Ad tech firm AppNexus has launched its AppNexus Programmable Bidder (APB) service, an innovative technology that enables advertisers and agencies to upload their own proprietary algorithms directly into the companys open platform.

The service enables advertisers to test and refine algorithmic strategies before launching campaigns, ensuring their outcomes are optimised for AppNexus audiences and creating new opportunities to buy online inventory algorithmically.

In the past, advertisers have been constrained by the cost and complexity of building their own bidders, but with the new Programmable Bidder, firms can deploy their own formulas on the AppNexus platform to match audiences to the message they are delivering.

“Real-time algorithmic bidding will revolutionise marketing,” said Brian OKelley, CEO of AppNexus. “Until now, the technical challenges and financial costs of real-time bidding have prevented most buyers from investing in algorithms.

By allowing data scientists to upload complex models directly into our scaled real-time bidding platform, we will finally see the industry take full advantage of the power of algorithms to maximise the impact of every ad impression.”

APB also enables a new generation of programmatic media companies to sell packaged optimisation services on the AppNexus platform, with buyers able to access, assess and rent algorithms designed by optimisation partners with seamless adoption and financial clearing.

“Until now, advertisers who wanted to leverage their data assets had to make an unhappy choice: incur enormous cost and complication to build their own bidders, with all their attendant latency and scale challenges, to be able to apply their own models and algorithms, or turn their data over to a third-party black box,” said Catherine Williams, chief data scientist at AppNexus. “Were saying goodbye to the black box and providing a third option.”