Following the ‘rapid consumer shift’ toward mobile usage, social network Twitter has strengthened its portfolio by agreeing to acquire one-stop ad serving platform, MoPub.
The San Francisco-based mobile-focused advertising exchange is designed for mobile application publishers to manage their ad inventory on iOS and Android and was launched in 2010. The deal is estimated to be worth around $350 million or higher.
Twitter’s vice president of revenue product, Kevin Weil, said MoPub’s technology lets mobile application publishers manage their inventory and optimise multiple sources of advertising – direct ads, house ads, ad network, and real-time bidding through the MoPub Marketplace; in a single product.
Key Opportunities
“The two major trends in the ad world right now are the rapid consumer shift toward mobile usage, and the industry shift to programmatic buying,” Weil said.
“Twitter sits at the intersection of these and we think by bringing MoPub’s technology and team to Twitter, we can further drive these trends for the benefit of consumers, advertisers, and agencies.”
Twitter will continue to invest in and improve MoPub’s core business. Weil said in particular, Twitter thinks there is a key opportunity to extend many types of native advertising across the mobile ecosystem through the MoPub exchange.
Twitter also plans to use MoPub’s technology to build real-time bidding into the Twitter ads platform so advertisers can more easily automate and scale their buys.
A Natural Match
“We’ll maintain the same high quality standards that define our platform today. Our approach is to show an ad when we think it will be useful or interesting to a user, and that isn’t changing,” Weil added.
Co-founder of MoPub, Jim Payne, said like MoPub, Twitter has been ‘mobile first’ since its inception, which makes the two companies a natural match.
“We can’t wait to ‘join the flock’ and continue to build incredible products for publishers. It’s been an amazing ride – and it’s just getting started,” Payne said.