TapSense Goes After Publishers With $10M 'RTB Fund'

Despite the growth of mobile real-time bidding (RTB) platforms, some publishers remain skeptical about the benefits of this technology, as they are fearful of cannibalizing inventory and driving down auction rates.

The mobile ad platform TapSense, which offers a private mobile RTB marketplace, is tackling this challenge by making a deal with publishers.

“We want to make it easier for app developers to use our RTB platform by removing the risks,” said TapSense CEO and co-founder Ash Kumar. TapSense is calling its offer the $10 Million RTB Fund and became available Wednesday until the end of the year or until customers reach the $10 million cap.

RTB solutions, Kumar argued, provide a more efficient way to sell inventory to advertisers, and publishers can maintain control over their inventory by setting floor CPMs and using tools like whitelists and blacklists.

“But the concept of RTB is still new to many people and so they’re reluctant to experiment with it,” Kuma added. To encourage publishers to use its RTB Premium App Publisher solution, TapSense is freezing the usage fees it normally charges and will allow publishers to keep all of the revenue that they receive from sold inventory.

Based in San Francisco and founded in 2011, TapSense lets publishers run mobile video, Web-based and app-install ads from a network of more than 300 demand partners. Its clients include Yahoo, Hotels.com, Expedia, LinkedIn and eBay.

Research firm IDC predicts mobile RTB will become a $1 billion market by 2015, and reach $3 billion by 2017. TapSense faces competition from numerous startups that offer mobile RTB solutions such as Smaato, AppFlood and Airpush, as well as data giants like Twitter via MoPub.

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