• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 16, 2009

PubMatic, which helps publishers optimize inventory sold through ad networks, is introducing a new platform geared to large publishers. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company also announced an undisclosed amount of additional venture funding from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nexus India Capital and Helion Ventures.

The startup's new service--PubMatic Premiere--is aimed at publishers with more than $5 million in annual online revenue, and promises to give them greater control over advertising served via ad networks to help protect their brands and boost ad revenues.

In addition to providing on-the-fly optimization in allocating inventory among ad networks, the new platform provides large publishers with a dashboard to monitor ad quality and latency in ad serving. PubMatic co-founder and CEO Rajeev Goel said the company also tracks ad quality proactively based on a publisher's ad creative requirements (such as banning alcohol or gambling-related ads) and broader industry trends. With direct-response advertising increasing as brand ad dollars diminish because of the recession, "some of those performance ads tend to be less desirable in terms of quality," said Goel.

In particular, he pointed to the recent outbreak of "belly fat" ads sold by many direct marketers, showing unappealing images of people with overhanging midriffs. Publishers "have to balance the short-term need for revenue with the long-term goal of avoiding degradation of the user experience," noted Goel.

According to a recent Advertising Age story, however, blocking the belly fat ads has proven difficult because the ads use different tags, URLs and toll-free numbers, making them hard to track and stop automatically. PubMatic's new Premiere service also includes dedicated staffing and 24/7 support to supplement its automated services.

The company says it works with hundreds of ad networks and more than 5,500 publishers, the vast majority of which are small and medium-sized sites. But the 10% of its client base made up of large publishers account for 80% of the total impressions generated.

The company plans to use its new funding to open sales offices in New York and in Europe, starting with outposts in the U.K. and Germany. With 55 employees currently, Goel said PubMatic expects to grow to about 70 this year. Despite the economic downturn, Goel said signs of an uptick are starting to appear. "Things are anecdotally looking more positive than we would've expected," he said. "We're definitely seeing a pickup in activity and RFPs and ad business flowing again in March in a way that we hadn't seen in January."

PubMatic publishes a quarterly index of ad pricing based on advertising sold through ad networks. Pricing for the first quarter of 2009 will be released in April.