• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 14, 2010

Ad optimization technology provider AdMeld on Tuesday named Jason Kelly as chief media officer.

Most recently, Kelly served as VP of strategy and revenue management at Time Inc. Digital. At AdMeld, Kelly will oversee global relationships with demand and data partners, as well as lead strategic publisher projects.

AdMeld is one of many startups competing to help publishers better manage all the ad networks they can now choose from to sell leftover ad impressions. As Kelly sees it, AdMeld is in the business of helping publishers "manage and sell their inventory programmatically, analyze and package their audiences, and optimize impressions across the Web and mobile."

For a share of earned ad revenue, AdMeld -- along with rivals like The Rubicon Project, Pubmatic -- factor in pricing data, available inventory, and publisher guidelines to determine which ad network is sent an ad impression.

Late last year, AdMeld reported doubling the size of its client base since June. More recent additions include AccuWeather.com, Answers. com, Billboard.com, Daily Kos, Hearst Television, The New York Post and Time Out New York.

The AdMeld platform attempts to leverage dynamic pricing and advanced targeting to better route inventory from publishers to generate higher revenue for each ad served.

Just last month, AdMeld closed a $15 million third round of venture funding, bringing the 3-year-old company's total financing to $30 million. The series C round was led by VC firm Norwest Venture Partners, with Time Warner Investments and the company's existing backers -- Spark Capital and Foundry Group -- also participating.

Last June, AdMeld closed an $8 million round of Series B funding led by Spark and Foundry.

Prior to Time Inc., Kelly was at Rapt -- a part of Advertising and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft -- where he managed various strategic consulting engagements and enterprise software implementations.