Given the explosive growth in Facebook mobile revenue, the question will ultimately rise among traditional publishers as to how they are going to capture some of this growing mobile spend. We speak to Paul Gubbins, Head of Mobile EMEA, the Rubicon Project, about how the company's solution is trying to bridge the mobile revenue gap for traditional publishers.

The data-driven mobile display market is still relatively nascent.  Can you give some overview between in-app and mobile web inventory.  And where Rubicon Project sits in the mix? 

The majority of publishers on the Rubicon Project’s REVV platform have seen a seismic shift in the way their content is consumed over the past year: the explosive growth we’ve seen in desktop traffic shifting rapidly to mobile phones and tablets. Earlier this month we learned that almost a half of MailOnline’s UK audience now mobile – more evidence, if it was needed, that mobile content has hit the mainstream.

With a proven record in the monetisation of major publishers’ desktop inventory in both open RTB and through private marketplaces, these publishers are now turning to us to help them maximise both sell through and yields for their mobile inventory.

As a result, we have a high concentration of premium mobile and tablet inventory being accessed by our demand partners globally and in real time. We are connected to more than 100 DSPs, 400 networks and thousands of ’seats’, all the trading desks globally and more than 100,000 advertisers, so it’s little surprise we are increasingly responding to requests from major global app developers to help them build out their mobile programmatic strategies, as well as major publishers.

Rubicon Project has been rolling out its PMP solution in the mobile market.  Is there really any appetite to launch PMPs in mobile among publishers - and is there demand for it among the buy side?

Absolutely - Private marketplaces (PMPs) have proven extremely effective and popular with both sellers and buyers in desktop display and we see no reason why this shouldn’t be the same for mobile.

In fact, when you take into account the fact that:

a) Unlike in the US, third party data vendors are yet to really establish themselves in the European market
b) There is a lack of mass cookie adoption or persistent mobile ID
c) The majority of inventory that is traded via mobile RTB to date is either blind or long tail
d) Despite the rapid growth of mobile RTB, ad networks and rep firms still dominate, meaning the market is still ripe for publishers to take back control

You could even make the case that the need for mobile PMPs is even greater than in desktop display.  

Publishers are currently asking how they can increase their mobile yields, while buyers want to know where their ads are running - and in both cases, mobile PMPs can provide the answer.

But it’s worth a brief step backwards first to recap how we’ve seen desktop RTB develop:

First publishers realise they can gain higher yields through selling their inventory transparently through open RTB, as opposed to masked URLs or ‘blind’ through ad networks. With granular controls around pricing and block lists in place, publishers see 2-3x increase on yields compared to networks.

They also benefit from the insight gained from the bid landscape report (BLR – or granular bid pattern reporting/benchmarking). Major publishers are increasingly using the BLR as a source of leads for their direct sales force, and for likely PMP buyers. Through PMPs, publishers are able to grow yields 3-5x times over open RTB.

Using a data management platform (DMP) publishers add 1st party data to their PMP deals, passed safely via DealID – these audience-based deals see another jump in yield, in many cases as high as, if not higher than direct-sold deals.

Audience-based mobile PMP deals present a very real opportunity – to bring data into mobile ad trading, where we currently see none. And Connect, our direct deal product, already has the functionality in place to execute such deals.

Buy side mobile adoption will only catch up with the consumer when we combine premium environments, contextual relevance and full transparency.

For too long programmatic mobile buying has been based on assumptions: assumptions around device types and who uses them, or assumptions around the value of mixing data, e.g. location with offline data. As a result, ROI for advertisers in mobile RTB has lagged behind desktop RTB.

The result of this ‘assumptive targeting’ is that publishers have been exposed to pressures from the buy side to secure the cheapest click possible to offset its inaccuracies, i.e. lower yields.

We are working with many of our publishers to pass data safely via DealID through PMPs, so buyers can target accurately and pay a fair price for data-enriched and transparent mobile inventory. We are now seeing the same uplifts (yields for seller/ROI for buyers) in mobile as we have done in desktop and look forward to releasing the case studies to prove it.

What is the real value of DealID for premium publishers with mobile inventory? - Can you give some overview on how DealID works on mobile?

Rubicon Project defines its private marketplace solution as the automation of the workflow required to negotiate and execute programmatic direct deals between agencies and publishers via a demand-side platform (DSP) using DealID.

A private marketplace may be initiated by publishers in the form of pre-defined package(s) of transparent premium inventory, or created as a response to a digital RFP proposed by buyers in Connect, Rubicon Project’s product for automating direct deal negotiation.

Through Connect, Rubicon Project runs a unified auction on behalf of the publishers on the REVV platform, giving preferred access to the buyers in a private marketplace while helping to ensure that every impression is optimised.

To expand on the benefits of DealID briefly, I would highlight in particular that it allows us to:

a) Segment inventory and/or audience in a more granular way in order to achieve higher yields (exactly like direct sales)
b) Do this safely by encrypting any data that is sent in the transaction to avoid data leakage risk
c) Reduce channel conflict concerns by creating differentiation between what is available through open RTB and private marketplaces

There is still a lot of ambiguity around tracking in mobile, can it be done while complying with the various PII legislation put in place by the EU & DAA?

Absolutely, Yes.

Although there is still a lot of confusion in the market, there are now proven ways to track in both mobile app and browsers that adhere fully to privacy legislation dictated by the EU & DAA.

Device Recognition is a method that is starting to get a lot of traction also and vendors such as AdTruth have some good case studies on this. Cookies are supported by some operating systems and there are PII compliant methods for others that don’t.

To answer your question, we see some DR advertisers return extremely strong results by harnessing a multitude of PII compliant methods to track and retarget users when either in an app or web browser environment, through open RTB or PMPs. Brand advertisers delivering rich HTML5 formats built by vendors such as Celtra are also now able to track fully all in-ad interactions to illustrate brand uplift and ROI.

The IAB and MMA are also going to great lengths to drive universally adopted standards and practices in mobile to drive out the ambiguity that still exists on both sides and both are doing a great job.

Why is mobile spend on traditional publishers still not growing at the rate of consumer adoption?  What have been the big problems in attracting big agency spend into the channel.  Do you think a PMP solution can bring spend into mobile? 

Having had this conversation with the majority of the buy side leads in London, they all cite the lack of  transparency and data in existing mobile exchanges and SSPs as the main hurdle to growing spend.

We’ve all seen the Mary Meeker/Kleiner Perkins charts that illustrate budgets lagging behind consumer adoption, and they are a direct result of advertiser nervousness surrounding the perceived dark arts at work in mobile.

The absence of robust and scalable third party data segments as found in desktop display, an ecosystem built on blind and long tail inventory that is tracked using a multitude of vendors and a lack of transparency – these are all problems holding mobile back, and all reasons why the time is now for mobile PMPs.

We believe that no one else has the same scale, technology, quality and experience in private marketplace solutions that we have. And we are now ideally placed to replicate the value we have delivered in desktop PMPs to mobile, for both buyers and sellers.

Big brands want to engage with consumers wherever they spend time, but technology has to give them the confidence to do so.