I signed up for the Rubicon Project and have just added one of their ad units to this site (you can see the ads 3rd column over). This is mostly just to test the ad network and see how well it performs & how well it targets ads. The ad placement is not optimal, but I didn’t want it to take away from the content on this blog.
The Rubicon Project is a new invite-only (for now) ad network that serves up ads from a a long list of advertisers including Google Adsense, ValueClick, Shopzilla, CPA Empire, etc., and optimizes them automatically for maximum revenue. I’ll probably do a review of the service after I test it for a while. It looks promising.
My Firefox kept crashing after installing the ad code, but that was because I had Firebug enabled. Let me know if you have any problems with the site or see any kind of weird ads.
I’m flying out to Pubcon tomorrow so posting will be light – I’ll probably catch up with the Rubicon crew in Vegas and try to get more info out of them – and maybe even some invited for our readers (if anyone is interested).
This site runs on Thesis. Yours should too
Are you a blogger that doesn't understand a lot of PHP? Are you looking for a theme with Flexibility, Easy Customizations, Rock Solid SEO, and Outstanding Support?
If so Thesis is for you. Using Thesis you will have more control over layout and design than you ever thought possible. Simply point and click.
For more advanced users Thesis has an intelligent customization system that uses hooks. Using hooks you can use Thesis across all of your sites and never tell it was the same theme. Watch the Thesis Video Tour.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
How is the performance so far? I also got accepted into Beta program. I want to see the feedback before I switch.
It’s only been a day so it’s way too soon to tell. I mostly put it on here so I could test targeting, performance, etc.
I doubt it will profitable or that I’ll leave it on after my test. (I think Rubicon is much better suited for a different type of site).
I also reviewed their solution and it’s potential feels great even though only time will tell
I’m JT, the Rubicon Project BETA publisher guy. Thanks for testing us out and helping us make our product better. You can reach me or my team at care at rubiconproject dot com or check out our forums at https://www.rubiconproject.com/forum/.
Targeting– keep in mind, the ad networks do the “targeting”– not the Rubicon Project. We can enhance the targeting of a particular ad network by sending them impressions that the ad networks can most effectively monetize.
Also, it generally takes a few days for our system to gather enough data to begin to optimize the ads on your site (obviously the bigger the site, the quicker that goes).
Thanks again for testing us out. We look forward to hearing your feedback.
JT
We tested it for a couple of days. The performance is not good at all. You can get better performance by just letting adsense to put random ads there. Never trust optimization to let them put shopzilla ads there and you will get nothing.
Yeah, I agree. I don’t understand why they rotate all these other networks in so much. I was getting shopzilla ads too – which were poorly targeted.
I don’t think Rubicon will do well with small to medium sites. There’s just not enough impressions/clicks to train the system well enough.
Now that it’s some time later, what do you think of Rubicon? How does it compare to other networks?
@Elliot. Rubicon wasn’t a good choice for this site. If you have lots and lots of pageviews they might be worth testing, but I think they’ll have a tough road ahead (esp with Google’s recent changes)
The Rubicon Project service worked great when it was a private beta but once it went public with its new version…everything changed. Of my three sites, only one worked. The one that worked ignored the content blocks I placed on it so I got an annoying neon, flickering ad on a classic, family-oriented blog. Two of my sites never worked in my other sites after several promises to have their issues resolved. They definately don’t cater to smaller sites. If you don’t have millions of impressions…don’t try it. They won’t help you.