now, but am looking to add at least one more staff member based in Sydney, concentrating on publisher development throughout the APAC region.

Jay Stevens Will Be Presenting A Keynote At ATS Sydney, The Region's Leading Data-Driven Display Conference. Get Your Early Bird Ticket Today!