• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 18, 2017

Smart, an independent ad platform based in Europe that gives publishers greater control over their ad inventory than bigger ad servers, is bolstering its programmatic options through a new partnership with the Rubicon Project, operator of a global ad exchange.

The server-side integration should allow Smart AdServer’s publisher clients to tap into more ad demand, while maintaining the control afforded by Smart’s core service.

Smart is plugging into Rubicon Project’s exchange using the latter’s XAPI technology, which will be integrated with Smart’s Holistic Yield Management, which automatically chooses the most lucrative times to run programmatic ads. It also ensures premium campaigns run in full.

The new service is available to all Smart publisher clients worldwide and is compatible will all online ad formats.

Smart publishers that access Rubicon’s broad pool of ad clients can enable the programmatic interface by ticking a box on Smart’s interface, according to the company. They can track monetization via programmatic sales alongside direct sales with Smart’s consolidated reporting features.

James Brown, Rubicon’s managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, stated the deal will make Smart publishers’ “outstream video, rich media and coveted in-app inventory, available programmatically to the hundreds of thousands of agencies, brands and DSPs connecting to Rubicon Project’s leading global exchange.”  

Smart CEO Cyrille Geffray stated: “Our publishers want to be able to quickly add demand partners with no integration effort and no risk to the user experience, such as the latency often associated with header bidding. With Rubicon Project, publishers on our platform can now maximize revenue by holistically managing a unified auction with their chosen demand partners – DSP, SSP or exchanges.” 

Based in Paris, Smart has expanded to eleven offices around the world, and currently has a customer base of around 1,000 publishers and ad networks around the world, including Wine Enthusiast, Ozy.com, and France’s Le Monde newspaper. Altogether Smart delivers ads across around 50,000 Web sites and apps, according to the company.