rubicon project

Display advertising is old and busted. Streaming CTV is the new hotness. Obviously, those aren’t the exact words Magnite CEO Michael Barrett used, but it’s pretty much what the numbers say.

Publishers are facing enough headwinds to make their heads spin. These challenges mean opportunity for publisher tech companies like Freestar, which announced Wednesday that it hired Heather Carver as its first-ever chief revenue officer. Smaller publishers will need help navigating an uncertain future, Carver told AdExchanger. The deprecation of third-party cookies and other identifiers, the […]

Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. Greg Raifman has had a long career in digital advertising. He started out at ad server Mediaplex in the late ’90s, helped take Rubicon Project public in 2014 and is now running the digital subsidiary of Nexstar Media […]

The Rubicon Project and Telaria brands are no more. The two exchanges, which merged in December, have picked a new name to go to market with together: Magnite. “It felt descriptive of the brand mission,” said Magnite CEO Michael Barrett. Meant to evoke magnetism and the “-ite” of a mineral, Magnite will also change its […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Aprés-Zagorski Mark Zagorski is leaving Rubicon Project at the end of June, the company announced on Thursday. It’s hardly surprising. Zagorski was CEO of Telaria before its absorption by Rubicon, and he has been COO and president since then. “Thanks to Mark’s leadership, we […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Short Stint The average tenure of CMOs in the United States dropped again in 2019, to 41 months from about 43 months in 2018. That’s the lowest number on record since 2009, according to a report from executive search firm Spencer Stuart. The […]

With almost two months of nationwide lockdowns under our belts and a round of quarterly earnings reports, Wall Street’s sentiment around digital media and ad tech companies is … surprisingly positive. Companies that rely on advertising are supposed to be among the most prone to recessions and market panic, since advertising is historically tied to […]

Rubicon Project is laying off 8% of its combined staff this quarter to reduce short-term costs in response to its merger and the coronavirus pandemic. Originally, Rubicon Project and Telaria expected to achieve $15 million to $20 million in cost synergies post-merger, but the coronavirus pandemic led the newly combined company to increase cost-cutting to […]

Although Google Ad Manager’s policy changes make it a frequent subject of criticism among some publishers, in practice publishers don’t cite these changes as negatively impacting their businesses, according to Advertiser Perceptions’ latest survey of the SSP market. The report polled 150 digital ad sales and operations professionals at sites with more than 3 million […]

When Rubicon Project and Telaria announced their merger in December, the coronavirus was only just beginning to raise flags in Wuhan, China. Three months later, the deal is officially done – the merger closed on Wednesday – and Michael Barrett, CEO of the combined entity, is adjusting plans for the integration and product road map. The companies […]

Rubicon Project delivered a strong end to 2019 by increasing Q4 revenue by 17% to $48.5 million, the top end of its guidance to investors. The exchange also highlighted its growth in video as it prepares to close its merger with Telaria in early April. Video revenue soared 43% to $28.6 million in 2019. Video […]

Michael Barrett has had his eye on Telaria since his first day as CEO of Rubicon Project in March, 2017, when the company was Tremor Video and was led by then-CEO Paul Caine. But, like with many relationships, Rubicon and Telaria needed to “do a little work on ourselves” before they were fit partners, said […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Wages Of ITP Apple’s long-running effort to stamp out targeted ads on its services has been remarkably effective. Apple’s privacy crusade kicked off in September 2017 with the introduction of Intelligent Tracking Prevention for Safari. Now, two years later, the value of a Safari […]

Rubicon Project missed revenue projections for the quarter as programmatic changes, including the new transparency standards App.ads.txt and sellers.json, affected its topline revenue growth. Rubicon Project’s Q3 revenue grew 27% year over year to $37.6 million. Year to date, its revenues are $107.9 million, which represents 30% growth compared to the same period last year. […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Michael Barrett, president and CEO at Rubicon Project. For the first time in my career, ad tech’s independent players are embracing a powerful idea: Collaboration makes us stronger. It’s a […]

Rubicon Project acquired header bidding management and analytics platform RTK.io for $11 million in cash on Monday. The plan is to integrate RTK.io’s tech and analytics functionality into Rubicon Project’s Demand Manager product by the first half of next year. “This will accelerate our vision to be a leader in the Prebid managed service business,” […]

Amid fears of a recession and wild swings in the stock market, advertising technology companies are enjoying a renaissance. Since the start of 2019, shares of the video ad tech company Telaria have more than doubled in value, from below $4 to $10.45 as of this week. Rubicon Project also started the year trading below […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Taking Stock Ad tech stocks seem to be staging a comeback. Aside from Criteo, independent, publicly-traded ad tech companies are on a growth streak. The Trade Desk is up more than 5X since May 2018, when GDPR became law, and now boasts a market […]

Rubicon Project took in $37.9 million in Q2 2019, up by almost a third from the same period last year, according to the company’s earnings report on Wednesday. Rubicon was cash flow positive for the second consecutive quarter, but still had a net loss of $8.3 million. Though that figure is down from Q2 2018, […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Tom Kershaw, chief technology officer for Rubicon Project. It’s hardly revolutionary to predict the end of the third-party cookie. Digital advertising’s fundamental currency for the last ten years is under increasing strain. Regulators are […]

Publishers want to control their header bidding – especially in light of Google Ad Manager’s changing rules and proprietary header bidding wrappers giving preference to their own demand. To serve this need, Rubicon Project built Demand Manager, tech that sits on top of the open-source wrapper Prebid. In addition to analytics and a rich UI […]

Rubicon Project’s revenue increased 32% in Q4, earning $41.4 million on $301 million in ad spend. It met its goal for a positive adjusted EBITDA and, as a bonus, became cash flow positive a year ahead of projections. The news sent Rubicon’s stock up 15% in after-hours trading. But Rubicon also noted pressure in its […]

Overcoming the banality of a standard banner ad in favor of a custom unit requires a lot of work. Buyers need to work with creative tech companies to build the units, and publishers need to adjust their ad setup to support the unusual formats. When header bidding became the norm, it cut off these companies’ […]

One year ago, Rubicon Project removed buyer fees from its platform, halving its take rate to 12.8%. The gutsy move occurred during a battle over take rates: Competitor AppNexus said its take rate stood at 8.5%, and its CEO called for a price war. Drastically cutting take rates forced Rubicon to use cash reserves to […]

Six top ad exchanges are asking the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) to referee auction dynamics. The CEOs of OpenX, PubMatic, Rubicon Project, Sovrn, SpotX and Telaria collectively signed a letter to advertisers and publishers outlining principles of transparency, efficiency and fair-market practices. They want to clearly state what’s acceptable and what’s not to restore trust […]

Rubicon Project beat its Q2 revenue expectations, sending the stock up 15% in after-hours trading Wednesday. Rubicon Project is still in the middle of steering a huge ship out of danger: It’s burning cash faster than it can increase ad spend on its platform, the result of cutting buyer fees from the platform in November. […]

Ad tech is a buyer’s market right now, and MediaMath just got $180 million in cash to fund acquisitions. Could one of those targets be Rubicon Project? “That’s an interesting idea,” MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki told AdExchanger Thursday. “No, we are not buying them at this time.” The idea of a top-tier DSP and SSP […]

Pity the ad tech middleman. They place an ad on behalf of the advertiser, but when it comes time to get paid…they wait. And wait. And wait. In the meantime, they owe their own bills to creditors who want cash now. Since the economic crisis in 2008, marketers have slowed down payments to vendors and […]

The advertising industry has been plagued by a lack of trust, with vendors, agencies and marketers looking at each other askance. Ad fraud, bad traffic and hidden fees have taken their toll, and while industry players have taken measures to reinstitute their good standing, their work isn’t nearly complete. During a panel Thursday at AdExchanger’s […]

Rubicon’s CEO Michael Barrett will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on January 17 – 18, 2018 at the Grand Hyatt New York.  Rubicon Project is in the midst of a risky move – one that CEO Michael Barrett thought he could avoid when he joined nine months ago. Because of customer outcry, the company stopped charging […]