Unruly, a marketing technology company, today announced that it is has partnered with Index Exchange, a division of ad technology firm Casale Media, to access programmatic demand from leading demand side platforms and agency trading desks. This partnership marks the launch of UnrulyX, the industry’s first programmatic media trading platform to allow advertisers to buy video inventory from premium publishers via real-time bidding (RTB) on a viewable impression basis.
With comScore reporting that fewer than half of all video ads are actually seen by users and amid concerns over brand safety, view fraud and audience integrity on open exchanges, UnrulyX guarantees advertisers only pay for In-Feed views that are actually seen. Inventory is sourced transparently from direct integrations with premium publishers, including IDG and USA TODAY Sports Media Group, and already stands at 170 million unique users globally.
In a press release, Scott Button, CEO and founder at Unruly, said, “Our RTB integration with Index Exchange provides publishers on our platform with direct access to a broad swathe of premium programmatic demand from leading platforms, including Varick Media.” He added, “With programmatic video ad spend set to reach $3.64 billion by 2016 in the US alone, the connection of UnrulyX to leading DSPs means that Unruly’s viewable video inventory can now be bought programmatically by all major agency trading desks.”
Alex Gardner, vice president of platform solutions at Index Exchange, said, “We are thrilled to be able to align our infrastructure and demand partnerships with supply sources that offer quality and viewability.” He added, “There is no question that viewability is in high demand and this partnership with Unruly allows us to deliver high quality, viewable programmatic video inventory that will lead to better outcomes for buyers, while also providing Unruly’s publishers with the premium, scalable demand they want and need.”
UnrulyX allows integration directly with premium publishers in order to dynamically inject native video ads into the newsfeeds and content streams of site homepages. Exploiting Unruly’s ViewPlay technology and using an asynchronous RTB loop, the winning bidder is notified when and only when the video player is directly viewable on the screen for 3 continuous seconds – exceeding the MRC standard for video viewability – making it impossible for RTB buyers to purchase a video impression that’s unseen.
Unruly’s proprietary Liquid Layout Engine automatically adapts the In-Feed video ad in real-time to the design and layout of the publisher’s desktop, tablet and mobile sites. This enables cross-device, multi-screen advertising and squares the circle of programmatic native.
In addition to the safety of buying premium video inventory via private marketplace mechanics and the certainty of buying native ad formats that guarantee viewability, Unruly has partnered with Integral Ad Science to assure brand safety and with MOAT to validate video viewability, both MRC-accredited vendors.
Rowena Johnson, Global Digital Director at MediaCom, said, “This is a very welcome move by Unruly because buying premium video inventory at scale in safe, well-lit environments is critical to our clients. The UnrulyX offering is strong because it exceeds IAB and MRC standards on viewability. This is particularly attractive on mobile devices, where such a large number of TV-averse Gen Y audiences are watching video.”
Button added, “We’ve been methodically building a full programmatic stack from the ground up for the last two years, aiming squarely at the holy trinity of mobile, video and native. Launching our own proprietary RTB trading platform means we can increase transparency and trust for advertisers on key issues such as viewability, brand safety and audience integrity.”
The platform is now available in the US and UK. Availability in other markets will follow.
Greg Jarboe
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