Last week at the Automation Summit in Stockholm, Rubicon Project made a hugely important product announcement. Here’s what Rubicon’s CEO Michael Barrett had to say about it - and why it brings greater control and simplicity to header bidding for publishers:

While closed systems offer ease-of-use but limited control, open systems are difficult to use but endlessly flexible. We think there’s a way to have the best of both worlds, and the header is the right place to start.

Prebid brought transparency, flexibility, and community-driven innovation to header bidding…[but] Prebid has its limitations… publishers must rely on engineers for such basic tasks as troubleshooting integrations and pulling actionable reports. This may hinder publisher growth.

To address these challenges and allow Prebid installations to truly scale, Rubicon Project created Demand Manager, a Prebid-as-a-service solution. We do all the technical heavy lifting and publishers experience complete control through a real-time interface and analytics. Without the reliance on internal technical resources, publisher monetization teams can focus on making quick, informed decisions to help drive revenue.

Michael’s blogpost is well worth reading in full - and goes on to break down the key elements of the Demand Manager product. But also, importantly how it will build a bridge to Prebid Server, and future expansion of server-based header bidding. And how that, in turn, could enhance options around evolving trading methods like programmatic guaranteed.

Rubicon Project’s CTO Tom Kershaw adds:

“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.”

Clients already using the product have the following to say:

“Implementing Demand Manager immediately increased our revenue by double digits,” said Matt Burgess, Business Development & Programmatic Partnerships, Publishers Clearing House. “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.”

“We’re very excited to leverage this new service from Rubicon Project,” said Bill Murray, Vice President, Programmatic Solutions, Discovery Inc. “The tools and support that Demand Manager provides allow us easy access to actionable data while operating in a transparent environment.”

To find out more about how you can access Demand Manager, please get in touch with the Netric team.