• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, June 15, 2016

Content discovery platform Taboola on Wednesday announced a native advertising real-time bidding (RTB) integration with AppNexus that will enable the ad-tech firm’s clients to buy premium placements programmatically at scale. 

The move comes at an interesting time, as Facebook late last month announced it was shuttering Facebook Exchange (FBX). Facebook is considered the largest platform for native RTB. Taboola’s announcement will enable demand-side platform (DSP) and RTB buyers to achieve the kind of scale Facebook offers for native, programmatically. The move is positioned as an alternative for buyers to purchase native inventory at scale outside of Facebook.

More than 80 marketers have already purchased or activated programmatic native campaigns on Taboola’s platform, though the company declined to name those marketers. The new partnership enables advertisers to bid on Taboola’s premium inventory using the AppNexus buying console to purchase native advertising at scale on leading sites. The RTB integration is built on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) OpenRTB Specification Version 2.3, the first IAB standard to support native ads.

“Our goal is to offer advertisers even more choice and control over how they build their native efforts, and engage their target audiences at the most valuable moments when they’re about to discover something they may like and never knew existed," said Adam Singolda, founder and CEO, Taboola. The company's predictive technology analyzes hundreds of real-time signals (such as geography, referral source, device type, social media trends, and more) to match people with a handful of items they’re most likely to be interested in consuming next.

"Taboola has been a great partner for us, and we’re happy to help them maximize their offering,” Andrew Eifler, vice president of product management, Advertiser Technology Group, AppNexus, told Real-Time Daily via email. “What’s particularly notable about this alliance is the scale, as our combined forces will allow advertisers to reach over 1 billion users around the world. That’s a big opportunity for digital marketers looking to reach consumers through a native content discovery platform like Taboola.”