Vox Media is giving in to programmatic ads

• 

  Vox

  Vox Media executive Ryan Pauley

  Advertisers can now buy ads on Vox Media properties 'programmatically.'
• The digital publisher is the latest company to bend to the wave of using technology to sell ads rather than relying primarly on people-driven sales teams.
• Vox, along with partner NBC Universal, is aiming to blend premium brand-safe advertising with technology and data driven ad selling.

Vox Media is finally going programmatic.

The digital media company, which owns publications such as Vox.com, SB Nation and Recode, says it will now start selling ads using automated software and data.

This process, known across the ad industry as "programmatic ads" - is typified by machines buying and selling ads using reams of data in milliseconds via ad technology.

To date, Vox has focused on $4 as well as selling its own custom version banner ads.

Vox calls its suite of ad technology and products $4 And besides Vox properties, Concert ads also run on NBC Universal websites and its various distribution outlets $4 and Facebook's Instant articles. NBCU has invested $4 Concert is billed as a vehicle for traditional marketers to buy $4

As Vox has moved to expand Concert, the company has heard from advertisers pushing for more tech-driven buying options. "We've always believed in automation," said Ryan Pauley, general manager of Concert. "That's less about putting remnant ads on open exchanges and getting belly fat ads."

"We think now, we're not limiting a programmatic buyer to bad creative," Pauley added. "I think the ecosystem has solved for direct response advertising. Now this will allow for brand building."

SB Nation

Vox believes programmatic ads can be pretty

To that end, Vox wants to provide advertisers with as much$4 while providing them with lots of control. To help, the company has partnered with the ad tech firm Index Exchange, which has a solid reputation in terms of operating with transparency.

"Every day we're talking to ad buyers, and their biggest question is always trust," said Zach Rosen, Index Exchange's vice president, publisher development. "Everyone wants to know where the money's going. So we see this as a marriage of high quality scale and automation."

Vox's move follows a $4 - a long holdout - to embrace banner ads and programmatic selling.

Both Vox and BuzzFeed have been among a $4and saw themselves as tech companies at heart - not in the need of ad tech help.

$4. In April $4 It's become a lot tougher to hold out against that trend, even for big publishers.