Rubicon announced this week the launch of Revv For Demand, allowing demand side networks access to automated and audience buys. This will also enable demand side traders to buy inventory in real-time. These type of buys will be strictly controlled on the platform. Rubicon believe the new release will address some of the problems currently that exist in real-time bidding, including channel conflict, data leakage, transparency and ad quality. With the three SSPs all offering RTB functionality, will premium pubs here now look to use these platforms for RTB?

From a European perspective it will be interesting to see what will be made available through RTB. The real problem that exists at the minute is the lack of decent inventory. Publishers are still very hesitant in making ad impressions available in real-time. Concerns still exist around pricing and "cherry picking" by demand side networks. Rubicon is looking to address those concerns head on. And this has to be a positive development. There is a lot of money flowing through DSPs in the US; the same will happen here. Publishers are going to have to partner SSPs or yield specialists in order to unlock the value of their inventory. Publishers need to be ready for the move towards real-time trading. You are already seeing it get traction in the US.

I think the SSPs - Rubicon, Improve Digital and Admeld - are going to play a major role in the adoption of RTB. Presently, the three do not have a great number of premium publishers using their platform. I would say that a lot of the big UK publishers are using the SSPs to sell non-guaranteed international inventory, but very little domestic traffic is flowing through these platforms. With the adoption of RTB I see this changing. As the amount of buyers on the demand side grow, pubs will have to follow the money. They will need technology partners to figure out the RTB market. Some will use DoubleClick Adx; some will use RightMedia and other exchanges; and the rest will work with the SSPs. We are in the early stages of this evolution in display but I think things are going to change very rapidly in the coming months. You can already see it in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the Nordic regions.

If you are an ad trader, here are the tastier bits of the new Rubicon offering:

- Buy Select: Buy premium inventory by site, channel, audience segment, or cookie with unique targeting factors available for each method;
- DataCore Targeting: Applies the one trillion bytes of data added to the REVV platform each day from a broad array of data sources to ensure the right audience is delivered for each campaign;
- Dynamic Pricing: Factors fundamental market demand, inventory value and publisher-determined rules around transparency and pricing to determine the right price – for buyers and sellers - for each impression;
- Insertion Order Tracker: Execute Insertion Orders entirely digitally, including digital signature capability. Once an order is placed, automated alerts keep buyers up to speed as it moves through the approval process;
- Ad Quality Issue Management: Leverage REVV’s proprietary creative harvesting and ad quality prevention technologies to view and tackle ad quality issues as they arise. Allows demand partners to address then resolve issues directly within the REVV interface to keep campaigns and revenue flowing smoothly;
- Campaign Reporting: Provides a snapshot of every campaign a demand partner is running through REVV for demand, and drills into campaign performance.