the Rubicon Project ‘Finds Money’ for Majority of Top U.S. Newspaper Publishers

Revenue in Premium News Segment up 80% Q1 ‘09 vs. Q4 ‘08

LOS ANGELES, NAA MediaXchange - March 9, 2009 -the Rubicon Project, an advertising technology company focused on global ad network optimization, reveals specific insights into the huge revenue opportunity for Premium News publishers online with ad networks. This knowledge comes from optimizing more than 150 billion impressions, 18 billion of which have been for 150 Premium News category publishers to date, including 8 of the top 15 newspaper publishers in the U.S.

Inventory opportunities from ad networks are proving a reliable - and growing - source of revenue as newspaper and media companies navigate the bumpy terrain of re-structuring organizations and experimenting with digital ad strategies. The Premium News category is one of the Rubicon Project's fastest growing, with more than 8 billion ads served already in Q1 2009 (a 20% increase from total category impressions served in Q4 2008). Revenue within the Premium News segment across the Rubicon Project is trending upward even more dramatically - the company's optimization technology has driven 80% more dollars for Premium News publishers in the first two months of Q1 versus the same portion of Q4.

Highlights from the Premium News segment:

• Default Killer^TM technology stopped 715 million default ads from reaching premium news publishers in 2008 - boosting the revenue delivered via those ads more than 200%;
• One news publisher boosted CPMs 115% since adding ad network optimization to its ad sales channel strategy;
• One news customer reaped the benefits of access to SmartMatch^TM ad networks in December, when they experienced unexpected traffic swings. Working with the Rubicon Project, this major newspaper site was able to scale revenue with traffic, keep fill rates and ad quality high, resulting in an extra $38,000 in revenue for the month - all without lifting a finger.
• For another news publisher, the Rubicon Project is tracking to deliver $2 million in ‘found money' revenue in 2009.

"Our sites were introduced to 25 additional ad networks through Rubicon's SmartMatch^TM technology with no extra work on our part. This frees up our sales and ad operations team to focus on premium advertising deals," said John Hoeft, Vice President of Online and Interactive Sales, MediaNews Group Interactive. "Access to new ad networks ensures fill rates and CPMs stay high, an important benefit of on-demand fulfillment of sudden influxes of traffic. We have to make every impression count -- the Rubicon Project helps us do that."

the Rubicon Project is the only company in the industry to bring new relevant buyers to premium publishers. The SmartMatch^TM technology powers the process by analyzing each impression based on hundreds of criteria including, demography, geography and content, to determine the ad network that will deliver the optimal money-making opportunity. For one premium news publisher, 74% of their online ad revenue is derived from new opportunities the Rubicon Project brings through its SmartMatch^TM technology.

The Web's largest publishers feel safe working with the Rubicon Project to deliver new revenue because of the company's Brand Protection measures, ensuring that the transactions that come through the Rubicon Project from ad networks meet premium publishers' brand safety demands.

"The Rubicon Project is a terrific partner with Freedom Interactive in detecting ads on our ‘block' lists, which helps us maintain a high standard of ad quality," said Peter Chang, Director, Analytics and Business Operations at Freedom Interactive. "We also realize significant time savings by utilizing the Rubicon Project's aggregated reporting, which allows Freedom Interactive to focus on increasing our customer base across our ad networks. In addition this time savings also helps us dedicate more time to our direct sales efforts."

"Every publisher wants to optimally monetize all of their traffic for maximum revenue but without a proper ad network channel management strategy it's near impossible, " said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder of the Rubicon Project. "Working with us helps our customers focus on their core competency -- creating engaging content and user experiences -- while we focus on building and maintaining a robust ad network channel management program that directly contributes to their bottom line."

Premium Web publishers who Demand More From Unsold Ad Space should visit: http://www.rubiconproject.com.

About the Rubicon Project

Based in Los Angeles, the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 on a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry. Responding to one of the largest problems plaguing website publishers today - monetizing ad space that goes unsold (as much as 70 - 80 percent) across a fast-growing number of global ad networks - the Rubicon Project pioneered the category of Ad Network Optimization (ANO). Backed by $22 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, and IDG Ventures, the Rubicon Project developed its patent-pending Smart Matching^TM technology, which uses billions of pieces of proprietary market data to match each publisher ad impression to the best money-making opportunities from ad networks.

The company serves 1300 premium customers (publishers like Gannett, Salon, Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive and American Greetings) by optimizing more than 30 billion ads each month across more than 300 top ad networks. Reaching more than 250 million unique Internet users, the Rubicon Project is one of the largest sources of ad inventory and reach on the Internet and the preferred source of targeted, audience-segmented inventory for ad networks around the world. The unique combination of ad network optimization and Smart Matching^TM technology drives revenue lift ranging from 30-300% for the Rubicon Project's customers.

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