Flipboard’s new marketplace lets brands buy ads programmatically

Flipboard has launched a new way for brands to advertise on its publishing platform with the creation of a private premium marketplace. Through a partnership with Rubicon Project, this invite-only offering lets select companies programmatically purchase advertising without needing to work directly with Flipboard’s staff.

“Our advertising partners have told us they want to be able to buy our unique inventory in both a direct and automated way. We developed our private marketplace to fit our premium advertisers’ unique needs for a high quality environment and support for impactful mobile ad formats,” explained Flipboard chief executive Mike McCue in a statement.

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With this offering, Rubicon Project enables brands to target advertising on Flipboard using its Guaranteed Orders and Private Marketplace platforms, focusing on things like what users are reading, sharing, curating, liking, and discussing.

Advertisers are under no obligation to use this marketplace — Flipboard will still offer its personalized service to those who prefer it.

While Flipboard has been adding new advertising solutions, there’s no indication that it’ll blow the doors wide open and roll out a Google AdWords-like tool for every brand. As McCue shared with VentureBeat recently, the company is “focused on quality over quantity, class over mass, the world’s high-quality brands versus ‘come one, come all’.” So the best way to think about the private premium marketplace is as just another option for the special advertisers that are able to monetize against Flipboard’s 90 million monthly active users.

Some of Flipboard’s other efforts in this area include launching vertical video ads, opening up its interest graph, and supporting cinema loop video ads.