• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 15, 2013

Mojiva’s Mocean Mobile unit has entered the mobile exchange fray, launching its own real-time bidding (RTB) marketplace on top of its existing ad-serving platform.

The company promises the Mocean Mobile Exchange will allow its customers -- on both the supply and demand sides -- to benefit as advertisers bid easily on individual impressions while publishers tap into more real-time demand, leading to increased fill rates.
 
“Our goal for the Mocean Mobile Exchange is simple: to leverage all of the demand-side sources already integrated within the Mocean Mobile platform in a parallel bid environment to create liquidity in the mobile ad marketplace,” said Mojiva CEO Dave Gwozdz.
 
The company says more than 6,000 sellers, 100 demand-side platforms (DSPs) and dozens of ad networks and agency trading desks already make up its core ad-serving platform processing 100 billion ad requests monthly. Gwozdz said now those customers can access its exchange through the same dashboard to help ensure easy adoption of its RTB offering and ramp up trading activity quickly.
 
Initially, all exchange inventory will come from Mocean, but eventually it will leverage supply from other mobile exchanges it is already integrated with, such as Nexage, MoPub and Smaato, via the API (application programming interface) for its ad mediation service to maximize fill rates.
 
The Mocean exchange will offer targeting across the mobile Web and apps, the major operating systems, devices, demographic segment, and content categories including news, sports, and local.
 
Mojiva joins a growing list of mobile ad firms that have added RTB marketplaces in recent months, including Airpush, targeted mobile ad provider Adelphic, app advertising and analytics provider Flurry, and mobile ad network Jumptap. The rap on mobile RTB platforms to date has been that they lack sufficient supply and demand and speed to be as efficient as their desktop counterparts.
 
Speaking at the OMMA RTB conference in March, IDC analyst Karsten Weide estimated RTB in mobile wouldn’t be ready for prime time for another year to 18 months. But the shift to programmatic buying is underway. Marketers will spend almost one of five display ad dollars across all devices -- or $3.36 billion -- via RTB this year, according to an eMarketer estimate in April.
 
The report noted that mobile RTB in particular is still nascent, but will help drive future growth. In advance of debuting its RTB exchange, the company in June announced Mocean for Advertisers, a new service allowing brands, agencies and DSPs to integrate with its mobile ad-serving technology.