• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, August 30, 2016

Flipboard, a platform for consumers to aggregate news stories, images and videos, announced on Tuesday that it will make its ad inventory available for real-time buying through an invitation-only private marketplace (PMP).

Flipboard selected Rubicon Project, one of the largest advertising marketplaces, to automate the buying of mobile ad inventory. The partnership enables existing clients to buy Flipboard’s mobile ad inventory in an automated fashion, and will make Flipboard’s audience available programmatically, for the first time, to premium brands on Rubicon Project’s private exchange.

Rubicon Project’s technology will offer advertisers direct access to Flipboard’s 90 million monthly active users, an audience comprised of equal parts Millennials, GenX, and Baby Boomers. These demographics use Flipboard as a destination to access curated content from thousands of the world’s leading publishers, including Condé Nast, Hearst, CNN, and News Corp, among others.

The targeting methodologies available for Flipboard’s mobile inventory via Rubicon Project’s leading Guaranteed Orders and Private Marketplace platforms mirror the existing ways brands can reach audiences based on interests. Interest targeting, enriched with audience data, allows brands to reach people based on billions of stories. Flipboard’s PMP supports both automated guaranteed and PMP  transactions.

“We’re excited Flipboard tapped us to bring automation to its premium mobile audiences via Rubicon Project’s guaranteed orders and private marketplace platforms,” Joe Prusz, head of seller, Americas at Rubicon Project, told Real-Time Daily via email.  

“As we’ve seen over the past year with the growth of our Orders marketplace, this further demonstrates the trend of premium publishers, like Flipboard, shifting previously direct-sold audiences into the automated space by using our technology. This gives both buyers and sellers the ability to make the media buying process more efficient and profitable,” he explained.

“Our advertising partners have told us they want to be able to buy our inventory in both a direct and automated way,” stated Mike McCue, founder and CEO of Flipboard. McCue said Flipboard chose Rubicon Project for its understanding of the mobile marketplace and ability to support guaranteed ad placements on Flipboard’s premium platform, and run custom ad units such as full-screen display and native ads.