pubX: driving AI-powered monetization for digital publishers

pubX has built an artificial neural network to predict the value that advertisers place on each auction, looking to level the advertiser/publisher playing field.

pubX believes that publishers, the creators of original content, drive the underlying value in the online publishing and advertising industries, but that they’ve been let down by a lack of technology to streamline their processes in the marketplace where the two sides interact and do business with one another. Through the benefits of agglomeration – it is believed that the majority of global media spend is controlled by a few media agencies, who are the benefactors of programmatic advertising technology. pubX therefore believes there is an opportunity to develop core technology for the other side of the marketplace, the recipients of the ad spend.

Allied Market Research revealed that the global programmatic display advertising market was valued at $451.3bn in 2021 and is projected to reach $9.5tn by 2031. In the same way advertisers buy spaces on television networks, they purchase display space and feature slots on websites where content – news, blogs, video content etc. are published. Programmatic advertising is the use of automated technology for media buying, the process of buying advertising space, as opposed to traditional, often manual, methods of digital advertising.

Founders Alex and Andrew realised that there was an imbalance in the advertiser/publisher ecosystem, and that while countless businesses were building AdTech, nobody was building ‘PubTech.’ They felt that this was not only an opportunity, but a structural problem – as if publishers cannot effectively monetise, they will disappear, and advertising dollars will only flow into online environments, such as Facebook’s walled garden where there are controls on a user’s access to network-based services and content.

What does pubX do?

pubX is building the future for digital publishers by bringing AI and automation to a section of an industry that relies on humans to create value against algorithms. The company is looking to level the advertiser/publisher playing field to create a fairer ecosystem that will help support the growth of digital publishers and the strength of the open web.

pubX strongly believe that a by-product of the technological asymmetry in the advertiser/publisher dynamic will be a fall in the quality of content on the open web. Although the drive for price efficiency in buying advertising is understandable, the price depression resulting from that search for efficiency is often to the detriment of publisher revenues.

How does pubX work?

As its first in-market product, pubX has developed a dynamic price floor tool, allowing digital publishers to drive incremental revenue by pricing each auction individually using the power of AI. It is a yield optimisation SaaS tool for publishers, leveraging a deep learning artificial neural network aiming to create revenue uplifts for its users.

To set it up, publishers insert the company’s analytics adapter into their existing tech stack via a single line of code using the header bidding script. pubX’s AI processes historical and real-time data before directly implementing dynamic optimisations, allowing publishers to monetise their ad inventory at the right price for them.

Moreover, the company deploys machine learning algorithms in programmatic advertising to help publishers price their inventory in real-time. Currently, advertisers buy publisher inventory in real-time, but publishers sell it through seldom-updated static rules. Pricing each ad auction independently can generate up to 20% of extra revenue for digital publishers.

Who is pubX helping?

Technologically, pubX operates in greenfield spaces, developing solutions to problems that haven’t yet been addressed, let alone solved. They look to serve a customer set that they believe has been structurally let down by major technology providers in the space, who through structural changes and reversals are no longer incentivised to have their customer’s best interests at heart.

The company looks to redress this balance by further developing the technology to solve their users’ specific pain points. It seeks to support publishers to prevent a future in which the internet is made up entirely of walled gardens.

The next steps

pubX’s initial focus is on programmatic display and video, leveraging their expertise in building buying technology. With a whopping $155bn spent every year globally on programmatic display and video, the company is creating a brand known for helping the sell-side, with the goal to move horizontally to cover the entire industry.

In order to host their fundraise the pubX team has decided to fundraise through *FlowwMarkets. Thanks to its innovative technology and unique founder-friendly platform, fundraising and investor management is streamlined and simplified – a perfect fit for them.

*Floww Markets Limited is a company authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Firm reference number 980098.

The information and imagery contained within this article does not represent the opinions of Floww. Floww does not have a view on opinions provided by pubX in this article and elsewhere where they may be expressed, and is not responsible or liable for the information within this article.