Cloudflare Announces Firebolt to Help Fix the Broken Ad Ecosystem

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 30, 2017) - Cloudflare, the leading Internet performance and security company, today announced Firebolt, a solution that speeds up and secures ad delivery. Firebolt enables ad networks to improve the ad viewing experience for increased conversions and helps publishers monetize their online content.

Web ads are often slow and unsafe, an undesirable experience that drives users to download ad blockers, bypassing them completely. When ad blockers are used, or even when the ads are loaded slowly and users simply leave the page, advertisers and publishers lose out on crucial impressions. Cloudflare's Firebolt fixes these problems to benefit publishers, advertisers, and end users by making ads load faster, serving them over secure connections, and verifying that they are malware-free.

"Slow, malware-ridden ads drive end users to install ad blockers, and unfortunately, that means publishers lose the ability to make money off broadly accessible content," explained Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. "Cloudflare's Firebolt addresses the end user concerns of slow, unsafe online advertising, helping ensure that publishers can get paid for their content while still making it available to the broad Internet."

With Firebolt, ad networks benefit from:

• Faster Ad Load Times: Cloudflare's global network of 102 data centers in 50 countries, combined with routing and performance technologies, makes the delivery of online ads to any device up to six times faster.
• Increased Security: Firebolt takes an in-depth approach to preventing the spread of malvertising by automatically enabling browser security features and cryptographically signing validated AMP ads. This reduces the risk of malware and other attacks and ensures that all ads delivered are HTTPS.
• Support for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for Ads: Firebolt enables any independent ad network to leverage the new AMP ad format easily.

Ad platform, TripleLift, used Cloudflare's Firebolt to serve AMP ads on Time Inc.'s properties. The results were significant, with ads loading six times faster and Time Inc. seeing 13 percent more revenue relative to traditional ads. "Cloudflare was easy to set up, and we saw an impressive difference in the speed of ad delivery with Firebolt's support for AMP for Ads," said Shaun Zacharia, co-founder and President of TripleLift. "AMP Ads loaded six times faster and were three times lighter than comparable standard ads."

Today at The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Hollywood, Florida, the AMP Project announced TripleLift and Cloudflare's support for AMP for Ads, a solution that delivers faster, lighter, and more secure ads across both AMP and non-AMP content. Cloudflare is the only non-Google provider that can deliver signed AMP for Ads at the moment, extending the performance benefits of AMP to ads. As such, Firebolt offers an alternative to publishers and advertisers not integrated with DoubleClick, Google's advertising solution, and ensures that all ad types are available across all devices.

"It's great to see the open-source AMP initiative continue to gain traction through this collaboration with Cloudflare," said Vamsee Jasti, product manager for AMP for Ads. "AMP for Ads helps publishers and advertisers capture precious impressions, and Cloudflare's adoption will ensure that the AMP standard is widely available for anyone."

To learn how Firebolt can help your ad network, please visit the Firebolt product page or read our blog.