Rubicon Project Releases Research and Infographic for Mobile Advertising Industry at Mobile World Congress

- Responses from global advertising agency trading desks suggest buyers will double their spend on mobile this year

- 95% of agency trading desks have, or intend to, purchase mobile inventory via private marketplaces in 2014

- 90% of agency trading desks use demand-side platforms to buy inventory, compared with 49% in last year's survey

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Rubicon Project, which operates one of the industry's largest real-time trading platforms for digital advertising, reveals research into the global mobile advertising market conducted in January and February, 2014.  Representing the views of some of the leading agency trading desks around the world, the second annual Rubicon Project Mobile Buyer Survey 2014 and infographic are published today.

The research reveals that whilst investment in mobile advertising represented an average of 7% of total agency trading desk spend in 2013, agency buyers anticipate it will more than double to account for 16% of total ad spend in 2014.  In addition, 95% of the buyers surveyed intend to purchase, or have already purchased, inventory via mobile private marketplaces in 2014.

Agency trading desk buyers expect mobile spending will be split across in-app inventory (36%), mobile-optimised sites (31%) and standard web formats delivered to tablet devices (33%) in 2014.  Standard advertising formats are most in demand followed by rich media and expandable formats, then video formats.

When asked how they buy mobile inventory, 90% said they use demand side platforms (DSPs) compared with just 49% of respondents when Rubicon Project surveyed the market this time last year.  38% said they use ad networks (up from 30% in 2013), and 36% buy directly from the publisher (up from 22% in 2013).

In terms of the metrics buyers use to measure mobile campaigns, cost per action (CPA) or cost per install (CPI) metrics were most popular (69%), alongside clickthrough rates (CTR - also 69%). However, slightly more than a quarter (26%) optimise for reach.

Jay Stevens, General Manager, International, Rubicon Project, explains, "The Rubicon Project Mobile Buyer Survey offers a valuable, up-to-date overview of the state of mobile advertising. Mobile buyers have told us they plan to double their spend in 2014 when compared to the survey results from 2013. Additionally, we're seeing increasingly sophisticated methods of buying with most buyers surveyed establishing private marketplaces, or planning to do so, and many using data in their campaigns."

Josh Wexler, Head of Buyer Cloud, Rubicon Project continues, "We've seen a big step up in mobile buying around the world. 59% of the agency trading desks we spoke to are seeing demand for rich media in mobile and 54% for mobile video.  Added to this, a quarter of buyers are measuring their campaigns by reach, rather than DR metrics, all of which point to an increase in brand spend via mobile advertising."

The infographic, Mobile Advertising Automation in 2014, the Buyer View is available to view at: http://bit.ly/mwc-mobile-research.

The accompanying research report, Rubicon Project Mobile Buyer Survey 2014, can be downloaded at http://go.rubiconproject.com/MWCResearchReport.html (registration required) 

Rubicon Project is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress in Hall 8.0 at stand 8.1C10 and will present findings from the research on Wednesday 26th February in the Advertising Automation Theatre.

About Rubicon Project

Rubicon Project pioneered advertising automation and is now doing for advertising what companies like NASDAQ did for stock trading. The company's automated advertising platform is used by more than 500 of the world's premium publishers and applications to transact with over 100,000 advertising brands globally.

A company driven by innovation, Rubicon Project has engineered the Advertising Automation Cloud, one of the largest real-time cloud and Big Data computing systems, processing trillions of transactions within milliseconds each month. According to comScore Jan 2014, Rubicon Project reaches 96 percent of U.S. Internet users per month and is ranked #1 in reach.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Rubicon Project has ten offices across the globe including New York, San Francisco, Paris, Hamburg, Sydney, London and Tokyo.