The Top 10 Mobile RTB Marketplaces for Publishers

The Top 10 Mobile RTB Marketplaces for Publishers

The Top 10 Mobile RTB Marketplaces for Publishers

Image source: https://dev.twitter.com/mopub/ui/mopub-dashboard

So if you’re a publisher interested in using RTB to increase your revenue per mille or an advertiser interested in finding new RTB marketplaces, we got you covered. Keep reading to learn how you can make use of RTB marketplaces to earn more from your campaigns or traffic.

What is an RTB ad marketplace?

Remember our stock exchange scene above? Replace the buyers and sellers with an algorithm designed to automate the entire process of buying and selling ad inventory, and you have an RTB ad marketplace.

Image courtesy of Ad Metrics Media
How is an RTB marketplace different from an ad network?

The 1990s introduced us to a number of new problems like not being able to use the phone because someone was on the Internet, fitting all your favorite songs on one CD, or that little ball inside your mouse decided to stop spinning for no apparent reason.

The 90s were also when advertisers couldn’t purchase inventory on a huge variety of websites, without developing relationships with thousands of publishers directly and managing those relationships through agencies, agents, or in-house employees.

Ad networks put an end to all that. Networks courted publishers and attracted advertisers by selling inventory in bulk, and collecting a cut on each ad inventory sale along the way.

RTB marketplaces differ from ad networks in that advertisers bid on inventory directly from each publisher, without a third party managing their campaign for them. Advertisers have control over everything from CPM bidding to frequency capping, geotargeting and more from a self-served platform. This means increased transparency and also access to more SSPs than an ad network can offer, although many ad networks nowadays offer their marketplaces.

The difference between an RTB marketplace and an ad network:
Real-time bidding
Increased control
More optimization available
Increased transparency
Access to more SSPs
Why Mobile?
Back to the future, in 2016, it’s all about mobile. Since 2014, the number of mobile users has exceeded desktop users worldwide. With so many eyeballs focused on mobile screens it’s natural that many advertisers would migrate their ad spend to the mobile screens.

For advertisers, it’s clear that if you’re not on mobile you’re not reaching your audience. But, the mobile screen is much smaller than the desktop one, which less ad inventory and less viewable ad impressions to sell.

So we have a combination of two things:
Increasing number of mobile users spending an increasing amount of time on mobile devices.
Less viewable ad impressions.
Less ad impressions available for increasing proportions of’ traffic is a huge red flag for online publishers and has them scrambling to find solutions to their mobile monetization woes.

With programmatic media buying (i.e. RTB) on the rise, it’s only natural that RTB marketplaces would be mobilized (get it?!) to increase revenue from mobile traffic.
The top 10 mobile real-time bidding marketplaces:
Smaato

One of Smaato’s biggest benefits for publishers is that it works extensively to optimize for the highest possible RPMs. SPX uses “super auctions” to find the best demand source for every impression, letting publishers get the highest possible yield for each pageview.

MoPub

Using MoPub, publishers can identify top-performing sources of demand in a variety of OSes and countries. MoPub also lets publishers transparently see which advertisement is winning each auction, giving them a direct look at the ad creatives displayed within their apps.
Axonix

Publishers have full control over pricing and can set price floors on an ad unit and geographic level. It’s also possible to give certain demand partners preferential access, or to block certain brands and competitors from bidding on your ad inventory.

DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX)

Interesting features of AdX include a dynamic price floor, which automatically adjusts the price floor for ad inventory based on demand from buyers, and more than 40 unique data signals for advertisers.

Vdopia

Video ads served by Vdopia are auto-initiated and have sound disabled by default, making them ideal for increasing CPM rates without negatively affecting user experience. The ad marketplace integrates using an SDK or ad tags for mobile app developers and publishers.

Adxperience

Advertisers can run display and push campaigns through Adxperience, giving publishers a wide variety of ways to monetize their traffic. Based in France and Israel, Adxperience delivers traffic from more than 180 countries on a daily basis.

Flurry Marketplace

Since advertisers can target users based on specific factors like age and gender, Flurry’s RTB marketplace is an appealing option for advertisers. This detailed targeting could also result in higher than average eCPMs for mobile ad publishers.

MobFox

With support for banners, interstitial ads, video content and native ad units, MobFox is built for a huge range of mobile apps. MobFox is designed to work alongside other ad networks to deliver the highest possible eCPM by only displaying RTB ads that earn you a premium.

OpenX

Used by 100% of the Ad Age top 100 leading advertisers and more than 70 of ComScore’s top 100 publishers, OpenX has a variety of premium advertisers and established brands willing to pay top dollar to reach high quality audiences.

ONE by AOL: Mobile

ONE by AOL: Mobile is AOL’s new mobile ad marketplace — a real-time bidding ad exchange for mobile that allows publishers to access a huge portfolio of leading brands and direct advertisers to monetize their mobile apps and content.

With transparent reporting and controls for publishers and AOL’s access to some of the world’s most well-known brands, ONE is a good option for mobile publishers that want to attract brands and established advertisers.