Rubicon Project and Merkle Pioneer Automated High Impact Page Takeover Capability

Rubicon Project (NYSE: RUBI), which operates one of the industry’s largest independent real-time trading platforms for the buying and selling of advertising, and Merkle, a leading technology enabled, data-driven customer relationship marketing (CRM) firm, today unveiled a ground-breaking capability for buyers and sellers of advertising to engage digital consumers in a pioneering way.

While guaranteed-sold takeovers have been a trusted and powerful way for publishers to provide access to 100% share-of-voice to premium advertiser brands, they are expensive and often serve the same ad to every viewer. For the first time through automated private exchange technology, advertisers will be able to run campaigns that achieve a 100% share-of-voice on any given page. Through automated private exchange buying across all available inventory on a publisher’s site, along with data-driven ad placement, a brand will now be able to reach its desired audience in a powerful and more effective new way. And with Rubicon Project’s Advertising Automation Cloud, this reach will achieve global scale.

Rubicon Project’s Advertising Automation Cloud together with Merkle’s suite of marketing technology tools is already being utilized by select premium brand advertisers and publishers looking to improve the efficacy of the buying and selling of advertising through data-driven automation.

“This type of functionality will provide us with the quality and control we require to reach consumers in the bold and innovative ways that our customers expect from a premium brand name like ours,” said Melissa Grady, VP eBusiness, MetLife. “The ability to scale our ad campaigns with unprecedented reach of publishers in brand safe environments is essential. I’m excited that this cutting-edge approach can help us create brand presence in a cost effective and unique way.”

“With this capability we are able to offer advertisers through automated technology a powerful new way for them to reach their audience with all the impact of traditional display advertising,” said Julie Hansen, COO & President, Business Insider. “The combination of branding media and automated technology is an exciting advancement.”

“Providing ‘100%’ share-of-voice through full-page takeovers is one of the last obstacles that advertising automation has yet to facilitate until now,” said Megan Pagliuca, General Manager and Vice President of Digital Media at Merkle. “Working together with Rubicon Project, and on behalf of some of the top premium brands we work with, we have been able to offer automated full-page takeovers to allow advertisers to reach and engage their audience in a bold and dramatic new way.”

“Automation is providing more and better solutions for premium advertisers, publishers and applications, as evidenced by full-page takeover capabilities that add a powerful new layer to the way that technology is utilized,” said Anthony Katsur, Senior Vice President, Business Operations, Rubicon Project. “This is another example of Rubicon Project’s commitment to deliver innovations that increase the value of transactions for both buyers and sellers.”

With specially engineered hardware to enable low latency trading, Rubicon Project’s Advertising Automation Cloud currently processes 2.5 million queries per second and trillions of bid requests each month on behalf of the hundreds of premium publishers and applications and tens of thousands of advertiser brands who rely on the Advertising Automation Cloud to buy and sell advertising inventory.

Buying and selling full-page takeovers through automation will be offered to all of Rubicon Project’s buyers and sellers.

About Rubicon Project

Rubicon Project (NYSE: RUBI) has engineered the Advertising Automation Cloud, one of the largest real-time cloud and Big Data computing systems. The Company's mission is to automate the buying and selling of advertising by offering innovative products to connect buyers and sellers globally. www.RubiconProject.com

About Merkle

Merkle, a technology enabled, data driven customer relationship marketing (CRM) firm, is the nation’s largest privately-held agency. For more than 25 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. By combining a complete range of marketing, technical, analytical and creative disciplines, Merkle works with clients to design, execute and evaluate connected CRM programs. With more than 2,100 employees, the privately held corporation is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland with additional offices in Boston; Chicago; Denver; Little Rock; London; Minneapolis; Montvale, NJ; Nanjing; New York; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; San Francisco; Hagerstown, MD and Shanghai. For more information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkleinc.com.

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