Twitter acquired MoPub, a mobile app ad network, ad server, and real-time bidding exchange, for $350 million in stock back in 2013. MoPub has around 5,000 apps on its platform, and it works with publishers and developers to help sell ads within their apps, by plugging into a network of around 150 demand-side platforms (DSPs,) one of which is Twitter. Last year one analyst predicted MoPub will bring in more than $500 million in annual revenue by 2017, up from an estimated $56 million in 2014. Yet MoPub is still one of Twitter's best-kept secrets. The company doesn't break out revenues from MoPub in its earnings report (it sits in the "data licensing and other category," which generated revenues of $147 million in 2014,) and it rarely releases news from the division, beyond quarterly marketplace reports about trends within the mobile app ecosystem, and a few other updates. We sat down with Janae McDonough, MoPub lead and Twitter's senior director of exchange, at the Cannes Lions advertis ...
