Sell side platform The Rubicon Project has spent the past few months building up its technology side — including adding roughly 100 engineers and product developers with its acquisition of News Corp.’s Fox Audience Network last fall — and now it’s concentrating on its ad sales side with three executive roles, including a new chief revenue officer.
In the CRO post, Nick Hulse is joining the Los Angeles company from iPass, a provider of SaaS mobile services for publishers. Rounding out the realigned sales team is Bill Harries as VP of sales operations and Bill McHargue as VP of North American Sales, who was named to that post in December after joining from e-mail marketer StrongMail Systems.
For a young company, Rubicon has evolved fairly quickly. But so has the space, where it and others like PubMatic and AdMeld started as “yield optimizers,” which promised publishers price protection in selling their ad inventory through ad networks. The rise of ad exchanges and demand-side platforms, which gave agencies and marketers a leg up in bidding for ad placements at more attractive rates changed that business somewhat. The recovery of display ad spending in the past year also forced other changes in the way publishers approached ways of selling their premium and remnant inventory.
The company is quick to point out that the overall strategy hasn’t changed — it’s not getting into the direct ad sales business; this is just meant to build up their publisher-side support team.
As the companies work to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace, the need for a stronger sales staff is apparent and Rubicon’s rivals are expected to make similar moves over the next few months, especially as online ad spending continues to rise.
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