Member Spotlight: OpenX

What does your company do, and specifically how does it serve the digital ecosystem?

OpenX creates programmatic advertising markets and products that drive monetization for publishers and value for brands. As a monetization partner to more than 1,000 publishers worldwide, OpenX has a large knowledge base of publishers’ needs and trends. OpenX’s global technology infrastructure ensures full reliability for all ad formats across all digital environments.

What are some recent accomplishments worth noting?

Over the past 15 months, OpenX has:

• Staked a leadership position on Pixalate’s Global Seller Trust Index throughout 2015 and 2016, and is currently ranked as the highest quality exchange for both web and mobile app inventory in the US;
• Grown its header bidding business 300%, providing a lucrative solution for publishers to maximize monetization opportunities;
• Launched the industry’s first public resource dedicated to empowering publishers, OpenX Community;
• Been named one of the best places to work in advertising by Advertising Age’s Best Places to Work; and
• Grown mobile volume more than 180%. Mobile now constitutes more than 50% of total global volume in the OpenX Exchange.

Learn

How did you/your team leverage IAB resources over the past year to learn and what was your take-away from the experience?

Julie Van Ullen, VP of Publisher Solutions

“Over the past year, we’ve participated in industry-wide events, like the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, as well as more focused events, like the programmatic and mobile summits. OpenX team members also actively attend IAB webinars, and several subject matter experts presented at learning and development sessions, including the Advanced Programmatic for Buyers and Sellers. IAB participation not only gives us the privilege to educate the industry, but also provides us with the opportunity to learn more about the needs of our clients. The takeaways from working with the IAB are always tremendous.

We view participation as a two way street. A key role for OpenX is educating the marketplace; we look forward to remaining an informational guide helping to facilitate the growth of programmatic advertising. In turn, the IAB has provided us with invaluable insight into new industry trends and emerging practices, helping us to achieve a better understanding of how our clients are thinking about programmatic, in addition to tackling the industry’s current obstacles.

By being able to talk to groups of sophisticated buyers and sellers about their current pain points and concerns, we can wisely adapt our products, developing them in a way that can be most useful to our clients.”

Lead

How have you leveraged a leadership role at IAB over the past year and what was your take-away from the experience?

Jason Fairchild, Co-Founder and CRO
Co-Chair, IAB Programmatic Council

“As a co-chair of the IAB Programmatic Council, I have the opportunity to work closely with industry influencers to develop the standards and guidelines that will advance programmatic advertising. Engaging in thoughtful discussions around new technologies and buying models, and working collaboratively with the IAB to help define important industry terms, has an immeasurable impact on the growth of the programmatic industry as a whole.”

Julie Van Ullen

“As a presenter at the IAB’s learning and development session, Advanced Programmatic for Buyers and Sellers, I realize each session is as much of an opportunity to educate emerging buyers and sellers on programmatic best practices, as it is an opportunity for me to further my knowledge of the challenges clients are facing. The ability to speak one on one with publishers and advertisers yields invaluable insight into how we can develop products to not just meet, but exceed the expectations of our clients.”

Maggie Mesa, VP of Mobile Business Development
IAB Mobile Committee Member

“Mobile is increasingly important for publishers and app developers looking to monetize their content, and as a member of the IAB’s mobile committee, I am excited to be part of the group responsible for such a critical project in digital advertising. There are still many questions left to be answered in the mobile environment. In order to help move the industry forward it’s essential for IAB committees to work directly with decision makers to create the standards and best practices for mobile advertising.”

What initiatives is OpenX looking forward to working with the IAB and its member companies on; and how do you motivate your colleagues to get involved?

Julie Van Ullen

“Our industry is evolving fast and the IAB initiatives for this year will have a huge impact on the future of online advertising. Here’s what we’re looking forward to accomplishing together in 2016 and beyond:

Header bidding – Finding a solution to managing multiple header bidding partners is something we are working closely with the IAB and other technology companies to understand. A solution for managing multiple header bidding implementations has the potential to redefine how publishers think about monetization, and we’re confident that we’ll make significant progress this year.

Mobile – With a shift to mobile, publishers can often see soft revenue in cookieless environments. We are committed to working with the IAB, data providers and publishers to find ways that these environments can be better monetized.

Video – Video continues to become an increasingly valuable tool for brands and advertisers and a more significant source of revenue for publishers. The ability to better understand the gaps between in-stream and out-stream video, along with how OpenX can create the best marketplaces for addressing those specific needs, can help accelerate video as an ad format.

Quality – Quality is a cornerstone for OpenX and we are one of the only companies to have gone through a rigorous third party audit to become certified under Trustworthy Accountability Group’s Inventory Quality Guideline (IQG) program. The IAB’s unrelenting advocacy for improving quality across the digital advertising ecosystem complements our own priorities and progress regarding setting higher quality expectations for all other industry players.

Helping the marketplace find reasonable answers to ad blocking and viewability are just a few of the ways we’re planning to contribute to elevating the overall quality of online advertising.

We know that participation is key to moving the industry forward. To boost engagement and involvement throughout the company, we’ve ingrained OpenX participation in IAB committees and councils in our business objectives for mobile, video and programmatic direct. Designated team members own the responsibility to disseminate information about IAB events, news, and initiatives, and we encourage anyone and everyone to participate.”

Succeed

How has your engagement with IAB supported your company’s growth in the digital ecosystem?

Jason Fairchild

“As a tech company we are very grateful to the IAB for bringing OpenX into the conversation. The programmatic industry is always changing, and involvement with a prominent and influential organization like the IAB allows us to maintain our position as a global leader in programmatic advertising. From industry events and learning sessions to informational webinars, the IAB makes it easy to be in constant contact with not only other technology companies, but also directly with the publishers and advertisers who rely on our programmatic technology to execute their digital advertising strategies.”