• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, July 11, 2013

After a five year partnership with PubMatic, United Online Media Group this morning announced that they have switched partners and will now use OpenX's monetization platform. United Online, a comScore 500 company with sites such as Classmates.com and NetZero.com, will use OpenX's platform for their digital - and specifically display - advertising needs.

RTM Daily spoke with United Online's SVP of National Sales, Santo Criscuolo, as well as Jason White, general manager for OpenX's publisher business West. Criscuolo said that the process of finding a new platform partner took about 18 months from start to finish.

Criscuolo observed that "the landscape for publishers is becoming increasingly more difficult," something United Online noticed several years ago. He was also sure to mention that the move away from PubMatic was not because PubMatic was a "bad" partner. In fact, they were among the final three options when United Online was deciding on their platform of the future.

"PubMatic was a very good partner," Criscuolo said. "Five years ago they were the right partner for us. As the market has continued to evolve and our business has continued to evolve, we felt we had to make a change, or at least consider making one."

United Online's underlying goal in switching platforms was to increase yield. United Online sent out RFPs to "all of the usual suspects," Criscuolo said, narrowed it down to three, and eventually selected OpenX. "It was a very long, detailed process (selecting a platform partner) because it's a key component to our business." So how did OpenX win them over? White says it was their monetization platform.

What exactly is a monetization platform? It seems like industry jargon - and it kind of is - but White was able to break down exactly what the platform is in layman's terms. OpenX's monetization platform is three things in one: a base ad server for direct campaigns, a real-time bidding (RTB) ad exchange, and a self-serve platform (SSP).

White said that OpenX’s platform allows for RTB and non-RTB inventory to "talk to one another on an impression-by-impression basis,” something he claimed was unique in the industry. He also referred to existing platforms as "walled gardens" several times, and argued that "different demand stacks don't efficiently talk to one another."

Although Criscuolo couldn’t divulge the actual percentage of their inventory that is traded programmatically, he did note that it was a major part of their strategy. White commented that, in comparison to other publishers of the same size, United Online was “above average” when it came to their investment in programmatic.