Adblade adds self-service RTB for its WordPress plugin

Adblade provides some of those “you might also be interested in this” sections at the bottom of many online articles. Like competitors Taboola or Outbrain, the Adblade recommendations are what CEO Ash Nashed calls “content-style ads” from advertisers or other publishers. Described as native ads because they have an affinity with the surrounding editorial content, the ads have largely been sold directly to advertisers by Adblade’s staff. For some larger publishers, Adblade has offered a managed service that can also obtain ads from outside demand sources via real-time bidding (RTB). Today, the Somerville, New Jersey-based company is taking a next step in its ad evolution by announcing an update to its WordPress plugin that provides its first self-service access to real-time bidding auctions by third-party demand sources. WordPress is the highly popular open source content management system, used by this site and more than a quarter of all websites. Adblade’s previous WordPress plugin only offered its direct sold ads. Now, outside advertisers, agencies and exchanges — including Smaato, PowerLinks, PulsePoint, Zemanta, Criteo and StackAdapt — can bid against Adblade’s direct sold ads for the six to eight native ad slots in a page unit. Nashed said that winning bids can be 30 to 50 percent higher than Adblade’s direct sold ads. Nashed told me that his company is “not aware of another WordPress native ad plugin that allows third-party demand” via self-service. Here’s a mockup screen provided by Adblade, showing eight ads that are from third-party demand sources as if they had all won the bids for their spaces. (The WeatherTech ad is the publisher’s, not Adblade’s.)