Yahoo and mobile ad-serving platform Mocean Mobile jointly announced Tuesday the launch of the Mocean Mobile Marketplace.
Mocean Mobile brings mobile inventory from publishers such as Nokia and Univision to Yahoo’s Ad Exchange. Publishers in return can access Yahoo’s ad-targeting capabilities and other services.
The Mocean-Yahoo partnership comes one week after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer promised to ramp up the company’s mobile ad operations as it tries to increase its ad revenue.
For Mocean, the partnership bolsters its data-driven services, said the company’s SVP of business development, Graham Mosley. “Yahoo is very interested in overlaying audience buying across all of their ad exchange, including mobile, which would include our inventory,” he said. He added that Mocean’s publisher partners include a mostly even mix of app and mobile Web-based ad units.
In a statement, Yahoo’s VP of ad platforms for the Americas, Brian Silver, said: “We want to help publishers maximize revenue and advertisers target mobile campaigns based on our audience insights – and our work with Mocean Mobile combines Yahoo’s scale, efficiency, publisher controls and data with their high-quality mobile inventory to do just that.”
Mocean Mobile originated in 2009 when mobile ad network Mojiva spun it off as a separate company offering programmatic services, such as a mobile real-time bidding (RTB) exchange.
As programmatic advertising gained traction, Mojiva rolled its ad network business into Mocean Mobile, a move reflecting the company’s increased focus on programmatic buying and selling, said Mosley.
“We’ve made a big transition and moved forward on our tech platform and the other side of how we’re handling media and revenue,” Mosley said. “We’re now less about ad sales and feet on the street and more about moving into programmatic full speed.”
Yahoo’s resources and its increased focus on mobile and programmatic advertising makes the Sunnyvale, Calif., company an ideal partner, according to Mosley.
“Programmatic and mobile [advertising] are at a turning point and Yahoo has made a commitment to get [those areas] right,” Mosley said. “And so we’re really excited to work with them.”
