the Rubicon Project’s Q2 Market Report Finds CPMs Trend Upward Over the Quarter

Fragmented Data Landscape Threatens Publisher Revenue Opportunity

LOS ANGELES – September 1, 2009 - the Rubicon Project, the Internet advertising infrastructure company, reveals exclusive insight into emerging industry trends and market shifts for 2009 in the sixth installment of its Online Advertising Market Report series. Among the findings, culled from 97 billion impressions that ran across more than 400 ad networks in Q2, CPMs significantly increased across the industry with publishers in some verticals experiencing ad price increases of nearly 270%.

Also introduced in this quarter’s market report is the Rubicon 20 Index, measuring performance across a number of factors (including CPM, revenue and traffic volume) on a roster of 20 of the Web’s most heavily-trafficked properties across categories like news, games, finance and entertainment. The Rubicon 20 Index will be published weekly by MediaPost.

“Despite the predictions of a dying ad network industry and falling CPMs that have been reported by some in the market, our own proprietary data reflects the opposite – a thriving and healthy display ad market.  In fact, overall CPMs across the Rubicon 20 Index were up by about 38% in Q2,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder.  “In one specific example, our optimization technology enabled one high-profile entertainment news publisher to monetize an unexpected spike in traffic on the day of Michael Jackson’s memorial, resulting in a 752% revenue increase for the publisher.”

Key forecasts and trends in the report include:

• Display ad deals are shifting from being targeted around verticals to true “audiences,” resulting in a rise of audience-based display deals;
• Music sites were among the top-gaining properties, with CPMs up nearly 270%;
  The travel vertical took a hit, with CPMs down by more than 36%;
• In the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, publishers learned the tremendous amount of  opportunity left on the table by not optimizing international traffic;
• A detailed examination of the emerging data optimization market.

Access the full Q2 Online Advertising Market Report, as well as past published reports for free.

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