Rubicon Project introduces prebid as a service

Programmatic exchange Rubicon Project announced the private beta release of Demand Manager, a service that helps large publishers to deploy, configure, and optimise Prebid-based header bidding.

Discovery Inc., Publishers Clearing House, AutoTrader, Southern Cross Austereo, and Domain are among the first clients.

Built on Prebid, a standard for open-source header bidding that Rubicon Project champions, the service is transparent, flexible and ready to connect with more than 70 exchanges and SSPs, the company said. Rubicon Project hosts and updates the Prebid code and provides ongoing technical and yield-management expertise.

Key features include:

• Universal performance analytics and configuration UIs that enable publishers to monitor and optimise demand across all demand sources.
• Integration with Rubicon Project’s marketplace across all deal types ensuring seamless integration with Private and Guaranteed Deals that are increasingly central to large publishers’ monetisation efforts.
• Dedicated technical and yield management expertise including implementation, configuration, hosting, and yield management support.

Tom Kershaw, chief technology officer, Rubicon Project:

As Prebid scaled globally, it became clear that publishers had to expend significant time and resources adapting it to their needs, which is unsustainable and unnecessary. With Demand Manager, we see the opportunity to combine the transparency and flexibility of open source with a turnkey service that puts control back in the publishers’ hands so they don’t have to rely on us or anyone else to run their businesses.

Matt Burgess, business development and programmatic partnerships, Publishers Clearing House:

Implementing Demand Manager immediately increased our revenue by double digits. The solution enables us to lower page latencies and improve our user experience, but the biggest change is how simple and easy it is to transact with all of our partners.

More details in the company's blog post announcing the offering.