Glam Media Launches Private Ad Marketplace

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Lifestyle web site company Glam Media said yesterday that it has created a private, invitation-only marketplace for brand advertisers to purchase ad inventory. The technology for the marketplace is being supplied by online advertising technology company Rubicon.

Glam serves about 244 million global monthly unique users and also provides ad-serving technology for advertisers and publishers. The company is trialing the marketplace with a handful of selected brand advertisers, but plans to increase that number shortly, according to Art Schram, Glam Media's vice president of engineering.

"There was a demand from buyers to create a private environment with preferential pricing and that gave them more direct access to premium inventory," said Schram, of the reason for creating the marketplace.

While it doesn't replace automated real-time bidding (RTB) as a way to purchase ads, the private marketplace will give advertisers more information about the inventory they are purchasing than with most currently-used RTB systems. RTBs often leave agencies and brand advertisers in the dark as to where specifically their ads will be placed, whereas here they will be able to buy a specific chunk of inventory and thus more directly target the audience they want to reach. It will also allow Glam to direct premium inventory more directly to favored clients, Schram said.

The real-time rules engine provided by Rubicon's technology enables Glam to markup individual ad impressions with attributes or categorize inventory into segments based on data such as types of users, placements and performance data. Normally, Schram said, users of automated buying systems do not have access to such rich data.

Glam can also execute multiple access, sales and pricing strategies to ensure advertisers are gaining the highest yield possible for their inventory. Glam can also decide in real-time which avenue is the best one at that moment, whether it is direct demand, RTB or private marketplace demand.