Rubicon's 'Programmatic Direct' Business Grows 150% Year-Over-Year

The programmatic industry continues to work toward the eMarketer projection that by 2016, 42% of programmatic ad dollars will go through “programmatic direct” channels.

Rubicon Project is one of the companies trying to lead that charge.

The digital ad tech firm doubled down on programatic direct technologies last fall when it acquired two of the bigger independent startups in the space -- iSocket and ShinyAds. Rubicon Project has since launched a new platform called “Orders” for programmatic direct (the company calls it "direct order automation").

The company’s decision to lean in on programmatic direct appears to be paying off.

Rubicon Project on Tuesday announced that its programatic direct business has grown over 150% year-over-year in terms of managed revenue. The mobile portion of the business -- which is where Rubicon initially focused -- has grown even more, jumping 200% year-over-year.

During the second quarter of 2015, “Orders” accounted for 17% of Rubicon Project’s total managed revenue -- or about $36.6 million. During the second quarter of 2014, “Orders” accounted for 10% of the company’s total managed revenue -- about $15.4 million. The company says over 2,500 buyers and sellers are now plugged into the platform.

Programmatic direct is expected to continue growing. Recent research from AdExchanger Research found that nearly three-fourths (71.9%) of programmatic budgets are allocated to open exchanges right now, but that number is expected to decrease to 63.6% by 2016 in favor of private marketplaces and programmatic direct platforms.

Next story loading loading..