Mobclix Adds Real-Time Bidding To Mobile Ad Exchange

Real-time bidding has become a key feature of online ad exchanges, allowing advertisers to buy targeted ad impressions individually and instantaneously. Lately, real-time bidding (RTB) has been finding its way into mobile advertising as well. In that vein, mobile ad exchange Mobclix today announced it has started offering RTB for its ad inventory.

The company promises that its RTB system will help publishers boost effective CPMs by 40% to 85% over rates achieved for non-bidded inventory. It's also intended to let ad networks and demand-side platforms used by agencies make more efficient buys. Mobclix co-founder Krishna Subramanian said he expects total mobile inventory bought with RTB to be 10% to 15% of total ad buys for 2011.

Mobclix, acquired last month by mobile ad firm Velti, allows more than 25 mobile and online networks including Millennial Media, Jumptap and InMobi to buy targeted advertising across mobile applications on the iPhone, Android devices and other phones. It serves 8.5 billion ad requests a month through some 15,000 developers who use the exchange to sell ads in their apps.

Partners already on board using the company's new RTB capability include on-demand platforms such as [x+1], RadiumOne and LucidMedia; mobile ad networks InMobi and Jumptap and video ad network BrightRoll.

In September, Microsoft launched what it said was the first mobile ad exchange supporting RTB in advance of the rollout of its new Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Demand-side platform DataXu partnered with WPP's GroupM division the same month to launch a joint ad solution for mobile, and Ericsson unveiled AdMarket, "an open marketplace for targeted mobile advertising."

More recently, Google said it would begin allowing iPhone and Android developers to run AdSense ads in apps when an ad from AdMobi, the mobile ad network it acquired last year, wasn't available. The step marks a growing integration between Google's existing online ad systems and its mobile operations.

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